May 7, 2000
NOTRE DAME, IND. — The University of Notre Dame men’s lacrosse team (9-3) will play Loyola College (11-2) in the first round of the 2000 NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Championship at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County in Baltimore, Md. on Sunday, May 14 at 12:05 p.m.
The other first-round contest at the South Division site will feature sixth-seeded Maryland (10-4) and Hofstra (11-4). That game will begin 45 minutes following the conclusion of the Notre Dame-Loyola contest.
Tickets for the two-game session are $12.00 for adults and $10.00 for youths and can be purchased by calling the Notre Dame ticket office at (219) 631-7356 or UMBC ticket office at (410) 455-2205.
The winner of Notre Dame-Loyola matchup will meet fourth-seeded Johns Hopkins (8-3) in quarterfinal action on Sunday, May 21 on the campus of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
Notre Dame will be making its eighth NCAA appearance in the last nine years, and ninth overall in the program’s history. The Irish, who own a 1-8 mark in their nine previous appearances, advanced to the quarterfinals of the NCAA championship in 1995 with a stunning 12-10 upset of fifth-seeded Duke which marked the first, and only time, the No. 5 seed was beaten in a first-round game.
The matchup between the 13th-ranked Irish and third-ranked Greyhounds is the second of the season and 11th overall. Loyola has won all 10 games, including a 12-2 decision this season on March 18 at Notre Dame. The Irish and Greyhounds have met every year since 1996. Notre Dame nearly beat Loyola in Baltimore on two occasions, losing 12-11 in 1997 and 10-8 in 1999 when the Greyhounds held the top ranking.
This will be the second time the two teams will face each other in the NCAA tournament, in 1997, the Greyhounds defeated the Irish 21-5 in a first-round game in Towson, Md.
Notre Dame heads into this year’s first-round contest riding a six-game win streak. The Irish have not lost since dropping an 8-7 decision to Hofstra on March 28 at home. Notre Dame’s current win streak is the longest since the 1997 campaign, while the nine wins represent the most since that same season when the Irish ended the year with a 9-3 mark.
Notre Dame produced a 5-1 record on the road this season and 4-2 mark at home. The Irish won five consecutive road games after dropping a 10-7 decision at Pennsylvania in its first road test of the season on March 4.
Loyola ended its regular-season with a 16-12 loss at home to Johns Hopkins. The other setback for the Greyhounds was a 16-9 defeat at Syracuse.
The top four teams – Syracuse, defending national champion Virginia, Princeton and Johns Hopkins — all received first-round byes. The other first-round matchups will be Cornell against Georgetown and Duke versus Hobart. Both of those games will be played on Saturday, May 13 at Hobart in Geneva, N.Y.