It’s tempting to think Notre Dame coach Kevin Corrigan might have a sense of how to balance a competitive goalie situation.

After all, he plugged in junior Jack Zullo with about 10 minutes to play to stem a Syracuse rally on March 30 to preserve a 13-10 victory. And he turned back to original starter Matt Schmidt to start the fourth quarter of the Irish’s 12-10 defeat of North Carolina in their regular-season finale.

A week later, Schmidt made 18 saves — some routine, some spectacular, all necessary — as Notre Dame (8-5) avenged an earlier loss to Duke with a 12-10 triumph in the ACC semifinals. The Irish visit top-seeded Virginia on Saturday.

But if there’s an art to reading those situations, Corrigan doesn’t claim to have it.

“If I had a recipe, I’d be writing books,” he said.

If there’s anything to credit, it might be Corrigan’s methodical, time-tested approach. He says the Irish staff is transparent about what the expectations and standards of any position are.

That way, surprises are kept to a minimum.

“At the same time, when it comes time to make a decision when you’re in a situation where you have at least two guys you feel like can play but haven’t played consistently, then you fall back on what happens in practice,” Corrigan said. “We watch these guys every day. Counting fall ball, we’re somewhere between 70 and 100 days of watching these guys play this year. Unless there’s something going on in particular at that moment that changes things, you try to fall back on which guy has consistently played at the higher level.”

The Irish will aim for their first three-game winning streak of the season Saturday, which would lead to the conclusion Notre Dame hasn’t achieved much traction. At the same time, Corrigan’s team has only lost one game by more than two goals.

The Irish own victories over Denver, Duke, Maryland and Syracuse and are all but assured a 14th consecutive NCAA tournament appearance.

“We play the hardest schedule in the country, and it would be great to go through it undefeated, but I’m not sure that’s realistic,” Corrigan said. “I think when you look at it, we haven’t played that poorly. The only game we just didn’t play well at all was at Duke. The other games, we haven’t made enough plays to win some of them. I know it’s a wonderful narrative to say we’ve been up and down, but quite honestly, we haven’t been.”

Vikings’ feat

Cleveland State needed only three seasons to post a winning record for the first time. The Vikings (8-7) got there with an 11-9 defeat of Detroit last week, the fourth in five April games for the independent program.

Another bit of encouragement for coach Dylan Sheridan’s program? They didn’t have a senior on the roster this season.

“It’s reassuring in the sense we have guys that have been there before,” Sheridan said. “It’s not the first time they’ve been up a couple or down a couple or played against a Big Ten team. All those experiences are really important. On the other side of things, it’s reassuring to see the player development model is working.”

PHOTO BY JOHN STROHSACKER

One of the best reflections of the Vikings’ system is junior Danny Tesler, a Georgia product who Sheridan describes as the team’s engine. Tesler won 64.4 percent of his faceoffs this season while playing through multiple hernias.

There hasn’t been much recognition for Tesler (or sophomore attackman Michael Wilson, who had 18 goals and 35 assists) because Cleveland State still faces the same problem it did from the outset of the program’s founding: It doesn’t enjoy a conference membership.

That also leaves the Vikings an incredibly narrow path to the postseason — with scheduling challenges coupled with no access to an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.

Sheridan said university president Harlan Sands and athletic director Scott Garrett both attended last week’s finale, and he appreciates they acknowledged the importance of seeking a solution for the absence of a league affiliation. Both Sands and Garrett arrived at Cleveland State within the last year.

“We have to continue to build on what we’ve done here,” Sheridan said. “I know the kind of guys we have, what they’re made of and why they came here. With the kind of people they are, I have no doubt the program will continue on this trajectory. I’m excited because there’s no ceiling on this thing other than the conference affiliation.”

Lightning strikes for Stony Brook

There are plenty of memorable ways to clinch a conference championship. Few have done it quite like Stony Brook did Friday night.

The Seawolves (9-5) sealed their first outright America East title since 2012 with a 12-10 defeat of Albany. Stony Brook led 10-9 after three quarters before lightning caused a delay.

Every time there was a lightning strike in the area, the clock reset to 30 minutes before the teams could retake the field. Suffice to say, there were plenty of resets; the delay lasted 2 hours, 8 minutes.

“I gave more pregame talks than I did the entire season, I can tell you that,” Stony Brook coach Jim Nagle said. “The last was ‘Just go out there and play.’”

The teams quickly traded goals, and Tom Haun added his fourth score of the game with seven minutes to go to provide insurance for the Seawolves.

Haun has 31 goals and 12 assists to lead the Seawolves, who face UMBC in Thursday’s America East semifinals, but Stony Brook has five other players with between 20 and 26 points and a veteran anchor in senior long pole Justin Pugal, who has four goals, ranks second on the team in caused turnovers (14) and has taken nine faceoffs along the way.

“We have a lot of depth,” Nagle said. “It’s been really competitive throughout the year, and the competition within our roster has really fueled improvement for our games. Different guys play different toles in different games, and even leading up to this conference semifinal, we’re not 100 percent certain what our lineup will look like.”

Notable numbers

13

Utah junior James Sexton (five goals, eight assists) had 13 points in the Utes’ season-ending 16-10 defeat of Detroit. That’s tied for the seventh most points in a single game in Division I history. Harvard’s Morgan Cheek was the most recent player with a 13-point game, doing so last season against Boston University.

31

Holy Cross’ streak of 31 consecutive sub-.500 seasons is over after the Crusaders upended Lehigh 12-7 in their regular-season finale. While Holy Cross (7-7) saw its season end with a loss to Army in the Patriot League quarterfinals on Tuesday, it was still a considerable step forward for the Crusaders under interim coach Peter Burke.

12,405

Saturday’s Johns Hopkins-Maryland game had an announced attendance of 12,405, the largest of any Division I game this season. It’s the third consecutive year the rivalry game has drawn a crowd of at least 10,000 to cap the regular season for both teams.