April 28, 2000
NOTRE DAME, IND. — The 12th-ranked Notre Dame men’s lacrosse team (8-3, 4-0) closes out its regular season on Sunday, April 30 at 1:00 p.m. then the Irish travel to Cambridge, Mass., to face the Harvard Crimson (6-5).
Notre Dame extended its win streak to five straight games with two wins last week against Villanova (17-9) and Fairfield (20-12). The five-game winning streak is the longest since the 1997 campaign when the Irish finished that season with a 9-3 mark.
The Irish-Crimson matchup is the seventh in the series with Notre Dame leading 4-2. The two teams have met every year since 1995. Last year, the Irish earned a 9-8 victory at home against Harvard. The Irish are 1-2 in the three games they have played at Harvard, in their most recent outing there in 1998, they dropped a 9-6 decision.
Notre Dame is ranked 12th in both the STX/United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association (USILA) and Inside Lacrosse polls for the second consecutive week. Harvard is unranked in the STX/USILA ranking and 20th in Inside Lacrosse poll.
RECAP OF VILLANOVA GAME – Junior attack Jon Harvey (Winchester, Mass.) tallied a career-high six goals, tying the Notre Dame school record for goals in a home game, as the Irish won their fourth straight.
The Irish scored 12 unanswered goals in the second half after falling behind 7-5 early in the contest. Seven different players scored in the game as Notre Dame displayed another balanced scoring attack.
Junior attack David Ulrich (Baltimore, Md.) tallied four goals and dished off three assists, while Tom Glatzel (Ellicott City, Md.) added three goals and four assists.
Notre Dame jumped out to an early 3-0 lead with Harvey scoring two of the goals. Villanova finally got on the board with 10:27 remaining in the second quarter on the first of Eric Dauer’s two goals. Villanova tied the game at 3-3 with 8:55 left to play before the intermission, but Harvey broke the tie with his third goal of the game less than two minutes later. The two teams were deadlocked at 4-4 at the break as Dauer netted a goal with 4:04 left in the second quarter.
Todd Ulrich (Baltimore, Md.) gave the Irish a 5-4 lead 1:26 into the second half, but then the Wildcats scored three unanswered goals in a two-minute span to grab 7-5 lead with 10:13 left in the third quarter on a Brian Marks score. David Ulrich answered with a goal six seconds following Marks’ tally, and then Devin Ryan (Kensington, Md.) knotted the game at 7-7 43 seconds later.
Harvey provided the go-ahead goal with 8:30 left in the third as Notre Dame would go on to tally two more goals before the end of the period in grabbing a 10-7 lead after three periods. The Irish began the final 15-minute stanza by scoring the firs seven goals of the period.
Goalie Kirk Howell (Nashville, Tenn.) came up with 15 saves in the game.
RECAP OF FAIRFIELD GAME – Notre Dame won its home finale and recorded its fifth straight win with a convincing 20-12 victory over visiting Fairfield in the first-ever meeting between the two schools.
Tom Glatzel led the Irish in scoring with five goals as a season-high 10 different players contributed in the scoring column, Glatzel was among five multiple-goal scorers as he tallied five of Notre Dame’s first nine goals. David Ulrich finished the contest with four goals and three assists, while Steve Bishko (West Islip, N.Y.), Stedman Oakey (Charlottesville, Va.) and Jon Harvey added two goals each.
The Stags gave the Irish trouble early on as the two teams traded goals with the first quarter ending in a 3-3 tied following Glatzel’s first goal of the game. Glatzel scored the first two goals of the second quarter and Oakey added another to push the Irish lead to 6-3. The Irish scored four more goals before halftime and owned a 10-6 advantage at the break.
The Irish outscored the Wildcats 10-6 in the final two quarters. Goalkeeper Kirk Howell and freshman Joe Nejman (Meadowbrook, Pa.) tallied their first career goals in the second half. Howell became just the second Irish goalie score a goal when he unleashed a shot froma the restraining line after trying to clear the ball to his teammate. The goal capped off a five-goal third quarter for the Irish. Howell also added 10 saves in the game.
HEAD COACH KEVIN CORRIGAN – Kevin Corrigan is in his 12th season at Notre Dame and 14th in the collegiate ranks. The three-time Great Western Lacrosse League coach of the year earned his 100th career win during the ’99 season in Notre Dame’s 10-8 victory over Hobart on March 27. He owns a 112-73 (.605) overall ledger and an 102-58 (.634) mark with the Irish. Corrigan has guided Notre Dame to eight NCAA tournament appearances and nine (either outright or shared) conference titles. Prior to 1998, he had led the Irish to six straight tournament berths from 1992-97. Under Corrigan in 1995, Notre Dame won its first-ever NCAA tournament game with a 12-10 victory over Duke which propelled the Irish into the quarterfinals for the first time in school history. Previous to his tenure at Notre Dame, he served as head coach at Randolph-Macon during the 1985 and 1986 campaign where his teams compiled a 10-15 mark.
