Orange MLAX Fall to 9th Ranked ND
The game was going just as planned for the Orange in the first period. After that, it took a complete turn for the worst and resulted in a 18-11 loss for the Orange against Notre Dame. The Orange dropped their second straight ACC matchup after losing to Duke last week.
In the first period, the Orange had the Irish where they wanted them, leading 5-2 with two pretty goals from Stephen Rehfuss and great offensive and defensive play all around. A switch went off and the Irish started to take over behind stellar play from Pat Kavanagh, Will Yorke, and Griffin Westlin who each had four goals. For the leaders offensively for the Orange, it was Rehfuss with three goals and Seebold and Curry followed with two apiece. The Notre Dame attack went off in the second quarter for nine goals on eleven shots in just the second quarter.
“ I think we kind of cooled our self having the early lead….wheels came off in the second quarter, that’s for sure,” Said Coach Desko.
Defensively the Orange were not able to find a mix after the first period which led to the eighteen goals from the Irish. Notre Dame won the Ground ball game which kept a lot of their attacks alive and gave them more time of possession. The Irish won the ground ball game forty-five to twenty. For nearly the entire 4th period the Irish had the ball at the attack and it's hard to score when you don’t have the ball.
Another major contributing factor to the loss today was the face-off battle. The orange won only nine of the thirty-two face-offs which hurt their momentum and gave it all to the Irish. The Irish were able to capitalize off this and score a good amount of their goals from the face-off wins. The Irish won the possession battle as well and they just had the ball more than the Orange did.
“I mean we had 24 possessions on offense. That’s not a lot. Just not enough today,” Said Coach Desko.
The Orange look to get back in the win column this Thursday, April 8th when they take on Albany at home in the Carrier Dome.