May 6, 2012
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – Notre Dame has earned the No. 4 seed for the 2012 NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Championship and will play host to unseeded Yale on Sunday in the tournament’s first round. The game is scheduled for 5:15 p.m. (ET) at Arlotta Stadium. The contest will be broadcast live on ESPNU/ESPN3.
Notre Dame is 11-2 this season, while Yale is 11-4. The Irish gained an at-large berth from the BIG EAST Conference, while the Bulldogs won the Ivy League Championship. The Fighting Irish won the BIG EAST regular-season title with a perfect 6-0 league record.
The Fighting Irish will be making their 17th trip overall, and seventh straight, to the NCAA Championship. Notre Dame is 9-16 all-time in NCAA play. Last season, Notre Dame also garnered the tournament’s No. 4 seed and defeated Penn, 13-6, in the first round. The Irish fell to Duke, 7-5, in the quarterfinals.
This is the fifth time that the Fighting Irish have earned one of the eight national seeds for the NCAA Championship. The No. 4 seed matches the highest-ever for Notre Dame. The Irish also were seeded for the 2001 (5th), 2008 (6th), 2009 (7th) and 2011 (4th) tournaments.
Notre Dame and Yale will be squaring off for just the second time ever. The Bulldogs defeated the Fighting Irish, 17-5, during the 1983 season in Baltimore, Md.
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 seven automatic-qualifying teams and nine at-large teams. Only the top eight squads in the field are seeded. Loyola is this year’s No. 1 seed, while Johns Hopkins is the second seed and Duke is the third seed.
The winner of the Notre Dame-Yale contest will take on the winner of the first-round tilt between Virginia and Princeton in the quarterfinals on Sunday, May 20 at PPL Park in Chester, Pa. Virginia is the tournament’s fifth seed, while Princeton is unseeded.
The tournament’s semifinals and finals will be held May 26 and 28 at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass. For more information on the 2012 NCAA Division I Men’s Lacrosse Championship, including a complete bracket, log onto www.ncaa.com
— ND —