Syracuse puts an end to Notre Dame's three game win streak in 79-65 win

 

SOUTH BEND, Ind. – The Irish didn't have enough down the stretch as foul trouble hurt their production.

Coming into Thursday night's game, the Irish knew the rematch against Syracuse would present problems, as they did during the 86-81 loss on the road on December 31.

This time, the Irish knew it would be a matter of cleaning up mistakes as recent ACC player of the week Dyaisha Fair led the Orange.

Notre Dame had the home crowd behind them in a gritty game but trailed 32-38 at the half.

One area of concern was the lack of rebounding. Syracuse outplayed Notre Dame on the boards 50-35. 19 of which came from the offensive boards.

It didn't help that Head Coach Niele Ivey's starters found their way into foul trouble. Maddy Westbeld sat on the bench to open the fourth and Hannah Hidalgo joined her after gaining her fourth foul, less than one minute into the final quarter.

Hidalgo finished with 23 points in 35 minutes and there seemed to be a lid on the basket for junior guard Sonia Citron (14), shooting 4-17 from the field.

"We got to move on to UConn. You gotta you gotta learn from this. But we don't have that much time. We only have 24 hours to prepare to be able to fix tonight, or, you know, dwell on tonight and learn from tonight. And then we got to move on to another scout. You know, we played eight o'clock on Saturday, so we can't stay on it too long," Ivey said.

"It sucks, but it happens in sports, a team has to lose. So, I think it's just like Coach Ivey said, not letting it go to waste and learning from it. Like, you learn the most when you lose. So, it's as long as you learn from it get better fix what we need to fix, then it's okay, we're gonna end up being better for this. But it's a problem if we don't learn," Citron added.

The Irish are back on the road Saturday night at 8 p.m. against #8 UConn.