No. 8 Notre Dame (2-0) defeated Richmond (2-2) 11-7 Saturday afternoon. It was their second game of the regular season and their first outdoor game at Arlotta Stadium.
Both the Irish and the Spiders traded quality scoring chances during the opening minutes before senior midfielder Brendan Collins scored his second goal of the season to give Notre Dame the 1-0 lead with 3:29 left in the first quarter. Junior midfielder Brendan Gleason earned an assist on the play.
With only 58 seconds left in the opening frame, sophomore midfielder Bryan Costabile took a feed from Gleason and buried a shot behind the Richmond goaltender for his sixth goal in two games to give the Irish a 2-0 lead.
Notre Dame out-shot the Spiders 9-6 in the first quarter.
With 11:05 left in the second quarter, Gleason got on the scoreboard with his second goal of the season to put Notre Dame up 3-0. After a goal by senior defenseman John Sexton, senior attackman Mikey Wynne took a pass from junior attackman Ryder Garnsey, faked out the goalie and then buried a shot to put the Irish up 5-0 going into halftime.
At the half, Notre Dame led 22-12 in shots.
The Spiders came out much improved in the second half.
Richmond came out strongly to begin the third quarter, scoring two quick goals within the first two minutes of the quarter. After another Richmond goal with 12:39 left in the third to make the score 5-3, two Spider goals within a minute of each other tied the score at 5-5 near the halfway mark of the frame. Richmond took the lead with a goal at 6:11 of the third quarter.
However, the Irish would respond just a minute later. A pass by Gleason from behind the net found sophomore midfielder Brian Willetts, who buried the shot in the Richmond net for his first goal of the season to tie the score a 6-6.
With 12:52 left in the fourth, Gleason took the ball and scored an unassisted goal to put the Irish back on top 7-6. It was Gleason’s fifth point of the game. After Notre Dame took a holding penalty, Richmond capitalized on the man advantage to tie the score 7-7 with 11:15 left in regulation.
Notre Dame had another opportunity to take the lead back with seven and a half minutes left when Richmond took a penalty. On the 30 second man-advantage, Costabile took a feed by freshman midfielder Wheaton Jackoboice and deposited it in the back of the net to give the Irish an 8-7 lead. Just a couple minutes later, Garnsey scored to add some insurance for Notre Dame in the form of a 9-7 lead with 5:18 remaining in the final frame. Richmond pulled their goalie with 1:42 left in the game for the extra-attacker, but Gleason scored an empty-netter to make it 10-7 — Gleason’s sixth point of the game. Wynne scored with eight seconds left for his second goal of the game to make it 11-7.
Notre Dame finished with 41 shots while Richmond finished with 27. Brendan Gleason recorded three goals and three assists for a six point game, while Wynne and Costabile finished with two goals each. Collins, Garnsey, Sexton and Willetts each had one goal, while Notre Dame freshman goaltender Matt Schmidt finished with six saves on the day.
Notre Dame head coach Kevin Corrigan said a various factors led to Richmond’s big third quarter comeback.
“Richmond won some face offs, they scored a couple of goals that we were responsible for and they scored goals that they made really nice plays on, and the next thing you know they’re on a run,” he said. “We didn’t have the ball much and it was hard for us to score because during the third quarter we weren’t winning any face offs.
“We had dominated face offs in the first half and won some face offs late, but we didn’t during that middle period. They were playing a lot of make it take it in the third quarter and it’s hard when you don’t have those possessions. It was a combination of a lot of things, and Richmond kept playing. They pushed out offensively and tried to disrupt what we were doing and did some good things.”
Corrigan said he liked his team’s offense throughout the game.
“I thought the whole game, we really ran some pretty good offense the whole game,” he said. “Obviously in the first half we played some really good defense and in the second half we got a little bit sloppy. We gave up a jump cut, we gave up an unsettled goal, we gave up two passes that went through our defense and ended up on the backside of somebody’s stick wide open those are some things that we know we can’t do.
“But the good things we did, at times we faced off really well, at times we played offense really well, I think if we look back at this game we’re going to look at our shooting and go, ‘Oh my god, we left about eight goals on the board that we should have scored.’ Their goalie made saves, give him credit, but I didn’t think our shooting was great, and like I said in all aspects of the game we rode and cleared very well today, and that was atrocious for us against Detroit. I think we made a lot of improvements in two weeks from where we were two weeks ago. We have to keep getting better though.”
Up next, Notre Dame will travel to College Park, Maryland to take on No. 3 Maryland on Saturday for the team’s first road game of the season.
Corrigan knows his team will face a tough test against the Terrapins.
“Maryland is a really good team,” Corrigan said. “They’re athletic, they’re skilled, they’re well coached, and they’re experienced and confident. That is the whole package. The long and short of it is you just have to play good, smart lacrosse. You can’t give away goals in a game like that. Our games within the last few years have all been battles. We know it’s going to take the same kind of effort to beat them this year.”
