March 2, 2001
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NOTRE DAME, IND. – After opening the 2001 season with a 10-8 road win at Penn State, the Notre Dame’s men’s lacrosse team plays host to Pennsylvania in its home opener on Sun., Mar. 4 at noon.
Sunday’s contest, the season opener for the Quakers, will be the second ever between the two teams. The two schools met for the first time ever in 2000 with Penn earning a 10-7 victory at home.
Following its matchup with the Quakers, the Irish will be on the road for five straight road games and will not be at home again until Sat., April 7 when they play host to Great Western Lacrosse League (GWLL) foe Denver.
RECAP OF PENN STATE GAME – Senior attack Tom Glatzel (Ellicot City, Md.) scored four consecutive goals for the Irish, including the game-winning and game-tying scores as Notre Dame won its season opener with a 10-8 victory at Penn State. Glatzel, Notre Dame’s goal-scoring and points leader a year ago, also finished with two assists in the game.
The Irish trailed 7-5 in the game with 8:42 remaining in the third quarter before back-to-back goals by Glatzel in less than two minutes knotted the contest at 7-7 with 5:58 remaining in the third quarter. He them gave the Irish an 8-7 advantage with 3:51 left in the third period stanza.
Penn State’s Ted Holmes tied the game at 8-8 with 12:29 remaining in the final stanza before Glatzel’s fourth score of the game game off a feed from David Ulrich (Baltimore, Md.) gave the Irish the lead for good at 9-8 with 9:53 to play in the game. Ulrich added the insurance goal for the Irish with 3:57 left in the contest.
Notre Dame held a 5-4 advantage at the break, but the Nittany Lions opened the third quarter with three consecutive goals.
The Irish enjoyed a balanced scoring attack with six different goal scorers in the contest.
John Flandina (West Islip, N.Y.) had a goal and an assist, while Todd Ulrich (Baltimore, Md.), Jon Harvey (Winchester, Mass.) and Chris Young (Camillus, N.Y.) each added a goal.
Irish senior goalie Kirk Howell (Nashville, Tenn.) recorded 10 saves in the game.
HEAD COACH KEVIN CORRIGAN – Kevin Corrigan is in his 13th season at Notre Dame and 15th in the collegiate ranks. The three-time Great Western Lacrosse League coach of the year earned his 100th career win during the ’99 season in Notre Dame’s 10-8 victory over Hobart on March 27 and notched his 100th win as the Irish head coach in 2000 with his team’s 10-5 victory at Army . He owns a 114-74 (.606) overall ledger and an 104-59 (.638) mark with the Irish. Corrigan has guided Notre Dame to nine NCAA tournament appearances in the last 11 years and 10 (either outright or shared) conference titles. Prior to 1998, he had led the Irish to six straight tournament berths from 1992-97. Under Corrigan, Notre Dame has been victorious in the first round of the NCAA tournament on two occasions. In 1995, Notre Dame won its first-ever NCAA tournament game with a 12-10 victory over Duke which propelled the Irish into the quarterfinals for the first time in school history. The last season, his squad uspet fifth-seeded Loyola (Md.) in 15-13 in the first round for the school’s first-ever win over the Greyhounds. Previous to his tenure at Notre Dame, he served as head coach at Randolph-Macon during the 1985 and 1986 campaign where his teams compiled a 10-15 mark.
IRISH IN SEASON OPENERS – Notre Dame’s victory over Penn State Notre Dame is now 15-6 in season openers. This was the fourth consecutive year that the Irish and Nittany Lions have faced each other in the first game of the season, and the sixth time in the last seven. Notre Dame now holds a two-game winning streak in season-opening games.
SERIES RECORD VS. PENNSYLVANIA – This will be the second meeting between the two schools, with Pennsylvania holding a 1-0 advantage in the series. The Quakers won the inaugural game in Philadelphia last season 10-7.
THE CAPTAINS – The captains for the 2001 campaign are senior Michael Adams, Tom Glatzel, Kirk Howell and David Ulrich. Adams plays defense for the Irish and was a starter in all 14 games last season while scoring three goals and earning Great Western Lacrosse League all-conference honors. Glatzel, an honorable mention All-America selection to United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association of America (USILA) at attack, led Notre Dame in scoring in 2000 with 38 goals and 18 assists (56 points). A native of Baltimore, Md., he also was named to the GWLL All-Conference team. Howell is beginning his third season as the Irish starter in goal. The Nashville, Tenn., native had an 8.70 goals against average and .563 save percentage. Ulrich, a three-time GWLL ALL-Conference choice, was named to the USILA Honorable Mention All-America team a year ago. The Baltimore, Md., native tied the Irish single-season assist mark when he dished off 32 last season. In addition, he scored 17 goals for a single-season personal best 49 points.
CAPTAIN KIRK – Fifth-year player Kirk Howell is in his second year as an Irish captain. Last season, he served as a team captain along with Patrick Darcy, Steve Fiamingo and Kevin Higgins. He has the distiction of being one of just four Irish players to serve as team captain twice during their careers. Randy Colley, Notre Dame’s career goals, assists and points leader, was the first two-time captain in 1994 and 1995. Alex Cade and Jimmy Keenan served as captains in both 1997 and 1998.
