(Photo Courtesy of Notre Dame Athletics)
The Notre Dame Fighting Irish moved their winning streak to four games with a 12-5 victory over North Carolina during a South Bend edition of ACC Thursday night lacrosse.
Notre Dame’s win improved their NCAA Tournament resume, which simultaneously huts the Tar Heels’ resume and potentially ends their hoped of getting into the tournament.
Liam Entenmann made 14 saves to anchor the effort, helping to keep North Carolina off the scoreboard from early in the second quarter through the 4:38 mark in the fourth quarter (36-plus minutes).
While the Irish defense proved to be smothering on one end, their offense went to work on the other. Eric Dobson had a third-quarter hat trick and added one more in the fourth, converting to four of his five shots. Jake Taylor also ended the day with a hat trick with two of his goals coming during the Irish’s nine-goal run from the 7:28 mark in the second through the 11:39 mark in the fourth.
Additionally, Will Lynch went 11-for-17 (64%) at the faceoff dot, dominating the banged up Carolina faceoff of Andrew Tyeryear and Zac Tucci. Graham Schwartz also saw action for the Tar Heels, going 5-for-8.
Chris Gray’s lone goal of the day came with 10:59 left in the second quarter and gave the Tar Heels the only lead they would see all day, 3-2. He assisted on the previous score to make it a 2-2 game at the end of the first and dished out another assist with 57 seconds left on a man-up Lance Tillman score. Gray exited the game just five points away from Lyle Thompson’s all-time scoring record.
Notre Dame outshot North Carolina just 46-45, but the Tar Heels only put 19 of those shots on cage while the Irish put 23 of their shots on cage. The Tar Heels missed 20 straight shots at one point during their scoring drought.
The Irish also won the ground ball battle 34-26 and held the Tar Heels to a 17-for-20 mark in the clearing game, thanks in part to the hard-nosed riding from Pat and Chris Kavanagh.
Notre Dame moves to face Syracuse in the Dome next weekend while North Carolina will face arch-rival Duke at home in Chapel Hill next weekend.
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