We are excited for the start of the 2020 Notre Dame Fighting Irish men’s lacrosse season! The boys begin the season ranked #7 in Inside Lacrosse and #6 with US Lacrosse Magazine. They will get their preparations rolling with a scrimmage against local rival Detroit Mercy this weekend. ND-Atl 2.0 takes the lead again this season with a few notes to start us off:
NEW FACES
The big off-season news was addition of Coaches Ryan Wellner and Chris Wojcik to the Irish sideline to assist Coach Corrigan. We’ll get into this more in coming weeks, but Coach Wellner joins the team to lead the defense having spent the last eight years as the defensive coordinator for the U.S. Naval Academy. Coach Wojcik was most recently the head coach for his alma mater, Harvard, where he served for the last nine years. Coach Wojcik was an all-american midfielder in his playing days, and will lead the offense at Notre Dame. This is a very exciting time to be a Notre Dame fan!
Our freshman are the #2 incoming recruiting class. We are very excited to see how the coaches utilize Jake Taylor (CO), Kevin Lynch (CT), Maxim Manyak (CA), Reilly Gray (6’4″), Emmet Barger (VA), Marco Napolitano (CA, #30 of Glazener and Crance), Nick Harris (OH), Jonathan Ford (CA), Maximus Schalit (FL, wearing #50, bold!), Tate Young (TX), and Fulton Bayman (#ATL, #RollThunder). We’ve had a sneak peek at Liam Entenmann (Goalie) and Pat Kavanagh (Attack) with their great play as members of Team USA U19 as they prepared for the upcoming World Cup in Ireland. We also note Patrick is wearing #51, or as we say, one more than his brother. To our count, eight of these freshman were deeply involved in the Team USA selection process last summer, so they are a very talented group.
Graduate transfer Patrick Aslanian joins the Irish from Georgetown. Patrick was one of the stronger defensive/transition midfielder in lacrosse last year, with 29 ground balls, 3 goals, and, incredibly, 26 caused turnovers (by comparison, the most John Sexton had in a season was 23!). That’s a lot of production from that position, and he’ll help fill the void left by the departure of Schantz and Phillips.
RETURNING VETERANS
Pre-season All-American Bryan Costabile leads the returning Irish scorers. Also returning is Atlanta graduate student Charlie Trense. With Willetts, Morin, Jackoboice, McCahon and Westlin ready to play, the Irish will have 6 of their top-7 2019 scorers back on the field. Kielty, Cohen, Schmidt and Zullo return to anchor the defensive end, and Leonard returns after a breakout season at the faceoff dot.
The big surprise to us is a special returning guest star. Current PLL Redwoods superstar, Ryder Garnsey, will be studying on campus and practicing with and helping the team! It is a great bonus for the Irish to have him on campus and tuning up the players. Ryder talked about his Notre Dame experience in a recent podcast with Paul Rabil, definitely worth a listen.
THE OFFICIALLY UNOFFICIAL SCHEDULE
The schedule isn’t official until the University deans formally approve it, and the ND schedule is therefore traditionally the last released in Division 1. However, we’ve done our best to reverse engineer the schedule from the schools that released theirs. Once again, the schedule is the nations toughest. Notre Dame plays the preseason #2, #4, #5, #7, #9, #11, #13 and #20 teams, as well as two others that received votes.
The Irish begin with a scrimmage this weekend against Detroit Mercy, followed by the traditional scrimmage against Air Force the following weekend during the Notre Dame coaches clinic.
The first official game will be against newcomers Cleveland State on February 15, followed by an opportunity to get one back from Richmond. Next the boys will take on Maryland on the road in College Park.
An extremely difficult March opens with the Western Rivalry against Denver at Arlotta, followed very quickly by a road trip to Ohio State three days later, and a home game versus Michigan at the end of that week. ACC play begins the next Thursday with a home night game against Virginia, then Syracuse.
April presents the Irish with Duke, Marquette, Army, North Carolina, and finally, the ACC Tournament.
May begins the NCAA Tournament and hopefully an Irish championship run!
Speaking as fans first, we are extremely excited for this season and look forward to seeing our Fighting Irish boys perform.
#GoIrish
Really glad that lacrosse is starting, given that there is no ND basketball season for the men or women this year.
Sigh. Ain’t it the case…
No one in the history of basketball graduated more production than Coach Muffet did last year. It’s really amazing when you think of it. This year’s women are being asked to overcome a lot, with injury and Prohaska’s illness to add to the complications. All things considered, we’re impressed with their progress and hope they are not being held to an impossible standard. 100% team Muffet here.
Thanks for taking the time and trouble to put this very well written and informative article out.
Since when I was an undergrad at ND, we did’t have a lacrosse team at least that I knew about, you guys have been a super good conduit for me for this ND sport (though I did get to appreciate it somewhat when I was teaching at West Point).So a couple of ignorant questions:
1, those assistant coach hires seem on the surface to be quite impressive. Is our program so highly regarded that these moves which seem like lateral ones are in fact steps up for these two? Or is there something not obvious going on?
2, what kind of scholarship do our players get? Partial, full, some only or all?
Thanks for reading Make Noise!
NCAA d1 men’s lacrosse is limited to 12.6 scholarships for the entire roster, which isnt a lot. The school does not publicize how it is distributed, but it is generally a mix and match.
Regarding coordinators, ND has a stellar reputation for defense, most would say the best, so when long-time D guru Coach Byrne took the HC job at Harvard, we were very pleased that another big-time DC, Coach Wellner, came on board to carry on the tradition. We’re also fortunate to get such an experienced coach at OC in Coach Wojcik. You are correct to notice the these roles were filled by top people. ND has had a stellar decade, and unlike 15-20 years ago, it’s no longer on the geographic periphery of the sport, and has great facilities, so it should come as no surprise Coach Corrigan can bring in big-time people.
Perhaps the.most intriguing coaching move is Ryder Garnsey as an “undergraduate assistant” This is going to be a real treat for the players and the fans.
Hi from Paris — Sunday morning here, so since there were no games to watch at two in the morning, I am up early. Many thanks for your prompt and most informative reply. I hope you and your mates will be able to regale us with informed accounts of Irish success this season!