Our #9 Notre Dame Fighting Irish (6-3) beat the Virginia Cavaliers (5-7) 12-7 this past Saturday in front of a packed Arlotta Stadium. This win solidifies the Irish’s spot in the ACC playoffs and gives the team a bit more leeway to finish up the season with a NCAA playoff berth. However, to keep the decision out of the committee’s hands the boys need to continue to take advantage of every opportunity presented to them. 

The Plot

We’re going to mix in a bit of commentary into our usual game recap.

The Irish opened the game with two quick goals from Taylor and Seymour. It seems almost habitual at this point for the Irish to start incredibly strong, they just need to learn to continue the same level of dominance further into the game. As has happened against good teams this year, Virginia responded immediately with a goal and added another 10 minutes later to tie the game at the end of the first.

The offense again struggled to follow-up its early success. After the first quick goals, the Irish didn’t find the back of the net for another 15 minutes, followed by another 17 minutes until they scored once more. When the boys are stringing together goals, there is little if anything that can stop them. However, the dead time between these streaks has allowed, and will continue to allow, teams to stick around much longer in games and expose the team to upsets like we have already seen this season. It really just comes down to consistently playing at the level that we know they can.

Opening the second quarter, the Cavaliers took their first lead of the game. The Irish snapped the previously mentioned 15 minute dead period to tie it at 3 apiece, but quickly became unable to score again. The defense played lights out and kept Virginia from scoring for the rest of this quarter which kept the Cavaliers from adding pressure during the offense’s second long drought of the game.

Going in the half tied against an unranked Virginia is certainly not what was expected of this team. But, considering the fact that we were in a scoring drought for 25 of the 30 minutes in the half we were grateful that we were still tied.

The second half was opened by a Jeffrey goal a few minutes into the quarter, giving the Irish the lead once more. The score stayed at 4-3 for a majority of the quarter while neither team could find the back of the net, until Virginia eventually tied it with 5 minutes remaining in the quarter. 

The late low-scoring tie seemed to finally wake the Irish back up. The boys scored 4 goals in the final 3:30 of the quarter to go up 8-4 going into the fourth. Those goals came from Ramsey, CKav, Taylor, and Seymour. The transition goal by Ramsey appeared to whip the crowd into a frenzy, and CKav harnessed this energy for an electric goal, bullying his defender at the crease for a dunk.  The Taylor goal that followed, scoring from his knees and blindly shooting at the goal in a way that only he can, probably erased all Virginia hope for a win. The momentum was clearly with the boys.

The start of the fourth continued this run with three more with goals from Jeffery, a fantastic transition goal by Alacqua, then finally Mclane after a pause from both teams. This put the Irish at a 7-0 run to finally control the game and put it out of reach for the Cavaliers. The pre-garbage time final score was effectively the 11-4 score at this point of the contest.

Not to beat a dead horse, but this is pretty similar to what we have been talking about all season. When the boys are playing at their full potential, like during the 7-0 run, there isn’t a single team out there that can stop them. The team just needs to remember to focus on the little things like consistency to make sure that their best doesn’t only come out for a few minutes a game.

Virginia scored three dignity goals in garbage time to make it look closer, before Jeffrey “Agent Zero” Ricciardelli put the final goal in to make a final score of 12-7.

The Scoring

CKav lead the points with 2 goals and an assist, Taylor and Jeffery each had 2 goals, McLane had a goal and an assist, Angrick  and Thomas Ricciasrdelli each had an assist, Jeffery Ricciardelli and Alacqua each had a goal, Ramsey had a goal and an assist, and Seymour had 2 goals.

It’s always nice to see SSDMs score so huge congratulations to Ramsey and Alacqua!

Between the pipes, Ricciardelli had an outstanding day with 13 saves putting him at 65% on the day. With the shoes he had to fill with Entenmann’s graduation, he has certainly stepped up to the plate and been outstanding this season. With the amount of pressure he must have been facing, we truly can’t congratulate him enough.

At the dot Lynch split with his former teammate 8-16, Hagstrom went 1-5, and Gallaher went 1-1. All in all, a combined 10-22 isn’t bad considering they were going up against their former teammate who knows the ins and outs of their face-off styles, but the boys can’t let this become a habit.

Our friends at Lacrosse Reference give the boys an offensive efficiency rate of 30.8% which isn’t bad. But, when you look at rates per quarter, it is heavily pulled up by 45% and 40% in the third and fourth quarters compared to 18% and 14% in the first and second quarters. There just simply needs to be more consistent play.

Stat wise, the boys won both the ground ball battle (34v28) and the shot battle (44v33) which is always a great sign to see. The turnovers were kept to a very reasonable 11 with no shot clock violations. Those are all great things to see, we just need to take far more advantage of them. 

By far the most concerning stat is man-up, which we were a dismal 1-7. With the amount of locked-in penalties that Virginia had, only putting up 1 goal is just flat out bad. Wasting extra man opportunities simply can’t happen and will be a major downfall against stronger teams. This concern is compounded by the recent hyper-aggressive defenses that have been the scout against Notre Dame. If the Irish can’t punish teams for pounding on Taylor, they are going to keep pounding on Taylor. As fans of Jake Taylor, we hope his teammates will stop incentivizing their opponents to hammer him.

Overall, we have to include a note on where this win fits in the problematic trends within the Irish offense. A 7-0 run bookended by incredible transition juice goals is a fantastic way to bury their opponent. But these transition opportunities sandwiched a series of unassisted goals that did not exhibit a sustainable trend that will help the Irish in the post-season. Goals are goals, and wins are wins, but it would be wrong not to notice that the offensive explosion was triggered by Virginia’s struggles on offense and the boys great reaction to it and not by Notre Dame fixing its own problems. Future opponents will watch this film and see no reason stop packing the middle and hammering Jake Taylor.  The boys need to find a way to stretch the defense, punish them for sliding to the perimeter late, and to crush them on the man-up when they don’t comply.

Special credit must be given to the fantastic Arlotta Stadium crowd.  An estimated 5000 were in attendance, a huge number even by Notre Dame standards.

The Irish take on #5 North Carolina this weekend to close out ACC play against the strongest opponent in the conference. As fearsome as the Tar Heels may seem, this is a very winnable game that will come down to how consistently we are able to play. Owen Duffy and Dom Pietramala are the players to watch on this strong North Carolina squad.

 

#GoIrish

ND-ATL 2.0