SOUTH BEND, Ind. \u2014 The No. 1 Fighting Irish put an exclamation mark on the regular season, using a huge second half to earn a 16-11 victory over No. 5 Syracuse in front of a capacity crowd at Arlotta Stadium<\/p>\n
The win makes Notre Dame the outright regular-season ACC champs, finishing with a record of 3-1 in league play to earn the No. 1 seed in next week\u2019s ACC Tournament. The Irish wrapped up the regular season with a record of 10-1.<\/p>\n
The Irish will take on No. 8 Virginia in the semifinals of the ACC Tournament at 5 p.m. ET on Friday, May 1 in Charlotte. The game will air on ACCN.<\/p>\n
Luke Miller and Max Busenkell each finished with hat tricks, scoring three goals apiece, to lead the Irish attack. Brock Behrman, Will Angrick and Josh Yago each added a pair of goals and Will Maheras recorded a career-high five points off a goal and a career-best four assists.<\/p>\n
After allowing eight goals in the opening 30 minutes of play, the Irish defense tightened up in the second half and limited the Orange to just three goals.<\/p>\n
HOW IT HAPPENED<\/p>\n
The two sides traded goals over the opening eight minutes of play, as the score was tied at 3-3 just 7 minutes into the contest. Each of Notre Dame\u2019s starting attackmen scored, as Miller, Behrman and Yago each got on the board early.<\/p>\n
The Irish managed to take a one-goal lead into the second quarter, as Busenkell scored towards the end of the first to put Notre Dame up 4-3.<\/p>\n
Notre Dame opened the scoring off Miller\u2019s second goal of the afternoon to start the second stanza to push the advantage to two at 5-3.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Orange roared back with four straight goals over a five-minute span to take their first lead of the game at 7-5. Notre Dame closed the half by firing in two of the final three goals of the quarter to make it an 8-7 game in favor of the visitors heading into the halftime break.<\/p>\n
The Irish were dialed in coming out of the halftime break on both ends of the field, scoring the first five goals of the second half over a 13-minute span to go on top 12-8. Notre Dame\u2019s midfield did the majority of the damage, as Maheras, Dylan Faison, Busenkell and Matt Jeffery scored in the run to go along with a goal from Teddy Lally.<\/p>\n
The Orange made one last run between the end of the third and beginning of the fourth, scoring three straight to cut the Irish lead to one at 12-11 with 13:48 left in regulation.<\/p>\n
Notre Dame wouldn\u2019t let Syracuse get any closer, responding with a 4-0 run to end the game. Behrman and Angrick each found the back of the net within a minute to make it 14-11 before Miller and Busenkell put the final touches on the win with goals in the final six minutes to give the Irish the 16-11 victory.<\/p>\n
STAT OF THE GAME<\/p>\n
Notre Dame is 5-0 against top-10 opponents this season, including a mark of 4-0 against teams ranked in the top-five at the time of the matchup. Four of the five wins have come by four or more goals.<\/p>\n
NOTRE DAME NOTES<\/p>\n
The Irish leveled the all-time series against the Orange at 12-12 with the win and have won five straight at home against Syracuse.
\nNotre Dame finishes the regular season with a record 5-0 at home, marking the first time they end the regular season unbeaten at home since 2015.
\nThe Fighting Irish have now recorded double-digit regular season wins in three of the last four seasons.
\nNotre Dame is now 19-5 in regular-season ACC contests since the start of the 2022 campaign.
\nThe victory gives the Fighting Irish a record of 30-8 against ranked opponents since the beginning of the 2023 season.
\nNotre Dame has now scored 14 or more goals in each of the last four matchups against Syracuse in South Bend.
\nBusenkell\u2019s hat trick was the first of his career.
\nTyler Spano went 13-for-21 at the faceoff dot, marking his fourth straight game with a win rate over 50 percent.
\nThe four assists from Maheras are the most by a Notre Dame player in a game this season.<\/p>\n
UP NEXT<\/p>\n
Notre Dame begins postseason play on Friday, May 1 in Charlotte in the semifinal round of the ACC Tournament at American Legion Memorial Stadium. The Irish will face No. 8 Virginia at 5 p.m. ET. The game will air on ACCN.<\/p>\n
\u2014 ND \u2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SOUTH BEND, Ind. \u2014 The No. 1 Fighting Irish put an exclamation mark on the regular season, using…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":210008,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[61767,61753,61756,61755,61754,61757,61758,83136,61766,9,11,10,49,51,50,61752,61759,57937,61764,61762,61761,61760,61763,61765,61751],"class_list":{"0":"post-210007","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-featured-sport-category","9":"tag-fighting-irish","10":"tag-fighting-irish-baseball","11":"tag-fighting-irish-basketball","12":"tag-fighting-irish-football","13":"tag-fighting-irish-hockey","14":"tag-fighting-irish-soccer","15":"tag-men-s-lacrosse","16":"tag-more-headlines","17":"tag-new-york","18":"tag-new-york-headlines","19":"tag-new-york-news","20":"tag-new-york-state","21":"tag-new-york-state-headlines","22":"tag-new-york-state-news","23":"tag-notre-dame","24":"tag-notre-dame-football-stadium","25":"tag-und","26":"tag-und-athletics","27":"tag-und-baseball","28":"tag-und-basketball","29":"tag-und-football","30":"tag-und-hockey","31":"tag-und-hockey-schedule","32":"tag-university-of-notre-dame"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}