Notre Dame Gets by Loyola 11-9
by Clare Lochary | Lacrosse Magazine Online staff
|
|
Neal Hicks had a pair of goals as Notre Dame beat Loyola to move to 4-0 for the season. © John Strohsacker/LaxPhotos.com |
BALTIMORE - Call it the luck of the Irish.
It takes a bit of luck to win a game with eight ties and five lead
changes, and that’s what the Irish had in their 11-9 win over
Loyola in the third game of the Konica-Minolta Face-Off Classic at
M&T Bank Stadium.
"We were bad today," said Notre Dame head coach Kevin Corrigan. "Our execution of the things we like to do, I think, was really not very good. I think we were fortunate that our guys found a way to make enough plays to win the game. That's what we did well today."
The Irish also had a fluid, improvised game that got points
from six different players and overcame an average performance by
senior goalie Scott Rodgers .
“As a goalie, sometimes you have one of those days, and you
gotta find a way to pull your way out of it and find a way to
win,” said Rodgers, who made five of his 11 saves in the
fourth quarter.
Junior midfielder David Earl came off the bench to lead Notre Dame
with three goals and an assist to lift the Irish to 4-0. Junior
midfielder Zach Brenneman had three goals and senior attacker Neal
Hicks contributed two goals and an assist.
Loyola (3-1), playing without leading scorer Cooper MacDonnell
(shoulder), struck first at 13:00, on a close shot from Eric Lusby
(3g) on Matt Langan’s (1g, 1a) assist. Brenneman tied it on
an unassisted shot less than 90 seconds later, and the two teams
traded goals for the first quarter. Notre Dame got some separation
in the second stanza, gaining a 5-3 lead at halftime.
“They were tending to slide to our strong hand. When we went
to our weak hand, they wouldn’t really go. They’d show
and not go,” said Brenneman.
Loyola senior attacker Collin Finnerty (3g) came alive after the
break, scoring twice in a three-goal run put the Greyhounds up 6-5
at 10:32 in the third quarter. Neither team led by more than one
until Earl got his third and final goal under heavy coverage to
give the Irish an insurance goal with 48 seconds on the clock.
In a rollicking back-and-forth battle played before thousands in
an NFL stadium, Notre Dame’s looser tendencies gave the Irish
an edge.
“Everything we do is improvised. We have certain
fundamentals and things that we play within, but we allow our guys
to make the decisions,” said Corrigan. “We don’t
run a single thing where we say, 'This is a Zach Brenneman. Get
Zach Brenneman the ball and get him a shot.' And the consequence of
that is – hopefully on certain days – that other guys
get those opportunities.”
While the Loyola attack was productive given the absence of
MacDonnell, the Greyhounds committed a total of 21 turnovers,
including seven in the crucial fourth quarter.
“They don’t do a lot of improvising. It was realizing
that they are a scripted team and getting them out of that,”
said junior defenseman Andrew Irving, whose stealthy trail checks
anchored the Irish defense.
Loyola head coach Charlie Toomey was dissatisfied with the Hounds'
poor performance on clears (21-for-27) and turnovers. But he
praised his team for showing heart in the face of adversity. When
asked if he was impressed with how the offense rose to the occasion
in MacDonnell’s absence, he responded, “No.
That’s what a Greyhound does.”
Later, Toomey added that “for 60 minutes, we competed. We
battled. We’ll lick our wounds and start getting ready for
Duke.”
The Greyhounds will face the Blue Devils, who fell to Notre Dame, 11-7 on Feb. 20, in their home opener at the new Harold Ridley Complex next Saturday. The Irish will travel to the Kinkaid School in Houston, Texas to play Fairfield on the same day.
