April 22, 2001
Box Score
Fairfield, Conn. -
The fourth-ranked Notre Dame men's lacrosse team
clinched its third straight Great Western Lacrosse League title for its
best start in school history as the Irish defeated Fairfield 12-5 in its
regular-season road finale. Junior midfield John Flandina (West Islip,
N.Y.) scored three goals to lead the Irish to their 11th win of the season,
equaling the school record for wins set in 1993. With the win Notre Dame
improves to 11-1 overall and 4-0 in the GWLL.
Jon Harvey (Winchester, Mass.), Steve Bishko (West Islip, N.Y.) and
Chris Young (Manlius, N.Y.) scored two goals each as Notre Dame won its
sixth straight. David Ulrich (Baltimore, Md.), who became the Irish's
career assist leader in the last game against Butler, added to his career
assist total (now at 106) as he finished with four assists and a goal.
The Stags, who fell to 6-6 overall and 2-2 in the GWLL, controlled
the tempo of the game for the first 12 minutes and used a ball-controlled
offense to dictate play. Fairfield got on the board first when Shaun
Graham scored on an unassisted goal to give the Stags a 1-0 advantage. The
Irish, however, countered quickly with five unanswered goals with Flandina
scoring twice and Bishko, Young and Devin Ryan (Kensington, Md.) each
tallying a goal.
Fairfield pulled to within 5-2 midway through the second quarter on
Peter Vlahakis' score, but Notre Dame regained the momentum on back-to-back
goals by Harvey and Young as the Irish held a 7-2 halftime advantage.
At the 11:45 mark of the third quarter, Bishko scored his second
goal of the game, and 41 seconds later, Todd Ulrich (Baltimore, Md.) added
another score as Notre Dame increased its lead to 9-2. Fairfield's Rob
Scipioni, who finished with two goals in the game, scored his first goal
with 6:30 left in the third quarter. Flandina tallied his first goal of
the game with 1:50 left to play and Marc Torrey closed out the scoring for
the Stags in the third quarter as the Irish led 10-4 at the end of three
periods.
Notre Dame scored two goals in the final 15-minute stanza and held
its opponent to six goals and under for the fifth time in five games.
Kirk Howell (Nashville, Tenn.) made 13 saves in the contest, while
CJ Kemp came up with 16 stops, eight in the final quarter, for the Stags.
This is the first time in school history that a Notre Dame team has
won 11 of its first 12 games. The 1994 Irish squad won 10 of its first 11
games before suffering suffering its second setback of the season in the
first round of the NCAA tournament to finish the campaign with a 10-2 mark.
The Irish finish with a a 6-1 road mark, its second best road
record during the regular season.
Notre Dame plays its final regular-season contest on Sat. April 28
at 1:00 p.m. when the Irish play host to Harvard at Moose Krause Stadium.
