Notre Dame Fighting Irish lacrosse (2-1) dropped one on the road to the Maryland Terrapins (4-1). The final score on a very cold and windy afternoon was 9-14. Sometimes you are the hammer, sometimes you are the nail.
The Data
The Irish scored nine goals by eight different players: Costabile had two goals and an assist, Westlin, Kavanagh and Willets had a goal and an assist, and McCahon, McNamara, Chase and Drake contributed a goal each. Jake Moss added an assist. Wisnauskas paced the Terrapins with five goals.
Entenmann had an impressive day in goal with 16 saves. Kielty, Cohen and Cassidy had three ground balls each. Cohen and Restic recorded the only caused turnovers. Leonard had a tough day at faceoff x, winning 8 of 26.
The Irish were heavily outshot, 61-38, and lost the ground ball battle 38-23 (net -6 excluding faceoffs). Notre Dame cleared 18 of 23 (4 of 8 in 1st quarter).
LacrosseReference.com calculates Maryland led in possessions 47 to 39, and led in time of possession 60/40. Maryland had 1.36 shots per possession to ND’s .79, and were 29.8% efficient to the Irish 23.1%.
The official scorecard lists different players seeing the field than what we observed in the game, so we can’t confirm who played, but it does appear that only 21-25 Notre Dame players saw the field (less than 20 Maryland players appear to have played).
The Plot
The Irish took the field in their alternate blue uniforms. Maryland decided to start of freshman McNaney in goal.
Bernhardt opened the scoring with two goals, but McCahon and Westlin quickly tied it up. Notre Dame struggled gaining possession and then clearing the ball when they got it. However, the Irish still hung with the Terps and briefly took the lead midway through the second on a Willets goal. The half ended with Notre Dame behind 5-7. Entenmann held up strong to the Maryland volume shooting.
Costabile and Drake tied it up early in the 3rd. However, the slow bleed began and the Irish became less efficient in their possessions and unable to keep up. A four-goal run early in the 4th effectively closed the door on the Irish who were unable to net additional possessions to catch up.
Kavanagh scored with a few minutes left in the fourth to bring the game to its final score of 9-14.
Our Pregame Questions
We were a bit off in our pregame focus questions:
Will the boys take care of the ball: The raw numbers didn’t show a big difference in number of Maryland and Notre Dame turnovers, but the Irish had problems gaining the ball in faceoffs and struggled to clear the ball early. Further, .79 shots per possession was consistent with what we thought we observed in the game, that the Irish weren’t particularly urgent getting the ball on cage and left themselves open to possession ending turnovers. It wasn’t sloppy by any means, but the boys were never in a position to be quick and efficient with the ball, and this led to losses of possession. 16 turnovers isn’t objectively a lot, but the impact is amplified when the team only has 39 possessions.
Can the defense restrict the Terps: The statistics tell conflicting stories. Notre Dame forced four shot clock violations, suggesting the could shut the door on the Terp offense, but they also gave up 1.39 shots per possession, which indicated that the boys were have a hard time getting the ball out of the defensive end. This seems consistent with the feel of the game, where it appeared they were on defense for long stretched of time and then the offense had to slow it up to give the defense a break. If nothing else, Entenmann himself certainly restricted the Terps.
Progress with the man-up unit: There was only one 30 second penalty late in the game, so there wasn’t an opportunity to evaluate this unit.
Thoughts
Coaches always say teams learn more from a loss than a win, and we’re sure the boys will learn from this experience. We understand Coach Corrigan wasn’t pleased after the game, but we believe criticism needs to be tempered. College Park is a tough place to play, the weather was awful, it was their first road game of the season, and credit is due Maryland for playing very well.
There were many positive takeaways from this game. Entenmann was excellent on the road, his third solid game. Four shot clock violations is a good day’s work for the defense, and 9 goals from 8 players, more than half assisted, continues the fantastic offensive balance this season.
On the other side, the Irish had a very hard time getting the defense off the field. Double teams didn’t land and Notre Dame was exposed in those situations (only two caused turnovers). Those need to be tightened up. On the offensive end, the boys couldn’t find a second gear and eventually ran out of gas. Efficiency was sup-par but not bad, but it seemed the guys got tighter as the game progressed. Again, when the opponent has a possession advantage, the offense needs to adjust to find a way to be both efficient and quick. This will come, it was Notre Dame’s first experience with this sort of situation this season.
Again, the Irish had a hard time finding ways to gain possessions when it wasn’t going according to plan at faceoff X. Notre Dame will need to find alternatives when the faceoff unit isn’t at its best . Having a quality FOGO like Leonard is fantastic way to get the upper hand on possessions, but his teammates need to find a plan B for those few occasions where it doesn’t go as expected.
In any event, that game is behind them and they’ll move on better for the experience.
A final note, while we generally like the look of the alternate blue uniforms, we are also very superstitious and note the Irish have never played well in them. We hope the managers let them stay in storage.
Up Next
The Western Rivalry!! Denver visits Arlotta this weekend for this tradition between the western lacrosse powers. Paul Carcaterra and Mike Golic, Jr. will have the call for ACC Network.
This will start a critical and very difficult 4-game sequence for the boys: #17 Denver on 3/7 (ACCN). at #19 Ohio State on 3/10 (BTN+), Michigan (yuck) at home on 3/15 (ESPNU), and #8 Virginia at home for a Thursday night game on 3/19 (ACCN).
#GoIrish
This was the first lacrosse game of the season I thought I was going to watch, but apparently BTN+ is some ethereal pseudo network and not something easily accessible even if you have BTN through your cable provider. I checked he stat-cast a few times during the game and your recap seems to track with that pretty well. Hopefully they bounce back from a tough showing.
We ordered BTN+ for 1 month to get us through Ohio State and not dirty our TV any more than we have to. The streams from the large football stadiums are bad, the Maryland game wasn’t different. Hoping Ohio State will be better! ACCN this week with Carc and GOlic Jr should be fun. Golic Jr was great for Maryland in Loftus last year.