Our #1 Notre Dame Fighting Irish men’s lacrosse (14-1) defeated the #8 Georgetown Hoyas (13-4), 16-11, to advance to the NCAA Final Four in Philadelphia. The Irish will face their old Western Rivalry foe, the Denver Pioneers (13-3), in the national semifinal.
The Plot
The game started off with a McLane goal (assist CKav) 53 seconds in. After a short scoring drought from both teams, Reilly Gray scored followed by CKav ( one handed assist Taylor) to put the boys up 3-0.
Taylor one-hand assist
credit: Fred Assaf
The end of the first quarter going into the start of the second consisted of a small back and forth with a goal from CKav (assist PKav) before the boys went on a run leading into halftime with goals from CKav, Dobson, and PKav. This put the Irish up 7-2 at half and in confident control. 8 of 11 faceoff wins by Lynch and a constant rotation of fresh players gave the Hoyas no room to breath, and the defense was spectacular.
Outside of 2 Hoya goals at the start of the quarter, the Irish dominated the third with goals from Faison, CKav, and 2 from PKav, ending the third with a score of 11-4. The dominance continued into the fourth, with goals from CKav, a 10-man ride goal from Napolitano, and goals from Lynch, McLane, and Bayman. Notre Dame substituted freely up 16-8 late, which allowed Georgetown’s Graham Bundy to go on last minute run to pad the scoreboard, resulting in a final score of 16-11.
The Scoring
Player of the game Chris Kavanagh set an Irish tournament scoring record with 5 goals and 3 assists. His older brother Pat was nearly his equal with 3 goals and an assist.
Devon McLane scored twice, while Dobson, Faison, Bayman, Gray, Lynch and grad student defenseman Marco Napolitano added a goal each. Taylor, Angrick, Busenkell and Liam Entenmann added assists.
Liam Entenmann only needed to make 8 saves before he was relieved by Alex Zepf.
The Irish were 23 of 31 at the faceoff dot, and held the Hoyas to 17 of 20 clears. This led to an overwhelming Irish possession advantage of 39 to 26.
Oddly, Georgetown finish the game with a slightly higher efficiency, 42.3% to 41%, but this was entirely the result of Bundy’s late shooting run after the game was effectively over. In the minutes that mattered, the Hoyas’ efficiency was in the low-20s.
32 Irish players saw the field, with 27 of these seeing early critical minutes.
Our Pregame Question
The team answered our three pregame questions affirmatively and with authority.
- Depth: Their depth was on full display. The Hoyas had difficulty adjusting to nuances of the three midfield lines, and this led to balanced production. The team also played 5 SSDMS and rested attackman by rotating in Fulton Bayman frequently. Georgetown had no solution for 39 possessions against fresh legs.
- Discipline: The boys stayed very disciplined through the first 55 minutes of the game. They fought for everything, as indicated by the 30-23 ground ball advantage. And more particularly as indicated in their 14 of 15 clearing stat. Early turnover issues were quickly resolved, with only 5 total turnovers in the critical 2nd and 3rd quarters where the Irish extended their lead and put the game out of reach. There may have been a lapse in concentration in the last minutes of the game, but that may have been the result of wholesale substitution with the boys up 8 goals late. No harm done other than being reminded that Graham Bundy, Jr. is a fantastic shooter when it was already too late.
- Don’t Underestimate: They boys came in prepared and stayed focused. They came out of the gate with a 3-0 run and never looked back, having the score to a comfortable distance by the half
and staying there throughout the rest of the game. If the boys continue to come in with the mentality they had this game, of wanting to earn it rather than coming in thinking they have already won, it will be really hard to stop them this postseason.
The Presser
Coach Corrigan, with Chris Kavanagh and Liam Entenmann, shared some postgame comments:
Up Next
Notre Dame will play in the noon game this Saturday at Lincoln Financial Field. The Pios will present a very new challenge for the Irish, with there large and very effective defense. We have some more video to watch, and will get our preview up for the weekend.
#GoIrish
ND-ATL 2.0
Beating Duke last year and beating Denver this year would be another step toward my personal lacrosse catharsis. That 2015 Denver loss still stings and any Tierney team will always make me nervous, even if they aren’t quite at the level they were for Tierney’s first decade there.
Denver is going to want to slow the game down a lot and try to win a low scoring game. They’ve won 3 games this season while scoring 9 or fewer goals (not counting losses with fewer than 9 goals). They’ve got ND pipped in terms of both defensive efficiency (26.8 vs 28.0) and goals allowed per game (9.2 vs 9.4). The slower pace of play will also help them keep their depth disadvantage out of play, Denver ranks 69th out of 76 teams in LacrosseReference’s team depth.
On the other hand, ND’s offensive star power is substantial and Denver’s eh… charitably non existent.
Lastly, worth mentioning, Denver’s FOGO stats are dramatically excellent, with faceoff man Alec Stathakis winning over 60% and 961 career faceoff wins. Lynch will need to keep it close.
They are a very big defense, more beefy than rangey like Virginia. Our first guess as that we will see them be very compact and take their chances with Dobson, CKav and McLane at the midrange and farther out. Their man down is very good, so they are probably thinking the downside of getting over aggressive inside won’t be as severe as it is for other teams.