Jan. 6, 2004
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – A pair of road trips to 2003 national semifinalists and four home games with NCAA participants from a year ago highlight the 2004 University of Notre Dame men’s lacrosse schedule, complete with game times, announced recently by head coach Kevin Corrigan. The Irish, who open the season on Sunday, Feb. 29 with a home game against Penn State in the Loftus Sports Center at 1 p.m. (EST), will face a 12-game slate featuring nine teams listed in the Inside Lacrosse preseason top 25, including seven top-20 foes in as many games to start the campaign.
After facing the Nittany Lions, 15th in the preseason rankings, Notre Dame will travel to Syracuse on Thursday, March 11 for a 7 p.m. (EST) matchup with the #3 Orangemen. It will be the first-ever regular-season tilt between the teams, with Syracuse having taken the only previous meeting, in the semifinals of the 2001 NCAA Championship, though the Irish prevailed in a fall ’03 matchup en route to claiming the first-ever Algonquin Cup title. The Orangemen and Johns Hopkins share the honor of having won seven national titles each, more than any other program, and the Blue Jays beat Syracuse in last year’s NCAA semis.
Notre Dame, which carries a preseason ranking of 16th, will return home on Sunday, March 14, for a game with #8 North Carolina before heading to #13 Loyola on March 20. Both contests will begin at 1 p.m. (EST).
The Irish will then have a three-game homestand, welcoming #11 Hofstra, #17 Ohio State, and #20 Dartmouth. The Pride and Irish will hook up on Wednesday, March 24 at 7 p.m. (EST) in a rematch of the fall `03 Algonquin Cup final, and a week later the Great Western Lacrosse League (GWLL) season gets underway with a matchup of two of the league’s tri-champions from a year ago on March 31 at 4 p.m. (EST). In ’03, Ohio State topped the Irish for just the second time in the last 12 meetings, which eventually secured for the Buckeyes the conference’s automatic berth to the NCAA tournament. Darmouth and Notre Dame will play on Sunday, April 4 at 1 p.m. (EST) in just the third all-time meeting between the schools and the first since 1997. The Irish got the best of the Big Green in both previous games.
The next four contests will be against GWLL foes, as the Irish aim for their sixth consecutive conference title and 10th in the last 11 years. Notre Dame is 34-4 since the conference was formed in 1994, including 21-1 at home. The Irish will head to Colorado the following weekend to take on Air Force on Friday, April 9 at 4 p.m. (MDT) and #23 Denver on Sunday, April 11 at 1 p.m. (MDT). The Pioneers were the other league tri-champion a season ago. On Thursday, April 15, Butler will play host to Notre Dame at 4 p.m. (EST). The final home game and GWLL contest of the season will be on Sunday, April 18 vs. Fairfield at Noon (EST).
Notre Dame’s final regular-season game is scheduled for Saturday, May 1 at #5 Maryland at 1 p.m. (EDT). The Terrapins fell to eventual national champion Virginia in the NCAA semifinals a season ago.
The NCAA Division I Men’s Lacrosse Championship will feature six conference champions, including the GWLL’s, gaining automatic berths and 10 at-large teams gaining entry to the 16-team field. Play gets underway May 15-16 at campus sites before moving to a pair of quarterfinal sites. Both the University of Virginia in Charlottesville and Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. will play host to doubleheaders on May 22 and 23, respectively, with the four winners advancing to Baltimore, Md., where the final two rounds will take place May 29 and 31 in M&T Bank Stadium.
Notre Dame has reached the NCAA tournament 10 times since 1990, a feat matched by just six other teams in Division I: Johns Hopkins, Loyola, Maryland, Princeton, Syracuse, and Virginia. The best Irish postseason result was a semifinal appearance in 2001.
This year’s Notre Dame squad returns 20 monogram winners, including eight starters, from last season’s team that was 9-5, won a share of a fifth consecutive GWLL crown, and finished the season ranked 18th in the nation after being listed as high as ninth.
All Irish home games will take place at Moose Krause Stadium, weather permitting. In the case of inclement weather, contests will be played in the Loftus Sports Center, one of just two indoor venues in Division I college lacrosse. There is no admission charge for Notre Dame home games.