On Sunday, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish took down the Johns Hopkins Blue Jays at Arlotta Stadium in South Bend during the first round of the NCAA Tournament, 16-9. The are the #7 overall seed in the tournament and somewhat easily got past the Blue Jays from the Big Ten (lol). Notre Dame was led by Morrison Mirer and his 4 goals. The Irish also got plenty of offensive help from Bryan Costabile and Ryder Garnsey as they each netted three goals on the day. The Irish will face the #2 seed Duke Blue Devils this Saturday in Hempstead, New York at 2:30 EST. The game will be shown live on ESPNU.<doc-sep>No. 4 overall seed Northwestern defeated Notre Dame in the second round of the NCAA Tournament on Sunday, scoring the first eight goals of the game to get out to an ultimately unassailable lead. Though it looked like a blowout after NU’s impressive opening salvo, the Fighting Irish made it into a fight down the stretch, forcing the ‘Cats to make some big plays in order to hold on. Lasota led Northwestern with five goals and an assist. Shane wasn’t far behind, finishing with four goals and an assist. Northwestern’s speed and defensive effort gave them a number of offensive opportunities in the first part of the game. Emily Stein scored off an early free position to put the Wildcats up 1-0 within the first minute of the game, and behind two goals each from freshman Izzy Scane and senior Selena Lasota along with one from Lindsey McKone, the Wildcats were up 6-0 less than 10 minutes into the half. Even with yellow cards given to both Lasota and Scane in the first half, the Fighting Irish weren’t able to capitalize offensively. Notre Dame had only recorded 13 shots by halftime compared to Northwestern’s 21. Many of the attempts to transition to offense from the visitors were unsuccessful due to dropped passes, on which the Wildcats were quick to capitalize. By the end of the half, the Wildcats had already tallied a whopping 19 ground balls. NU’s defense did a good job containing Notre Dame sophomore attacker Maddie Howe in the first half, who scored six goals in the Fighting Irish’s win over Stanford to open up the NCAA Tournament. Their tight face guarding of Howe forced other players to contribute offensively, and it took until there were less than ten minutes left in the first half for Samantha Lynch to respond and put something on the board for ND. The one place that Notre Dame kept up with Northwestern throughout the first half was the draw circle. Coming into the NCAA Tournament, Notre Dame ranked second in the country in draw controls, and this strength helped them get possession throughout the game. At the end of the first half, Notre Dame led with six draw controls to Northwestern’s five. Halftime from Evanston:#B1GCats 8 - ND 2 Selena Lasota: 2️⃣ goals Izzy Scane: 2️⃣ goals Lindsey McKones: 2️⃣ goals Mallory Weisse: 5️⃣ saves — Northwestern Lax (@NULax) May 12, 2019 The second half started out much more competitive than the first. Selena Lasota scored again to secure her hat trick, but Notre Dame came back with four straight goals in the following five minutes. Maddie Howe, Andie Aldave and Nikki Ortega each contributed their first goals of the game, and Lynch her second. This offensive surge from the Irish cut Northwestern’s lead to just three at 9-6. Luckily for the ‘Cats, Lasota came back with a score to end the ND scoring run. Shane immediately snagged a hat trick of her own before Lasota scored again to put the Wildcats back up by five. Spin cycle Make it a hat trick for Izzy Scane as she blows by the Irish to push the 'Cats lead back to five! H2 16:51 | #B1GCats 11 - ND 6 pic.twitter.com/dSM7Dv5lsN — Northwestern Lax (@NULax) May 12, 2019 A fourth yellow card on Northwestern with 8:28 left in the half gave Notre Dame a man-up situation that they were finally able to capitalize on. Freshman Madison Mote scored her first of the game for the Fighting Irish to make it 12-8. Howe then bookended Mote’s goal to gain a hat trick, making the Wildcat faithful start to sweat. Samantha Lynch followed with her own hat trick after another goal from Scane to cut the Wildcats’ lead back to three. As the clock ran down, Notre Dame’s defense hustled to double, but despite their desperation, the Fighting Irish were ultimately unable to score again, leaving the final score at 13-10. Mallory Weisse led an impressive defensive effort, continuing her streak of double-digit saves with ten stops. Though the Wildcats allowed ND to control the draw circle, the defenders around the senior goalkeeper forced the Irish into 16 turnovers and allowed only 20 of their 38 shots to get on frame. By contrast, 28 of the 35 shots the hosts got off were on target, though sophomore goalkeeper Bridget Deehan did an impressive job after replacing starter Samantha Giacolon early in the game, making 11 saves to keep NU from running away with it. Northwestern will host fifth-seeded Syracuse this weekend in the NCAA Quarterfinals.<doc-sep>Forry Smith and Joey Epstein each scored three goals for the Blue Jays (8-8), who trailed 10-2 at halftime before scoring four straight goals to pull within 10-6 with 8:47 remaining in the third quarter. The Fighting Irish (9-6) answered by scoring three of the next four goals.<doc-sep>“Maybe we should have been working on our man-up, and if you’ve seen our man-up percentage, we probably should have been,” Tiffany said. “But we’ve really been working on that culture and believing in each other. We dove deep into that, and this group said, ‘We’ll go in on you, Coach, and see what happens here.’ ”<doc-sep>
During a late-season run that propelled the Johns Hopkins men's lacrosse team to the postseason, the Blue Jays made something of a habit of erasing big deficits with spirited comebacks. But on Sunday night, in an NCAA first-round game against Notre Dame, the deficit proved too big to come back from as Hopkins came up on the losing end of a 16-9 result in South Bend, Indiana. JHU's Forry Smith scored the first goal of the game, but the Fighting Irish responded with a seven-goal run and led 10-2 at halftime. The Blue Jays got no closer than four goals the rest of the way. Notre Dame (9-6), the tournament's seventh seed, advanced to the NCAA quarterfinal round for the seventh time in eight years. The Fighting Irish will face No. 2 seed Duke, which advanced with a 12-11 win against Richmond. Complete NCAA men's lacrosse tournament bracket Johns Hopkins finished the season with an 8-8 record that included two wins against rival Maryland and an overtime loss to top-ranked Penn State in the Big Ten tournament championship game. Hopkins made a push early in the second half, scoring four goals of the third quarter to cut an eight-goal halftime deficit in half in less than seven minutes. Smith, who had both of JHU's first-half goals, completed his third career hat trick just 71 seconds into the third quarter, and Joey Epstein scored twice in a span of just over two minutes a short time later to make it 10-5. The four-goal run was complete with 8:47 left in the third when junior Cole Williams swept across the field and fired home a left-handed shot to make it 10-6. The Irish halted the run with back-to-back goals from Morrison Mirer and Ryder Garnsey to make it 12-6. Epstein scored his 48th goal of the season for Hopkins to make it 12-7, but Notre Dame put the game away by scoring four of the final six goals of the game over the final 16:21 to secure its trip to the quarterfinals. Epstein totaled three goals and three assists, and his 10 hat tricks for the season were one shy of the Hopkins single-season record of 11. Smith (three goals) and Williams (two goals, one assist) each had three points for the Blue Jays, and goalkeeper Jacob Giacalone played the final 47:19 and posted a career-high 10 saves. Complete box score