April 27, 2013
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – The top-ranked Notre Dame men’s lacrosse team dropped a 10-4 decision to No. 7 Syracuse on Saturday evening at the Konica Minolta Big City Classic at MetLife Stadium. The game was the regular-season finale for both squads.
The game was tied 4-4 after three quarters of play and Syracuse (11-3, 5-1) ended the contest on a 6-0 run. The surge began on a man-up tally from Kevin Rice 26 seconds into the period. Three straight goals from Dylan Donahue gave the Orange a four-goal advantage with 4:43 left to play. Hakeem Lecky and Scott Loy deposited the final two scores of the game.
Notre Dame (10-3, 4-2) finished third in the BIG EAST standings and will face Syracuse, who shared the league’s regular-season title with Villanova, at 4:30 p.m. (ET) Thursday in the semifinals of the conference tournament at Villanova Stadium. Villanova will take on Georgetown at 7 p.m. in the other semifinal.
“That was a very poor performance by our team tonight,” Notre Dame head coach Kevin Corrigan said. “I think we’re all very disappointed with how we played. We’ll come back on Thursday and try again.”
Neither team scored in the first quarter. Notre Dame grabbed a 1-0 lead on a Ryan Foley tally with 11:04 left in the second quarter. Lecky evened things up with 9:38 remaining in the stanza.
A goal from Westy Hopkins with 5:23 left in the first half put the Irish back in front and Matt Kavanagh pushed the lead to two (3-1) less than a minute later. The Fighting Irish led 3-1 at the intermission.
The Orange opened the second half on a 3-0 run, which began on a man-up goal from Matt Walters just 12 seconds into the period. Scores from JoJo Marasco and Henry Schoonmaker gave Syracuse its first lead of the game (4-3) at the 10:29 mark of the third quarter. Kavanagh’s second goal of the day evened the contest (4-4) with 4:58 remaining in the third period.
“We were bad all night long,” Corrigan said. “We were turning the ball over and they (Syracuse) had the ball all night long. I think our defense got tired of playing defense. We then started trying to make plays that are not plays that we make on the defensive end. We lost our discipline there and we were bad with the ball all night long.”
Syracuse held a 32-24 advantage in shots. Senior goalie John Kemp made nine saves for the Irish, while Dominic Lamolinara had six stops for the Orange. Syracuse won 9-of-16 faceoff attempts.
Konica Minolta Big City Classic
April 27, 2013 – MetLife Stadium – East Rutherford, N.J.
#1 Notre Dame (10-3, 4-2) – 0 3 1 0 – 4
#7 Syracuse (11-3, 5-1) – 0 1 3 6 – 10
Notre Dame Scoring (goals-assists):
Matt Kavanagh 2-0, Westy Hopkins 1-0, Ryan Foley 1-0
Goalie: John Kemp (L, 60:00, 9 saves, 10 GA)
Syracuse Scoring (goals-assists):
Dylan Donahue 3-1, Hakeem Lecky 2-0, Kevin Rice 1-3, Matt Walters 1-1, JoJo Marasco 1-0, Scott Loy 1-0, Henry Schoonmaker 1-0, Luke Cometti 0-1, Derek Dejoe 0-1, Ryan Barber 0-1
Goalie: Dominic Lamolinara (W, 60:00, 6 saves, 4 GA)
— ND —