Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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ND SPORTS 15-10 gap with four straight goals. Rice freed his hands and fired a shot toward the top corner, which landed safely in the netting of Conor Kelly's goal stick as time expired. Kelly would have been low on the list of likely Irish heroes a month ear- lier. The path that led him to making the save that sealed a 15-14 ACC title game victory — Notre Dame's first conference trophy since 2009 — was a bumpy one. The junior lost his start- ing job to freshman Shane Doss after the team started the season 2-2. Head coach Kevin Corrigan said Kelly buck- led down in practice and regained his spot in net as the team geared up for a playoff push. "Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want," Kelly said. "I got a little bit of that earlier in the year. I just tried to keep working and getting better so I could find my stride here at the end." No. 6 Notre Dame survived a series of nail-biting finishes unscathed to land on top of what could be the best con- ference college lacrosse has ever seen. All six ACC teams spent the major- ity of the year ranked in the top 10 of national polls. The Irish got there by winning games in a variety of ways on the shoulders of a variety of players. Their versatility adds up to a danger- ous team, which like Kelly, is just hit- ting its stride at an ideal time. The day before Kelly shut the door on a Syracuse comeback, sophomore Senior attackman John Scioscia tallied four goals in Notre Dame's 13-5 triumph over Harvard, which gave the Irish a spot in the quarterfinal round of the NCAA Tournament for the fifth straight year. PHOTO BY JOE RAYMOND