Our #1 Notre Dame Fighting Irish (3-0) got their first ranked win vs Georgetown (2-2) in a 11-9 victory this past weekend.

While a ranked win on the road is always great, it certainly wasn’t without its hiccups. But overall, the boys will be pleased that they showed they can rise to a challenge.

The Plot

CKav opened up the scoring 2 minutes into the game, signaling the Notre Dame strength spectators were expecting. The first quarter continued to be dominated by the Irish, taking a 6-0 lead with just under 6 minutes left in the first. At this point, it certainly seemed like the boys would be able to coast through. But Georgetown still had something to say. The Hoyas proceeded to go on their own 6 goal run to tie it up, including a heartbreaking goal with 1 second left in the first quarter. The Irish responded well with 2 goals to go into the half up 8-6, which was, to be honest, a bit of a let down after the early and emphatic 6-0 lead. 

The third quarter was uncharacteristically dry for the Irish with neither team scoring in a defensive slugfest. The highlight was a defensive masterclass by the Notre Dame man-down unit as they burned off a 2-minute unleasable penalty on goalie Thomas Ricciardelli, who was unfortunately called for a high cross-check looking to retrieve the ball after a save.  Alex Zepf confidently led the defense in relief. It’s a great luxury for Notre Dame to be able to call on a quality goalie in emergencies.

The Irish opened up the fourth with 2 quick goals, including one from Faison in his return to lacrosse. This made it a 4-0 run for the Irish after the punch back from Georgetown, albeit with the 15 minute scoring drought from both teams, but all in all still good. The Hoyas began to put together a bit of a comeback, scoring 3 straight to put it within one,  but CKav iced the game with a goal with 2 minutes left to make the final score of 11-9.

It was certainly a game of runs with each team having a 6-0 run, and then the difference making 4-0 run for the Irish vs a 3-0 run for the Hoyas.

The heroes of this game were without a doubt Lynch who went 16-22 on face-offs and Thomas Ricciardelli who had an outstanding 16 saves (64%). Both of whom won their respective battles (Ricciardellis 16 saves vs the Hoyas 5 and Lynch’s 16 FO wins vs the Hoyas 7). Outside of that the Irish found themselves behind in every major statistical category, and by some margin. The final tallies were 36 shots vs the Hoyas 43, 20 turnovers vs the Hoyas 11, and 0-2 on man-up. Though most surprisingly, the ground balls were split 27 Irish vs. 40 Hoyas and the Irish only had 2 assisted goals. While by no means is a win bad, a lot of these stats leave lots of room for improvement which will need to be made before playing #2 Maryland this Saturday.

 

The Scoring

CKav had 3 goals and an assist, Pokorny had an assist, Angrick had 2 goals, McLane had a goal, Finley had a goal, Faison had a goal, Seymour had 2 goals, and Donovan had a goal.

This was an unusually small number of scorers, and an even more unusual amount of assists, but like we mentioned above, a win is a win and all that is left to do is move on and improve.  A line item we’ll also note is that the Irish missed the cage on 20 of their 36 shots. That in the neighborhood of 25% below what we’ve come to expect.

It is hard to not notice the lack of Taylor on the scorers list. Georgetown had him locked off for a majority of the game, which seemed to affect the offense a good bit. The boys were still able to generate offense without utilizing him, though it was certainly a different form of offense than what we usually see, mainly being shown through the absence of assists. It will be interesting to see if other teams use the same strategy.

Overall, our friends over at lacrossereference.com found us to have a 32.4% offensive efficiency rate. While certainly not bad it’s definitely not what we are used to. This number is also a bit skewed by a 55% first quarter which was then followed by a 29%, 0%, and 30%. Defensively, the efficiency was 59% with the per quarter efficiencies hovering around there. Not ideal.

Our Questions

Looking back at our pregame questions:

  1. Settling in on defense: While the score (and efficiency numbers) may not show it, the defense certainly settled in a lot more this game. They were able to hold them scoreless on the opening 6-0 run, the entire 3rd quarter, and the opening of the 4th quarter. And by no means was the Hoya’s response run in the entire blame of the defense. All in all, a great bounce back game from the defense. We need to say this again, the Irish defensive response during the unreleasable man-down was special.
  2. Attack or Midfield: Most of this game ran through the midfield, with the goals being split 3 goals attack (all by CKav) and 7 goals midfield (and 1 goal defense with the pole goal from Donovan!). We feel that throughout the season this will continue to flip flop depending on the opponent, but it was clearly Georgetown strategy to limit the attack unit and take their chances with the midfield. The great news is that the Irish showed they can score across all their midfield lines. We get why a team would sell out to limit Taylor, but it’s really nice to know the midfield has no problem picking up the slack.
  3. Weather: The temperature ended up being a pretty cold 39 degrees and clear. While we will never have the true answer, it seems this affected the boys a lot, especially with ground balls and shooting accuracy. We can’t remember the last time the boys were on the wrong side of those categories. The forecast is for 70 degrees and sun in Atlanta this weekend for the highly anticipated tilt with #2 Maryland. We can put our weather theory to the test.

Final Notes

It’s important to be mindful of how much this team has spoiled us the past three years. One can look at the stats and get really nervous, or one can consider that in an early-season road game against a ranked opponent where nearly everything went wrong, the boys still kept it together and ultimately won comfortably. The schedule doesn’t get any easier for the Irish the next few weeks, but a game like this one highlights the resilience and depth of the 2025 Irish. That should inspire confidence.

Up next is a rematch of the 2024 NCAA title game as the boys play #2 Maryland in Atlanta! No one should be surprised that we are excited to have the team playing in our neighborhood!

Don’t forget to listen to our friends and colleagues Drew Brennan and David Brogan in their Exit 77 podcast recapping the game. And don’t forget to consider Chris Kavanagh and Shawn Lyght’s initiative for CityLax if you are able.

#GoIrish

ND-ATL 2.0