DURHAM, N.C. — You only needed about 11 seconds to learn most of what you needed to know about Boston College’s night in the ACC women’s lacrosse semifinals. The first 11 of the second half, to be precise.

Up 11-4 at the break, the Eagles’ Dempsey Arsenault won the opening draw, passed to a teammate and, with just those 11 seconds ticked off, got a return pass from Elizabeth Miller while standing on the crease and buried it.

After a relatively even opening 15 minutes, Arsenault, along with sophomore draw specialist Sheila Rietano, came alive for Boston College and the Irish had no answer as the Eagles rolled to a 17-7 victory Friday in the ACC tournament semifinals. Arsenault scored three goals, while Sam Apuzzo and Kaileen Hart scored four each, but it was Arsenault and Rietano’s dominance in the draw circle that starved Notre Dame of possession and sparked an 11-1 Boston College run. From about midway through the first half, with the game still tight, Rietano and Arsenault won 10 of the next 16 draw controls. Rietano won a game-high six and Arsenault coralled five, including her 11-second draw-to-goal to open the second half.

“Sheila Rietano gave us a huge spark in the draw,” Boston College coach Acacia Walker-Weinstein said. Arsenault, she said, “is so dominant. She’s in the middle of every draw, every ride, every scoring play. She’s hitting her stride, but she has so much more to give us.” 

While draw controls were even between the teams at 6-6 in the early going, by the end of the game, Boston College led in the circle 16-9. Arsenault also had one assist and two caused turnovers, the latter a team high.

The top-seeded Eagles will seek their 20th win in their so-far undefeated season against the winner of North Carolina-Virginia Tech in the championship Sunday. In a season of firsts and superlatives, the appearance will mark Boston College’s first appearance in the conference title game.

Boston College opened an 11-4 halftime lead on the strength of two three-goals runs and a six-goal streak to finish the half, during which they held the Irish scoreless for nearly all of the final 14 minutes.

Irish freshman Andy Aldave scored with 43 seconds left for her second goal of the game, barely becoming her team’s only multi-goal scorer. Irish stars Savannah Buchanan and Nikki Ortega only scored once each, while team leading scorer Maddie Howe went scoreless.

Notre Dame coach Christine Halfpenny said her team’s youth versus the experience of Boston College took its toll.

“There were so many times we just missed a ground ball or just missed a shot,” she said.

Halfpenny attributed her normally high-scoring offense’s anemic output to simple math.

“I think we’re going to look at it and see they had the ball about 75 percent of the time and we had it 25 percent,” she said.

Typical of the Irish’s struggles was a sequence with just a minute left in the first half. Aldave took her defender from the top of the 8-meter circle and fired a shot just off target that rebounded off the crossbar. Boston College promptly collected the rebound, worked the ball upfield and, with the Irish scambling to cover the fast break, Kaileen Hart drew a slide and passed to an undefended Tara Schurr in front of the goal for the easy finish. Schurr’s goal put the Eagles up by seven at the break, ending much suspense of the outcome.