Irish drop second game in a row
By STEVE KEPPEL
Sports Writer
The Notre Dame men's lacrosse team lost its second straight game on Sunday to Hofstra by a score of 8-7.
The Irish allowed five unanswered goals in the second quarter that put them down by four, failing to ever gain the lead. Once again the Irish failed to put together the full 60 minutes of play needed to win.
"We're just not consistently making the plays that we need to make," said head coach Kevin Corrigan. "Part of our problem in the second quarter is that we are not keeping our composure. We are playing good teams and good teams make runs at you. What you do is don't give up more than they make, you don't give them anything easy to extend the run and we are doing the total opposite."
Hofstra came out quick in this one with sophomore Joe Kostolansky scoring the first goal of the contest in the first minute of play.
The Irish picked it up in the last half of the quarter scoring three goals to go up 3-2. The Irish run was led by junior John Harvey who scored two of the three goals and ended the day with his second career hat trick.
The second quarter was a whole different story for Notre Dame as they were outplayed and outscored 5-0. Kirk Howell played well in the goal but the defense seemed tentative and the Flying Dutchmen took complete advantage by going on an unstoppable run scoring a total of six unanswered goals.
With the score 8-3 it looked as though Notre Dame might be in for a repeat performance of last week when it lost 12-2 to Loyola.
But instead of throwing in the towel the Irish came out in the second half and took control scoring four straight goals in a strong attempt to come back. Junior Steve Bishko led the Irish run with two goals, giving him a total of four on the season.
The Irish continued to play well in the fourth quarter but could not capitalize on a few scoring opportunities that could have tied it up.
"We played very well in the fourth period as well as the third but we just couldn't can our opportunities," said Corrigan. "We had four lay-ups in the fourth quarter and you can't not score on those opportunities. If we score on even three of the four of those we look better in the fourth quarter than we did in the third quarter."
The Irish had the chances in this game; they just couldn't take full advantage of their opportunities.
"We're not finishing," said junior John Harvey. "We are getting the shots but we are just not finishing."
"We're doing the things in practice that we have to do," Corrigan said. "We had a good hard week in practice last week and we got considerably better than we were a week ago and we need to do that again this week and prepare ourselves not just for Ohio State but for the rest of the season.
"There's only one way to play the game and we are starting to figure that out," Corrigan said. "Now we have to just keep working at it and get more consistent and do it for 60 minutes and not except anything less than that."
Notre Dame takes on Ohio State next Saturday.
All Sports Stories for Monday, March 27, 2000
