April 21, 2018
By John Heisler
The raw line score showed North Carolina over Notre Dame 10-9 in men’s lacrosse action Saturday in Chapel Hill.
But that didn’t really begin to tell the story of what transpired on a near-perfect, sunny, 64-degree day.
With the 2018 Atlantic Coast Conference Men’s Lacrosse Championship a week away, the final regular-season conference matchup between 14th-ranked Notre Dame and a desperate North Carolina squad came fraught with postseason implications.
In a back-and-forth matchup that featured eight ties and four lead changes, the Tar Heels won the game yet ended up out of the ACC bracket for next weekend’s play in Charlottesville. The Irish lost the game Saturday yet finished with their highest realistic seed in that bracket.
With the Irish, Tar Heels and Virginia in a battle for the final two spots in the conference tournament lineup (Syracuse — unbeaten in league play — and Duke already had locked up the top two seeds), Notre Dame might have considered bringing a mathematician with its travel party.
North Carolina, after seven consecutive defeats, needed the victory to create a three-way tie for those last two slots — and that led to use of a complicated goals-allowed criterion that was applied only to games against the other tied teams.
Virginia already stood at 21 goals allowed in its games against Notre Dame and North Carolina — while the Irish permitted 17 (Carolina became the odd team out after allowing 24). If somehow the game Saturday at Kenan Stadium had ended with the Heels winning 14-6, the three teams would have remained tied and then gone to a goal differential formula.
There was even more riding on the result since there is no non-league game arranged for the fifth-place team at the ACC Championship site as there has been in recent years. That means Carolina’s season is finished.
All that make sense? Need a calculator to figure it out? Don’t feel badly.
North Carolina (now 7-7) won its first six games in 2018, then Saturday posted its first victory since defeating St. John’s on March 3. Three of its last five losses came by a single goal.
Notre Dame (6-5) played its second consecutive one-goal game and fourth in 2018.
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Notre Dame never led in the opening half after goals from Ryder Garnsey (two), Bryan Costabile and Brendan Collins. The only two-goal lead of the afternoon came after consecutive tallies midway through the second period made it 5-3 for North Carolina.
The Irish took their first advantage at 6-5 after Costabile and Pierre Byrne goals to start the second half (Costabile’s with the Irish up a man). After the Heels regained an advantage with two goals in 13 seconds to end the third period, Mikey Wynne tied it 7-7 almost four minutes into the fourth period.
Consecutive goals by Costabile (his third, that one on extra-man execution) and Tom McNamara gave Kevin Corrigan’s club its final lead at 9-8 with 8:25 remaining. The Irish, after missing on 12 straight shots, had buried five of 10 to that point. Notre Dame’s three third-period scores came in a 2:40 span.
Tar Heel senior and leading scorer Chris Cloutier, limited to a single shot in the first half, tied the game 9-9 at the 4:32 mark. A major penalty against the Irish gave the home team a man-up opportunity — and Cloutier took advantage of that for the game-winner 38 seconds later.
The Irish had its own man-up chance in the final three minutes, but Carolina held Notre Dame without a shot on that extra-man option and then took advantage of an Irish turnover. Costabile couldn’t connect on his last-gasp shot with 10 seconds remaining.
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Corrigan liked the way his team responded after intermission, outshooting the Heels 15-5 in the third period to grab a lead with 1:17 on the third-period clock. But the Irish committed a dozen second-half turnovers (after three in the first half) and missed out on a half-dozen extra-man opportunities (five of those after intermission).
John Travisano won 16 of his 21 face-offs (the Irish as a team were 17 of 22). Tar Heel goaltender Alex Bassil posted his first victory in his six starts by making 14 saves (nine in the second half). Notre Dame freshman net-minder Matt Schmidt saved seven shots.
The Irish head to Charlottesville to meet third-rated Duke (12-2) in a Friday night ACC Championship semifinal. Top seed Syracuse (7-5) will play fourth-seeded Virginia (10-4) in the other game. The winners meet at noon Sunday. Notre Dame’s regular-season meeting with the Blue Devils April 7 in South Bend produced an 8-2 Duke win.
“I’m proud of the way we played,” Corrigan told his team at the end, “that we fought to the last second. We had a chance at the end because of how hard we played.”
With Notre Dame’s last nine games determined by an average of a little more than two goals per contest, he knows the margin for error is slim. An extra turnover, penalty or missed opportunity can prove the difference. Over the course of 11 games in 2018, Irish opponents have scored one more total combined goal than Notre Dame.
“We know what the formula is,” said Corrigan.
How well his Irish make it work next week in Charlottesville and then in their regular-season home finale May 5 versus Army will determine what the rest of their May calendar looks like.
Senior associate athletics director John Heisler has been following the Irish sports scene since 1978.