March 30, 2003
Notre Dame, Ind. – The 13th-ranked Notre Dame men’s lacrosse team withstood a tough challenge by the Denver Pioneers as the Irish won their Great Western Lacrosse League opener with a 9-8 victory at Moose Krause Stadium on Sunday afternoon. Notre Dame was led by junior Dan Berger’s (Phoenix, Md.) three goals and freshman Patrick Walsh’s (Wantagh, N.Y.) two goals and five assists as the Irish won their second straight to improve to 5-3 overall and 1-0 in the GWLL.
Notre Dame jumped out to an ealy 4-1 advantage as Berger scored twice for the Irish in the first quarter, while Walsh and Matt Ryan (Ridley, Pa.) each added a score. Denver cut the lead to 4-2 on Adam Miller’s score with 14 seconds remaining in the first-period stanza.
The Pioneers shut down the Irish offensive attack in the second quarter as they held Note Dame scoreless. Back-to-back goals by Scott Davidson at the 13:58 and 11:27 marks tied the game at 4-4. It marked the first of four ties in the contest.
Notre Dame wasted little time getting on the scoreboard at the start of the second half as Brian Giordano (Princeton, N.J.) netted his third goal of the season off an assist from Kyle Frigon (Salem, Mass.) to break the 4-4 deadlock. Denver came right back to tie the game 13 seconds later on Davidson’s third goal of the contest.
The Irish regained the lead 6-5 at the 7:51 mark on Walsh’s unassisted goal before Jeff Snider tied the contest for the third time with his unassisted score with 3:37 remaining in the second quarter.
Matt Karweck (Penn Yan, N.Y.) put the Irish up 7-6 on his man-up goal at the 10:43 mark of the fourth quarter which was assisted by Walsh. The Notre Dame lead was short lived when the Pioneers when Darren Sasaki-Scanlon scored his only goal of the game off an assist from Scott Davidson six seconds after Karweck’s score. The 7-7 tie would be the fourth and last tie of the game.
Notre Dame opened up two-goal advantage on fourth-quarter scores by Steve Clagett (Chesapeake, Md.) and Berger at the 10:06 and 5:27 marks. Andrew Huelskoetter tallied the game’s final score for the Pioneers with 3:16 remaining in the contest.
With the loss, Denver falls to 3-4 overall and 0-1 in the GWLL.
Stewart Crosland (Bethesda, Md.) played 38 minutes for the Irish in goal and made two saves while allowing five goals. Nick Antol (Baldwin, Md.) played the final 22 of the contest and finished with three saves, while allowing three goals. Jeff Nunziato went the distance for the Pioneers and made 13 saves.
Notre Dame returns to action on Sunday, April 6 when it travels to Columbus, Ohio to face the Ohio State Buckeyes in another GWLL test. Faceoff is at 1:00 p.m. (EDT).
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