ORANGE BEACH, Ala. -- Notre Dame saw its undefeated season and its shot at a national title fall by the wayside on Saturday, as a hard-charging and high-scoring Hastings (Neb.) squad turned away the Falcons, 5-3, in the title game of the 2010 NAIA National Championship Tournament.

Hastings, which would finish the season 25-0-0 with 103 goals scored, got two big goals after NDC went up early in the match. The Falcons (23-1-0) played catch-up the rest of the game and couldn't muster a win in their first championship game appearance. The Broncos managed 22 shots in the game, a season-high against a Notre Dame defense that allowed fewer than eight per game (7.6) in the regular season.

Luke Holmes scored a lightning-fast goal to get the game underway. The Falcons' junior midfielder found nylon on what was the first shot of the contest, at 1:38.

Hastings then did a nice job wresting away the momentum of the match by pressuring the NDC defense with an array of shots. One of those shots got behind NDC keeper Alex Klein at 18:16. The shot came courtesy Nate Polak, and it knotted the score at 1-1. The Broncos kept the pressure on and came away with a second goal in the 29th minute to take a 2-1 lead.

Moments later -- in the 33rd minute -- Polak scored his second goal of the game, and the undefeated Falcons found themselves on the wrong side of a two-goal deficit. But, as odd as it must have felt to the NDC sideline to be down two goals, the feeling didn't last long.

Before the half the Falcons were able to cut the Broncos' lead to one (3-2) when Tom Mellor hammered home a 24-yarder in the 42nd minute. The Lads in Blue & White took that one-goal deficit into halftime, with Hastings out-shooting them, 9-7 (4-2 in shots on goal).

The Hastings offense came out kicking in the second, and the first 15 minutes of the frame were a big key to Hastings bouncing back from Mellor's goal and eventually claiming the NAIA title. In a 10-minute barrage beginning in the 51st minute, the Broncos collected eight shots and two corners. That blitz came before NDC even recorded a single shot in the second half and the Hastings surge included a goal, a header by Jordan Green at 53:06, to go up, 4-2.

Notre Dame clawed back to get the contest back within one, at 4-3, when Luke Holmes scored his second goal of the match in the 69th minute.

But despite the Falcons owning a 90-goal, high-flying offense, it was Hastings whose offense soared in the Saturday-night tournament finale. The Broncos scored a fifth goal -- a dagger by AJ Dingledine -- at 82:53. With that netfinder the Broncos had scored five goals in three consecutive NAIA tournament matches.