Fighting Irish Dominate Orange 17-7

Syracuse, NY - On a day that saw 100 years of success of Syracuse lacrosse celebrated, the Orange suffered its worst loss in over two years, falling to No. 2 Notre Dame 17-7 Saturday in the Carrier Dome.

After dropping back-to-back overtime games coming into this game, the Orange is now on its first three-game losing streak since 2007.

"I'm very disappointed on our end," Syracuse head coach John Desko said. "I thought we were well prepared. Mentally, something was wrong today.

"The previous two games, I thought we played very well," Desko said. "We seemed to have similar break downs defensively that we had out there today. As coaches, its tough because we have a short week. We really have to turn around and focus for Wednesday night."

Ryder Garnsey finished with five goals, Mikey Wynne added four and Matt Kavanagh finished with nine points to lead the Fighting Irish (7-1, 2-0 ACC) to the dominating victory.

"Unusual feeling to come in here and get a win in the Dome," Notre Dame head coach Kevin Corrigan said. "We played better lacrosse in practice, but we certainly haven't put it together for 60 minutes like we did today."

Jordan Evans was the only Orange (5-3, 1-2 ACC) player to score more than one goal, finishing with a hat trick as one of only two Syracuse players to have multiple points. Tim Barber finished with a goal and two assists, both on Evans goals.

Irish Hot From the Start

It took Notre Dame just 78 seconds to score the opening goal of the contest and the Irish led 2-0 less than four minutes in. They led by no fewer than two goals the rest of the way.

Barber scored his lone goal of the game before Notre Dame scored twice more in just 39 seconds to hand Syracuse its largest deficit of the season.

Trailing 5-2 to open the second, Dylan Donahue scored during a Notre Dame penalty to cut it to two. With the goal, Donahue became the 17th player in Syracuse history with 200 career points. It would be the only point on the day for the senior.

When asked if this was a bright spot during a difficult day, Donahue was very simple with his answer.

"No, it doesn't make it better," Donahue said. "They just straight up out played us today."

Notre Dame stretched the lead to 9-4 at the half, the largest Syracuse halftime deficit of the year.

"They didn't do anything different today" Desko said. "They just came in to play."

Second Half, More of the Same

Down by four, Evans scored two goals in the first five minutes of the second half to cut the Notre Dame lead to three. His first goal came off a pass from Derek DeJoe from behind the net. Cutting in front of the goal, Evans flipped his stick over his left shoulder and past the goalkeeper.

But it was all Irish from there as Notre Dame scored the next three goals to make it a six goal game.

"The ball went in the back of the net today," Corrigan said. "We just stayed at what we've been doing all year."

Evans scored his final goal of the game with just under five minutes to go in the third quarter, but that would be the last Orange goal scored as the Fighting Irish scored the final five goals of the contest.

Orange Defense Struggles

The biggest problem was the defense, with the leader of the defense, goalkeeper Warren Hill making just four saves and allowing 14 goals. But Desko didn't blame him.

"Its disappointing to give up the number of goals and really the mental errors with such experience back there," Desko said. "You can't put this one on Warren. Its not like everything was going in from 15 yards. When its going in from 6, 7, 8 yards, there aren't a lot of goalies that are going to save those consistently."

This was the worst loss for the Orange since falling 21-7 to Duke on March 23, 2014. It also marked the worst offensive performance for Syracuse since that game.

Syracuse will only have three days before they try to bounce back and end the losing streak when it travels to Hobart on Wednesday.