Mens Lacrosse: Scoring streak helps Buckeyes topple Irish
By PAT LEONARD
Sports Writer
Matt Howell didn't play. That could have been one excuse.
The Notre Dame mens lacrosse team had won nine of its previous ten meetings with Ohio State and simply took it for granted. That could have been another.
But regardless of distractions or statistics, coach Kevin Corrigan saw no excuse for his team's 11-5 loss to the No. 19 Ohio State Buckeyes on Sunday at Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium and seriously jeopardizing its chances at postseason play.
"We weren't good in any phase of the game," Corrigan said. "You're not going to beat a good team when you don't have something to hang your hat on. You want to play well offensively, and you want to play well defensively, but you can't get beat in every phase and expect to win a game."
The Irish fall to 5-4 on the season and 1-1 in GWLL play. With a close call against unranked Denver last weekend and now a blowout loss to a league opponent, Notre Dame feels it has to get its act together down the home stretch of its schedule.
"We've got to decide what we're going to be," Corrigan said. "We're nine games into the season and we haven't established what kind of team we want to be."
In the opening moments of the game Sunday, Notre Dame was doing more than simply holding its own. They were establishing themselves offensively.
After the Buckeyes opened scoring, Irish leading scorer Dan Berger netted a goal at the 8:23 mark of the first quarter. Freshman attackman/midfielder Brian Hubschmann scored his third goal of the season with 7:27 remaining, and Berger scored again at the 1:07 mark to give Notre Dame the lead after one quarter. Freshman attackman Pat Walsh assisted on all three goals.
From that point, Ohio State began to crawl back. The Buckeyes tied the game with goals at 11:52 and 11:41 of the second quarter. Walsh answered to put the Irish up 4-3. Ohio State scored two more goals, however, to go up 5-4 going into halftime.
An early third-quarter goal by sophomore midfielder Brian Giordano tied the game at 5-5. But the Buckeyes rattled off six unanswered goals and took the GWLL game in what appeared on paper, and in Corrigan's mind, as a blowout.
Starting goalie Stewart Crosland made 18 saves in addition to letting up 11 goals. That amounts to 29 shots on goal for Ohio State and a whole bunch of questions for the Irish defense.
Corrigan was almost at a loss for words.
"We are playing poor fundamental team defense right now," he said.
More than just a defensive breakdown and an overall defeat, the loss to Ohio State means Notre Dame has some serious thinking and playing to do as they only have five games, and three league matches, remaining.
"I think it means we need to win the rest of our games to go to the postseason," Corrigan said. "We don't know what's going to happen in the league. We can't worry about what other people will do, but we have to worry about what we want to do. We have to win the rest of our games because we control our own destiny."
All Sports Stories for Monday, April 7, 2003
