Notre Dame Edges Orange for ACC Title, 15-14

Sunday, April 27

Chester, PA

1pm

Syracuse University

10-4

Notre Dame

8-5

Notre Dame

Syracuse

Photo by: Todd Bauders

4/27/2014 6:41:00 PM | Men's Lacrosse

Box Score

Kevin Rice sets tournament records for points and assists in loss

Score By Period	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	Total
Notre Dame	3	4	7	1	15
Syracuse	4	3	2	5	14
Box Score \| Highlights \| Press Conference Sunday, April 27, 2014 \| PPL Park / Chester, Pa. \| Attendance: 4,552

CHESTER, Pa. – In a battle of the league's two newest members, No. 9 Notre Dame (8-5) held off a furious rally by No. 4 Syracuse (10-4) and defeated the Orange, 15-14, to win the 2014 Atlantic Coast Conference Men's Lacrosse Championship Sunday, April 27 at PPL Park.

The third-seeded Orange scored four goals in the last nine minutes, but couldn't overcome a 15-10 deficit two days after climbing out of a 14-10 fourth-quarter hole for an improbable 16-15 semifinal win against Duke.

"Who said we're not in the entertainment business," SU head coach John Desko asked after the game. "My hat's off to Notre Dame. I thought they played hard the whole game. In the second half, they started to pull away from us. We had to take a timeout to slow the bleeding. We settled down and that's when we started our run to come back. We just fell a goal short."

Junior Kevin Rice, who had three goals and five assists against Duke, paced the Orange with one goal and six assists versus the Irish to set the records for points (15) and assists (11) in a single ACC Tournament. He eclipsed the previous tournament record of 12 points held by Virginia's Nick O'Reilly (2013) and North Carolina's Mark Phillips (1996). Rice also surpassed O'Reilly's standard of nine assists established last season.

Randy Staats tied his career high with five goals against the Irish. Nicky Galasso and Derek Maltz added two goals and one assist apiece.

Notre Dame opened up a 3-1 lead six minutes into the game, but five straight goals gave the Orange a 6-3 advantage early in the second quarter. Staats scored back-to-back goals during the run, including a nifty one-handed tally with 13:34 to play in the first half.

Conor Doyle stopped the Orange surge, scoring with 11:34 left before halftime, and the Irish netted four of the last five goals in the second quarter to tie the game 7-7 at the break.

After Dylan Donahue opened the second-half scoring, the Irish tallied six goals in a row to claim an 13-8 advantage with 1:56 left in the third quarter. Matt Kavanagh and Jim Marlatt each had two goals and one assist for Notre Dame in the run.

Staats briefly halted Notre Dame's momentum by converting a Maltz feed, but Kavanagh struck again with 12 seconds remaining in the period to make the score 14-9 heading into the last 15 minutes.

The two sides exchanged goals during the first six minutes of the final period with the Irish taking a 15-10 lead on Jack Near's unassisted goal with 9:45 to go in regulation.

Following Near's goal, it was all Syracuse. The Orange reeled off four consecutive goals, including three in the span of 3:23. Rice had two assists in the scoring spurt and Scott Loy capped the run, scoring with 2:02 remaining to close the gap to 15-14.

Syracuse had two chances to tie the game in the final minute. Billy Ward's shot with 41 seconds to play hit the post and Notre Dame goalie Conor Kelly made a game-saving stop on Rice in the final seconds to deny the Orange a fifth consecutive conference championship.

Junior Bobby Wardwell received his first start of the year in goal for Syracuse. Wardwell made four saves in three quarters of work. He was replaced by Dominic Lamolinara who made two saves in the fourth quarter, including one on Westy Hopkins with just over a minute left that kept it a one-goal game.

Syracuse dominated the final stats. The Orange held the advantage in shots (43-34), ground balls (44-36) and faceoffs (21-12). SU was also a perfect 15-for-15 in the clearing game.

Kavanagh paced the Irish with four goals and two assists to earn tournament MVP honors. Doyle contributed five points (two goals, three assists) and Marlatt added four (three goals, one assist). Kelly finished with eight saves.

Much like the regular-season meeting, Chris Daddio once again had his way with the Irish faceoff specialists. Daddio won 21-of-33 (.636) draws and picked up seven ground balls. It was Daddio's seventh career game with at least 15 faceoff wins and his fifth this season.

Syracuse closes the regular season Saturday, May 3 against Colgate at the Carrier Dome. Faceoff is slated for 4 p.m. on Time Warner Cable SportsChannel.

Game Notes: Rice, Staats, Donahue and defenseman Brandon Mullins were named to the all-tournament team … Maltz eclipsed 100 career points with his two-goal, one-assist performance. Maltz has 101 points (77 goals, 24 assists) in 58 career games … The loss ended SU's six-game winning streak and was the team's first defeat in conference tournament play. The Orange is 5-1 in its three league tournament appearances … Peter Macartney tied his career high with six ground balls … All three games in this year's ACC Tournament were decided by one goal and each time the regular-season winner lost the rematch.