March 11, 2003
Charlottesville, Va. – The Notre Dame men’s lacrosse team, ranked ninth in the nation, suffered its first loss of the season by falling to #1 Virginia, 14-8, today in Charlottesville, Va. The Irish fall to 3-1 on the season, while Virginia improves to 4-0 in 2003.
The Irish and the Cavaliers battled back and forth for much of the first half. Virginia got on the board first as Chris Rotelli, who was the Warrior/Inside Lacrosse College Player of the Week last week, scored his first of three goals in the game at 13:42 of the first quarter. Notre Dame answered right back when junior Dan Berger connected at 12:07 on a bounce shot from the right hash. Rotelli gave UVA the lead again 1:15 later scoring on an assist from Matt Ward. Only 1:08 later, Notre Dame tied the game at 2-2 as junior Matt Howell continued his spectacular season with his ninth goal of the year at 9:41 of the first. UVA answered though with two goals to close out the first quarter as John Christmas scored at the 9:27 mark of the period and Joe Yevoli score at 3:26, giving the Cavaliers a 4-2 lead after one.
Notre Dame closed the gap to 4-3 on a goal by freshman Patrick Walsh, but that is all the closer the Irish would get as Virginia scored five unanswered goals to close out the second quarter and start the third. UVA received two goals each by Ward and Christmas extending the Cavaliers lead to 9-3 with 11:37 to go in the third quarter.
The Irish tried to make it interesting scoring three goals, including two extra-man tallies, and closing the gap to 9-6. Howell scored his second goal of the game at 9:57 of the third before Walsh recorded his second goal of the game at 2:59 and Berger answered with his second goal of the contest only 36 seconds later.
Virginia went on to score the next four goals as both Rotelli and Ward completed their hattricks and the Cavaliers cruised to the win. Irish freshman Matt Karweck and senior Travis Wells did score goals for the Irish late in the game making the final score 14-8.
Irish goalkeeper Stewart Crosland was busy all day as he made 21 saves in the game. Virginia used three keepers in the contest and the breakdown of minutes played was unavailable.
Berger, Howell and Walsh all had two goals in the game for the Irish. Berger and Howell also recorded an assist each, while Wells had two in the game. Christmas had four goals and two assists to lead Virginia, while Rotelli, Yevoli and Ward all had four points each.
Notre Dame returns home on Saturday, March 15, as it plays host to Loyola at 2:00 p.m. It has not been determined if the game will be played indoors at the Loftus Sports Center or outdoors at Moose Krause Stadium. Please check und.com later in the week for the location of the game.