April 12, 2003
Notre Dame, Ind. – Sophomore Brian Giordano (Princeton, N.J.) scored a career-high five goals to lead the No. 20 Notre Dame men’s lacrosse team to its second consecutive win as the Irish posted a 13-4 victory over Great Western Lacrosse League foe Air Force on Saturday afternoon at Moose Krause Stadium.
With the victory, Notre Dame improves 7-4 overall and 3-1 in the GWLL. The Irish earned their 15th straight victory over the Falcons as Air Force fell to 2-7 on the season and 0-2 in conference play. Notre Dame also earned its eighth straight win over the Falcons at home. Air Force has not beaten an Irish team since the 1988 campaign when it earned a 14-8 victory in Colorado Springs, Colo., in the first-ever meeting between the two schools.
Notre Dame’s defense proved dominant for the second straight as the Irish held an opponent to under five goals for the second consecutive outing. On Thursday, Coach Kevin Corrigan’s squad allowed just two goals in earning a 9-2 decision Today?s game also marked the third time this season that Notre Dame held an opponent to five goals and under.
In addition to Giordano’s five goals, junior Dan Berger (Phoenix, Md.) added three goals and senior Travis Wells (Severna Park, Md.) tallied twice in the contest. Leading scorer, freshman Patrick Walsh (Wantagh. N.Y.) added a goal and three assists.
Notre Dame was slow getting its offensive in gear, but a 9-1 advantage in the second half proved to be decisive after the Irish led just 4-3 at halftime.
Air Force was up 2-1 at the half on goals by Aam Gaudinski 49 seconds into the contest and by Michael Colisimo. Notre Dame?s lone goal of the quarter was scored by Walsh off an assist from Chris Richez (Freeport, N.Y.) at the 9:24 mark of the quarter.
Notre Dame scored three times in the second quarter to jump out to a 4-2 advantage. Giordano?s first off five goals, off an assist from Walsh, knotted the game at 2-2 and then freshman Matt Karweck (Penn Yan, N.Y.) broke the deadlock with an unassisted goal at 4:23. Berger and Walsh combined for Notre Dame;s fourth score on the afternoon at the 2:35 mark, but the Falcons closed the gap to 4-3 on Eric Lederer’s unassisted man-down score with 32 seconds remaining in the first half.
The Irish outscored the Falcons 4-0 in the third quarter as Berger scored twice,while senior Kyle Frigon (Salem, Mass.) and Giordano added the other two scores.
Giordano extended Notre Dame’s lead to 9-3 with 11:03 remaining in the contest as he scored his fourth goal of the game off an assist from Owen Mulford (Ocean City, Md.). Wells then scored back-to-back goals at the 9:10 and 7:44 marks off assists from Karweck and Mickey Blum (Garden City, N.Y.), respectively. Giordano tallied the Irish eighth consecutive goal at the 6;27 mark to open up a 12-3 advantage.
Air Force finally halted the Notre Dame scoring assault as William Keeler tallied the final Falcon goal with 4:30 remaining in the contest. Giordano netted his fifth and final goal off an assist from Brian Hubschmann (Short Hills, N.J.) at the 3:50 mark.
Junior Stewart Crosland (Bethedsa, Md.) played just under 51 minutes of the game and finished with 10 saves while allowing three goals. Senior Nick Antol (Baldwin, Md.) played the final nine minutes and had one save and allowed one goal. William Arnold played the entire game in goal for the Falcons and finished with 17 saves.
Notre Dame returns to action next Saturday, April 19 when the Irish travel to Fairfield, Conn., for a 1:00 p.m. (EST) meeting with Fairfield in their final road test of the 2003 campaign.