With just 49 seconds left in double-overtime, St. John's scored the winning goal for a 2-1 win over the Irish in Queen's, N.Y., ending Notre Dame's four-game win streak.
"We felt it was harsh justice," Irish coach Bobby Clark said. "We obviously hope that we can learn some things from it. We can learn a lot from their two goals."
The No. 10 Irish displayed offensive dominance over the Red Storm with 12 shots to St. John's seven in the first half of the contest.
"To be honest, I thought we controlled large portions of the game," Clark said. "It was arguably our best performance of the season. We took possession, we took chances."
The Irish were unable to turn their offensive success into points in the first half and both teams ended the first 45 minutes of regulation in a 0-0 tie.
The No. 15 St. John's put a point on the board first in the 54th minute, the first time the Irish gave up a goal since their 2-1 overtime win against Michigan on Sept. 16.
Irish scored their only goal of the game in the 80th minute of play when sophomore forward Leon Brown capitalized on a flubbed save attempt from a Red Storm defender. The point was Brown's first career goal for the Irish.
"We obviously applied a lot of pressure with the equalizer," Clark said.
Brown raked in three shots and two on goal, a team high for the night.
"We did not play [Brown] his freshman year, Clark said. "So really, this is his freshman year as a player for us. He's just getting better and better every game."
The match nearly ended when Brown almost scored again for the Irish in the first sudden-death overtime, which would have ended the game in Notre Dame's favor.
"In their first period of overtime, their goalkeeper had a terrific save," Clark said.
The Red Storm handed the Irish their second loss of the season and their first in the Big East.
As a team, the Irish outshot the Red Storm 13-12, 7-6 on goal.
This game marked Notre Dame's fifth overtime performance so far this season; they are 1-2-2 in overtime games.
The turf field at St. John's provided a new challenge for the Irish, making it a more "active and lively" game, Clark said.
"It's a different place to play with the turf field," he said.
The Irish only have a few days to learn from these goals scored on them by the Red Storm.
"We move on to two very big games. Northwestern is a big regional game for us," Clark said.
The Irish welcome the Wildcats to Alumni Stadium for a match Wednesday at 7 p.m. They will face more conference competition against Connecticut at noon Saturday at home.
Contact Molly Sammon at msammon@nd.edu
