Chalk one up to the luck of the Irish.

In a matchup of two of the nation's top scholar-athlete institutions, the No. 16 Penn State men's lacrosse team fell 10-9 to No. 17 Notre Dame yesterday at Holuba Hall to open the 2003 season.

The day started out well for Penn State, but before long, the Nittany Lions found themselves struggling from behind after Notre Dame scored five unanswered goals between the second and third periods.

"I didn't like the score at the end," Penn State men's lacrosse coach Glenn Thiel said. "Notre Dame played very well. They were poised and kind of methodically did some things on us that I thought we could stop better than we did." After a goal apiece from Will Cutler, Luke Ogelsby and Elliott Jones, the Nittany Lions held a 3-1 lead with three minutes into the second quarter. In that time period, the Penn State defense, led by Matt Zappia, held solidly and gave the Irish's offense very few looks at the goal. Shortly after Penn State's third goal, however, Notre Dame's Matt Howell scorched a shot past goalie Chris Garrity to pull the Irish within one.

"[Penn State] plays a real high-tempo, high-pressure game and it takes some getting used to," Notre Dame men's lacrosse coach Kevin Corrigan said. "It's not something we can duplicate in practice."

The floodgates opened, and the Lions lost their lead for good. The largest deficit Penn State saw on the day was four goals. It seemed every time the offense tried to mount a comeback, Notre Dame always answered back with a goal of its own.

"I don't think we jelled together yet," senior midfielder Marshall Feldman said. "We had a lot of first game mistakes. I never, ever envisioned us losing this game, but we made too many mistakes."

Feldman had two goals in the loss.

The game was also highlighted by solid goaltending at both ends. Garrity, a preseason All-American honorable mention, anchored the Lion defense despite the loss, and made several saves that kept the team in contention. But it the final seconds of the game, Penn State's effort would fall short.

"Both goalies played great," Corrigan said. "It could have been 17 to 16 real easily."

Thiel and Feldman agreed that the offense did not execute effectively to put more goals in the back of the net.

"We had too many opportunities to have only nine goals," Thiel said.

"We should have had 15-16 goals. We played well, but we have to have more poise on our finishing plays. We just came out on the short end."