After 110 minutes of play, there was nothing to show for it.
The Irish again statistically dominated an opponent but were unable to pull out a win, tying the Spartans 0-0 in East Lansing on Tuesday.
"At the end of the day, a tie was maybe the deserved score, even thought statistically maybe we had the better of the game," head coach Bobby Clark said.
The tie puts Notre Dame's record at 7-4-2. The Spartans, defending Big Ten champions, are 4-3-5.
"It was a 0-0 tie, it was one of these games," Clark said. "We had some good moments; we had some moments where we didn't connect as well as we would have liked."
The Irish have struggled to find the net this season and have played seven games with at least one overtime period.
However, their determination and strength of character are something Clark has commented on throughout the season.
"The one thing I would be proud of the team, they kept trying really hard to win it," Clark said. "We forced both the overtimes - Notre Dame was the team looking to win the game."
The Irish were off-balance at times throughout the game, but Clark felt that they controlled the pace for most of the play.
"I felt it took a little while to settle, but the second half of the first half I thought we were excellent," he said. "[But it seems like] whatever I said to them at halftime didn't work, because we opened up the first 15 minutes of the second half - we really struggled, we turned the ball over."
The Irish quickly recovered to find a number of good scoring chances.
"Then we found our feet again and once we did that, I thought we were excellent," Clark said. "Into the overtime I thought we were looking very, very solid, we maybe could have snuck out of there with a win."
The Irish outshot the Spartans 18-11 and had several good chances to score. Joe Lapira recorded six of the shots while Nate Norman had four.
"Joe always works tremendously hard; he did a great job," Clark said. "Nate certainly got some shots away, maybe just a little more control when he got into that shooting position, we might have pulled something out."
Defensively, the Irish had their sixth shutout of the season, all attributed to goalkeeper Chris Cahill.
"Chris Cahill did well, he commanded - he's always been saving well but I thought he looked a much more commanding figure in today's game," Clark said. "He talked loudly and just generally had good presence."
Dale Rellas was out again with an injury, putting Greg Dalby back on defense.
"Those two guys [Dalby and Ben Crouse] did very well," Clark said. "I thought Ryan Miller did well also at right back. He put a lot of energy into the game, a lot of effort."
The Irish have three more road games before returning home to finish the season against Indiana and conference foe Seton Hall.
