#7/#10 Notre Dame wins over Marquette, 11-10, on last-minute Perkovic goal.  The #MotorCityHitman had a personal best 6 goals.

The Fighting Irish were up 8-2 in the 2nd quarter and looking to put the Golden Eagles away when things started to dry up.  Marquette clawed their way back into the game and tied it 10-10 with eight minutes left in the 4th.  A long and very stressful stalemate followed. Perkovic broke the impasse with about 25 seconds left, and the defense made one final stand to secure the victory.


Wynne added two goals to Sergio’s six, and Gleason, Marini and Gray also had tallies.  The Irish were statisticallly on the wrong side of ground balls, shots, penalties and faceoffs. but ahead on turnovers, caused turnovers and saves.

Offensively, the Notre Dame came out with a lot of new looks.  Perkovic rarely left the field and played on both midfield lines. Costabile ran some with the second unit, and Marini saw the field for long stretches.  Even with Sergio scoring six, there was hardly any outside shooting and complementary cannons like Willets do not appear to have seen the field.  At first, these combinations were all over Marquette, but this quickly came to a grinding halt.  It seemed strange to us that the coaching staff would implement wholesale changes on a short practice week.

Similarly, the defense seemed to use quite a few new combinations.  We noticed Kielty got a lot of time, and Carter and Restic saw the field.  Most noticeably, there was no Drew Schantz.  Again, there were a lot of changes apparent that seemed odd given the that it’s only been a few days since Duke.

Our pregame questions wound up not being to critical to the game:

  1. Man-down defense:  Marquette had five opportunities.  In the first two the defense was garbage and the Golden Eagles scored quickly.  They seemed to get it together the rest of the game and killed the last 3 penalties.  We’ve watched the game twice and still don’t have an opinion if the success later in the game will translate into continued improvement.
  2. EMO:  The Irish only had one man-up situation.  While they didn’t score, it did look promising and they resisted the urge to take a bad shot early in the penalty.  The sample size is too small to draw any conclusions.

Our game notes:

  • Whatever happens moving forward, the Irish will be technically eligible for the NCAA tournament.  They will however, need to finish strong to secure a first-round home game.
  • Early in the season when Sergio was in a shooting slump, we questioned whether his eventual return to form would be additive to, or a substitute for, Garnsey’s scoring.  At the moment, unfortunately, it seems Garnsey and Perkovic are an either/or combination.  This will be a big waste if the Irish can’t figure out a better way to make them complimentary scorers.
  • We’re not ready to sound the alarm bells yet, but the Irish seem to be having challenges finishing off fast breaks.  This has historically been Notre Dame’s bread and butter, so concern is accumulating.  In this same regard, Wynne has gone a few games with flubbed doorstep opportunities.  We hope this trend stops.
  • After a good week in Durham, the faceoff crew had a rough day.  The good news is that Marquette was not much of a fast break threat out of the faceoff even if they had substantial win advantage.
  • Perkovic scored six without going to his cannon.  This has to count for something!
  • Notre Dame has a week and a half before North Carolina comes to Arlotta.  We suspect the coaching staff will have a come-to-Jesus moment with this team during this break to make sure they get it together for the final push to the #BigBBQ.  As we noted in the preview, there aren’t any teams that outclass the Irish, but the Irish haven’t done much to elevate themselves from the pack either.

What do you think?  We’ll enjoy your comments.

#GoIrish