May 31, 2010

Recap | Box Score | Notes | Photo Gallery

2010 NCAA Division I Men’s Lacrosse Championship
Monday, May 31, 2010 – M&T Bank Stadium – Baltimore, Md.

Duke 6, Notre Dame 5 (OT)

POSTGAME QUOTES

Notre Dame coach Kevin Corrigan

Opening statement about the NCAA Division I men’s lacrosse national championship game “I would like to congratulate Duke for winning its first national championship. It was a heck of a game. It was not the game that people saw the other night with Virginia but we certainly hoped it wouldn’t be. We didn’t think we would be in good shape in a game like that but we thought we could win a game like this. We came up one play short.”

On the Notre Dame defense and covering Duke’s Ned Crotty
“Kevin Ridgway is probably one of the most underrated defensemen in the country to start with. He is not flashy and not good with the ball. It seems like guys get first-team All-American for looking good carrying the ball. I don’t know where that started but somehow defensemen that carry the ball nicely now get extra credit and become All-Americans. I thought the job of the defensemen is to stop people from scoring. Guys like Kevin don’t get enough credit when they do that and they do it very well. Secondly, our short-stick defensive midfielders played very good defense [today]. It is a combination of things on a guy like him [Crotty].”

On the game-winning goal
“I am mad at myself for not putting our wings further down and playing a little bit more defensively there. Trever Sipperly had done a very good job all day, controlled the ball. We weren’t thinking that he was going to give up a break. He had been in control of the ball for the better part of the day. But that said, in that situation it might have been smarter to make sure because you know Costabile if he has a chance he will attack the cage like that. It might have been smarter to put our wings down and tell Trever, ‘if you win it just bring it to yourself.’ That way we would have been protected.”

Notre Dame senior goalie Scott Rodgers

On the game-winning goal
“You don’t really know what you are going to get. They are coming at you with a 6-foot pole and they can choose to go low or high. We had two guys chasing back on that last play and that isn’t what a goalie wants to see. Our game wasn’t lost on one play though; it’s lost throughout the game.”

Notre Dame junior defenseman Kevin Ridgway

On what’s it like to know that you have Scott there behind you?
“It’s a great feeling. He will be a big loss next year. It’s always a nice safety net and he has been there to support this team and give us confidence all year. The trust between this team is pretty remarkable. Scott’s just been a huge asset.”

On how hard this loss is, knowing it was a tight game that you could have won
“It hurts. We knew we executed our game plan well. We thought we could beat them. Unfortunately, we just came up one play short.”

Notre Dame junior midfielder Zach Brenneman

On your performance today
“It was okay. Duke was just sliding conventionally with the short-sticks. We were just trying to get to the backside and do what we do. Like Kevin said, unfortunately we just came up short.”

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Duke coach John Danowski

Opening statement on the NCAA Division I men’s lacrosse national championship game
“Kevin Corrigan and his staff…what a job. Those kids defensively were phenomenal on the ball and phenomenal as a unit. When we did get an opening Scott Rodgers was terrific. I am extremely happy and joyful for our students and anybody who has ever worn a Duke jersey. This game was a great battle.”

On why he had CJ take the faceoff in overtime
“Sometimes it is a matter of individual techniques. We felt like CJ had a better chance of getting it out. We also felt that he had a better chance of getting it back if we did lose the faceoff. The faceoff is a team event and we try to create turnovers off 10 percent of the face-offs we lose.”

On his team’s defensive play
“I was so proud of our guys. I thought that the two freshmen we had playing were fabulous. If I was told before the game that we were going to hold a team to five goals in the national championship game I would have been delighted. Dan Wigrizer made 10 saves which is a 67 percent save percentage and that is a phenomenal day.”

Duke University sophomore long-stick midfielder CJ Costabile

On the faceoff battle throughout the day and the final faceoff
“It was a battle throughout the game, there was that one faceoff that went for over 25 seconds. It was a battle and to come out that clean [on the final faceoff], to get my hands in there and pull it out really quick the ball popped out in front of me, it was awesome. I mean the faceoff game is such a team thing and my wings did a great job on that, allowing me to pick up that ground ball really easily.”

On the feeling of scoring the game-winning goal
“It’s sick! The best feeling about it is we set this goal from the beginning of the year. Guys who have been here before me, [those guys] who have been here three times before and finally seeing them walk-off that field with a big smile on their faces is the best moment about that.”

On the winning shot
“Everyone was pretty much shut-off. They were really tight on the attackman. So I took my lane, it was open. I kind of just let it rip and saw the back of the net move and saw [teammates] jumping around me.”

Duke University junior attacker Zach Howell

On preparing to play a tough defensive team like Notre Dame
“It’s certainly tough but we take pride in being a very good all-around team. We accepted the challenge and we knew, especially on offense, we needed to be mentally tough. It’s tough going in knowing you may not have the ball as much as you would like and we knew we had to be opportunistic against their [Notre Dame’s] defense.”