May 6, 2012

Yale to Face Notre Dame Sunday

Elis Take on No. 4 Seed at Notre Dame

NEW HAVEN, Conn. – The Yale men's lacrosse team didn't have to wait long to find out who it plays this weekend in the first round of the 2012 NCAA Tournament. The 11-4 Bulldogs, coming off an Ivy Championship Game win over Princeton that concluded about 2 p.m. today, found out at 9:15 p.m. that they would travel to No. 4 seed Notre Dame (11-2) on Sunday, May 13, for a 5:15 p.m. game at Arlotta Stadium. The game airs live on ESPNU.

"We're excited," said Yale head coach Andy Shay. "We're still coming down from the thought of being in the tournament, so we're happy to play anybody."

The Elis, making their first NCAA appearance since 1992, takes on the Fighting Irish for the first time since 1983, the only meeting between the schools. Yale took that contest 17-5 in Baltimore.

Play in the 16-team NCAA Tournament begins on May 12. The first round is all at campus sites, the semifinals and championship game are May 26-28 at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass.

The 16-team field includes seven conference champions with automatic qualification: Ivy League (Yale), American East Conference (Stony Brook), Big East Conference (Syracuse), Colonial Athletic Association (Massachusetts), Eastern College Athletic Conference (Loyola (Md.), Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (Canisius) and Patriot League (Lehigh). The remainder of the field was selected at large: Colgate, Denver, Duke, Johns Hopkins, North Carolina, Maryland, Notre Dame, Princeton, and Virginia.

"I think we're all excited just to hear our names called," said captain Michael Pratt. "We've been watching this show for two years and we're on the opposite side. We're excited to play Notre Dame, we've got another week together, and we'll see what happens on Sunday."

Notre Dame, which lost 8-7 in the inaugural Big East Tournament to St. John's in the semifinals on May 3, was ranked No. 2 in the latest USILA Division I poll. The loss to the Red Storm ended the Fighting Irish win streak at 10 games.

"We know it's going to be a huge challenge and they're extremely well coached. They have a phenomenal defense and a great, patient offense," said Shay, who watched ESPNU's selection show with the Bulldogs at Buffalo Wild Wings in New Haven.

The winner of the Notre Dame-Yale contest takes on the winner of the Virginia-Princeton game in the quarterfinals on Sunday, May 20, at PPL Park in Chester, Pa. Virginia is the tournament's fifth seed, while Princeton is unseeded.

NCAA Tournament Bracket PDF

filed by Steve Conn, Yale Sports Publicity Director