SERIES RECORD VS. HARVARD – This will be the seventh meeting between the two schools with the Irish holding a 4-2 advantage. The two schools have met every year since 1995. The Irish are 1-2 in game at Harvard. The first-ever meeting between the two teams was in the first round of the 1990 NCAA tournament, a 9-3 Harvard win.
IRISH ON A ROLL – Notre Dame’s current five-game win streak is the longest since the 1997 campaign when the Irish won five straight in finishing with a 9-3 mark. A win against Harvard would be Notre Dame’s longest since 1996 when the Irish won seven straight en route to a 9-4 record.
NOTRE DAME SCORING BARRAGE – The 20 goals scored against Fairfield in the 20-12 win are the most by an Irish squad since a 20-7 road win at Ohio State on May 3, 1997 and the most in a home since a 22-11 victory over Butler on May 29, 1993.
GOALS A PLENTY – Notre Dame is 8-0 when the Irish score 10 or more goals. Corrigan’s squad is averaging 14.4 goals per game in their last five outings and 10.91 in the 11 games they have played.
HARVEY TIES SCHOOL RECORD – Junior Jon Harvey’s career-high six goals tied the single-game record for goals scored by an Irish player in a home game. Harvey, who is the team’s third-leading scorer with 24 goals, tied the mark held by Joe Franklin (vs. Denison in 1986) and Mike Quigley (vs. Canisius).
HOWELL BECOMES A SCORING MACHINE – Senior goalkeeper Kirk Howell became just the second Irish goalkeeper in school history to score a goal (the other being Ryan Jewell versus Air Force in a 20-8 win). Howell’s first collegiate score came via a shot from the restraining line after an Irish player cleared the ball to him. Howell moved up the restraining line to try to clear the ball to a teammate, but when the Fairfield goalkeeper came out of the goal to pick up one of the Irish players to prevent the clear, he shot it from the restraining line and it landed into the net.
GWLL DOMINANCE – With its 12-11 win over Butler on April 8, Notre Dame completed an undefeated season and wrapped up its second straight Great Western Lacrosse League (GWLL) title. The Irish, who shared the league crown with Ohio State and Butler a year ago, have won or shared the championship in nine of head coach Kevin Corrigan’s 12 seasons.
FIAMINGO HONORED AS TOP SCHOLAR-ATHLETE – Senior Steve Fiamingo (Cincinnati, Ohio) was named the top men’s lacrosse scholar-athlete April 4, at the Academic Excellence Awards Dinner held at the Joyce Center. Fiamingo plays defense and is one of four captains for the Irish this season. He has started all 11 games for Notre Dame in 2000.
GLATZEL FINDING THE RANGE – Junior Tom Glatzel leads the team in scoring with a team-high 29 goals and 14 assists (43 points). The 29 goals is a single-season best, while the 14 assists are two short of his personal highs in that category. In ’99, Glatzel finished the campaign with 16 goals and eight assists after recording only two goals and dishing off one assist for three points. Since that rookie campaign, he has 55 goals and 29 assists in 25 games for an average of 3.36 points per game.
DISHING IT OUT – For the third straight campaign, junior David Ulrich leads the team in assists. He has 19 on the season and 68 for his career which places his third on the all-time Irish career assist list.
GROUND HOG – Kevin Higgins (Wilton, Conn.) became just the fifth player in Notre Dame history to collect 200 career ground balls this season. The senior midfielder reached that mark against Loyola on March 18. He has collected 235 ground balls in his three-plus seasons, good for third on the all-time list. Higgins leads the team with 56 ground balls this season. He has been the team’s ground ball leader each of the past two seasons with 83 in 1999 and 79 in 1998.
IRISH STRONG AT HOME – Notre Dame wrapped up the 2000 campaign with a 4-2 mark at home. In three (1994, 1995 and 1997) of the last seven years, Notre Dame finished the home portion of its season undefeated. The Irish posted 5-0 marks in both ’94 and ’95 and were 6-0 in ’97. Corrigan’s squad was 6-1 at home in ’99. Since 1984, Notre Dame has an 83-27 (.755) record at home and is 44-10 (.815) over the last nine seasons in games played at Moose Krause Stadium and Loftus Sports Center (its indoor facility).
ROAD TOUGH – Notre Dame will be looking for its fifth straight victory on the road against Harvard. The Irish have won four consecutive on the road since dropping a 10-7 decision at Pennsylvania in the second game of the season. It’s the most consecutive road wins since the 1996 when the Irish played seven straight homes games and won seven of those games producing wins over UMBC, Villanova, Air Force, Butler, Hobart, Harvard and Dartmouth. The UMBC was played at a neutral site, but the six other contests were played at the home sites of each of the team.
IRISH IN THE NATIONAL STATISTICS – Notre Dame has several players ranked among the national leaders this week – Tom Glatzel is 13th in goals per game, Chad DeBolt (Waterloo, N.Y.) is fifth in face-off winning percentage, Kevin Higgins is 15th in that same category, while Kirk Howell is fourth in goals against average and 20th in save percentage. As a team, the Irish rank 12th in scoring defense, fifth in face-off winning percentage, 11th in scoring margin and seventh in winning percentage.