April 7, 2002
Indianapolis, Ind. – The Notre Dame men’s lacrosse team scored five goals in the first quarter as the Irish won their third straight on the road in defeating Great Western Lacrosse League (GWLL) rival Butler, 12-8. Dan Berger (Phoenix, Md.) tallied three goals and Kyle Frigon (Salem, Mass.) added a pair of goals and assists in the victory as Coach Kevin Corrigan’s squad improved to 4-5 and 3-0 in the GWLL.
The win was Notre Dame’s fourth straight over the Bulldogs, who fell to 3-5 and 0-2 in the GWLL. The Irish now lead the all-time series between the two teams 12-8.
Butler jumped out to an early 1-0 48 seconds into the contest on Greg Ruccia goal off an assist from Lawrence O’Toole. Notre Dame answered with five unanswered goals in the first quarter as Berger got the Irish on the scoreboard with the first of his two goals in the initial period. Berger knotted the game at 1-1 with a man-up goal off an assist from Frigon at the 12:39 mark. John Flandina (West Islip, N.Y.) gave the Irish a 2-1 advantage when he scored 50 seconds later off a feed from teammate Travis Wells (Severna Park, Md.). Brian Giordano (Princeton, N.J.) scored Notre Dame’s third goal of the game with 6:55 remaining in the first quarter, while Frigon and Berger netted the final two goals of the period as the Irish led 5-1 after the first 15-minute stanza.
Butler finally ended Notre Dame scoring streak of five unanswered goals when Scott Walker netted the Bulldogs second goal of the game off an assist from Adam Cichostepski with 10:45 remaining in the quarter. The Irish answered with scores from Devin Ryan (Kensington, Md.) and A.J. Wright (Timonium, Md.) as Notre Dame led 7-2 with 3:17 left before halftime. For Wright, a senior defenseman, it was his first career goal and point.
The Bulldogs cut the lead to 7-4 on goals by Kyle Tietjen and Matt Eizenberg.
Butler scored the first two goals of the second half to trim the Irish lead to 7-6. Back-to-back goals by Ryan Ward at the 14:13 and 11:32 marks pulled the Bulldogs to within one goal, but Berger responded with his third score of the game off an assist from Frigon to give the Irish a two-goal advantage. Berger’s score was the first of three consecutive scores for the Irish as Frigon and Steve Clagett (Chesapeake, Va.) improved Notre Dame’s lead to 10-6. Their two goals game six second apart from each other. Cichostepski cut the deficit to 10-7 with 7:08 remaining which ended the scoring for the third quarter.
Ryan netted his second goal of the game off an assist from Giordano, who had a goal and two assists in the contest, with 13:37 remaining. Butler got its final goal of the game from Tietjen, while Wells netted the game’s final score off an assist from Matt Malakoff (Bay Shore, N.Y.) with 8:31 to play in the contest.
Nick Antol (Baldwin, Md.) earned his seventh consecutive start in goal and finished with 13 saves in the contest.
Notre Dame returns to action on Sat., April 13 when the Irish travel to West Point, N.Y. to face Army in a 1:30 p.m. face-off. That contest against the Cadets will mark the fourth consecutive road game for the Irish who began the season by playing four of its first six games at home.