May 8, 2011
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – Notre Dame has earned the No. 4 seed for the upcoming 2011 NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Championship. The Fighting Irish will play host to unseeded Penn on Saturday in the tournament’s first round. The game is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. (ET) at Arlotta Stadium. The contest will be broadcast live on ESPNU.
Notre Dame is 10-2 this season, while Penn is 8-6.
Notre Dame will be making its 16th trip overall, and sixth straight, to the NCAA Championship. The Fighting Irish are 8-15 all-time in NCAA play. Notre Dame advanced to the title game of the NCAA Championship for the first time in program history one year ago. The Irish fell to Duke 6-5 in overtime.
This is the fourth time that Notre Dame has garnered one of the eight national seeds for the NCAA Championship. The Irish also were seeded for the 2001 (5th), 2008 (6th) and 2009 (7th) tournaments.
The Fighting Irish and Quakers will be squaring off for the fifth time ever. The series is tied 2-2. Notre Dame won the last meeting, 14-5, during the 2003 season.
For ticket information, call the Notre Dame ticket office at 574-631-7356 or visit UND.com/tickets.
The 16-team NCAA Championship field is comprised of six automatic-qualifying teams and 10 at-large teams. Only the top eight squads in the field are seeded. Syracuse garnered this year’s No. 1 seed, while Cornell is the second seed and Johns Hopkins is the third seed.
The BIG EAST Conference boasts three NCAA Championship teams. Joining Notre Dame and Syracuse in the field is Villanova.
The winner of the Notre Dame-Penn contest will take on the winner of the Duke-Delaware tilt in the quarterfinal round on Sunday, May 22 in Foxboro, Mass. The tournament’s semifinals and finals will be held May 28 and 30, respectively, at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore, Md. For more information on the 2010 NCAA Division I Men’s Lacrosse Championship, including a complete bracket, log onto www.ncaa.com
— ND —