GWLL WELCOMES FAIRFIELD – The newest member to the Great Western Lacrosse League in 2001 is Fairfield. The Stags were an independent a year ago. The Irish played Fairfield for the first time last season and won the game 20-12 on April 22, 2000.
STRONG ACADEMICS – More than one in every three Notre Dame student-athletes made the Dean’s List (3.4 grade-point average or better on a 4.0 scale) during the 2000 fall semester. Of the 737 student-athletes on Notre Dame varsity rosters, 275 (37 percent) made the Dean’s List. Of those 275, 16 came from the men’s lacrosse program. The Irish had their best semester ever in recording a 3.193 as a team.
The 16 named to the Dean’s List were: junior Owen Asplundh (3.867, English), senior Steve Bishko (3.733, Economics), freshman Andrew Coleman (3.686, First Year of Studies), freshman Edward Crosland (3.750, First Year of Studies), senior Chis Fallon (3.867, American Studies), sophomore Timothy Brooks Hartnett (3.530, Mendoza College of Business), senior Jon Harvey (3.667, History), senior Kirk Howell (3.750, Government), junior Matt Leisen (3.467, Finance), freshman Chris Masterson (3.529, First Year of Studies), freshman John Mulfur (3.572, First Year of Studies), senior Mike Pfeffer (3.533, Architecture), freshman Hani Rimlawi (3.738, First Year of Studies), junior Devin Ryan (3.467, Management Information Systems), junior A.J. Wright (3.584, Accounting) and senior Chris Young (3.600, Finance).
FRIEND OR FOE? – Notre Dame will face perennial national power Virginia on March 14 in Charlottesville, Va., The contest will be a homecoming for Irish head coach Kevin Corrigan, a 1982 Cavalier graduate or former assistant men’s lacrosse coach at the school. Corrigan was an assistant coach during both the 1987 and 1988 campaigns under head coach Jim “Ace” Adams. He also enjoyed a three-year stint as a player scoring five goals and dishing off six assists during his career. In his sophomore year, 1979, the Cavaliers reached the NCAA final before losing to Johns Hopkins in overtime. This will be the third time Corrigan will be taking one of his Irish teams to Charlottesville, Va., Notre Dame and Virginia have met twice previously, both in the first round of the 1993 and 1994 NCAA tournaments.
OPENING ACT – Freshman midfielders Steve Clagett (Chesapeake Beach, Md.) and Nick Petcoff (Troy, Mich.) as well as Mickey Blum (Garden City, N.Y.) who plays defense, were the only rookies to see action in the season opener against Penn State.
FACE-OFF – Junior Chad DeBolt (Waterloo, N.Y.), the team’s face-off leader the past two seasons, won 10 of 16 (.625) face-off opportunities in the season-opener against Penn State. DeBolt won 32 of 51 (.627) face-offs in his rookie campaign and 80 of 132 (.606) opportunities last year as a sophomore.
SEEING DOUBLE – Seniors David and Todd Ulrich are the first twin brothers to play on the Notre Dame men’s lacrosse team. David has been a three-year starter at attack for the Irish, while Todd has been a starter in the midfield for two years.
GLATZEL, ULRICH KEEP STREAK IN TACT – The naming of Tom Glatzel and David Ulrich to the 2000 United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association (USILA) Honorable Mention All-America Team marked the eighth consecutive year that the Irish have had at least one player earn all-america honors since 1993. Since that time, eight different players have eanred all-america recognition. Glatzel and Ulrich both played high school at Boys’ Latin in Baltimore, Md. Glatzel twin brother John, who plays defense at Syracuse University, was second-team All-America honoree after helping the Orangemen to the 2000 national title.
CALL HIM MR. VERSATILITY – Junior defensive midfield Chad DeBolt can certainly stake claim to being the most versatile student-athlete on the men’s lacrosse team – if not the most all-around performer among all of Notre Dame’s varsity athletes. In addition to being a member of the lacrosse team, he also is a walk-on member of the Irish football team for the second consecutive year. DeBolt made 72 special appearances during the the 2000 football campaign – including a season-high 13 vs. USC – and was one of just four walkons on the usual travel list. He recovered a blocked punt vs. Rutgers and blocked a punt vs. USC, both of which led to Irish touchdowns.
As a member of the lacrosse team, the Waterloo N.Y. native ranks as the team’s faceoff leader from a year ago. DeBolt won 60.6 percent (80-132) of his faceoffs last season to rank ninth in that category nationally.
Besides having success on both the gridiron and lacrosse, DeBolt has taught himself how to play the bagpiges. The Notre Dame tradition of a having a Irish player lead the team onto the playing field before warm-ups playing Scotland the Brave on the bag pipes is unique to all of college lacrosse. The tradition was started at the start of the ’96 campaign by Sean Meehan, a 1999 graduate and four-year member of the lacrosse team. As a sophomore last season, DeBolt took over that duty, teaching himself how to play the instrument. DeBolt learned to play the bagpipes during the summer following his freshman season in 1998 and throughout the 1999-2000 school year, receiving lessons from Meehan and the Notre Dame Bag Pipe Club.