Our Notre Dame Fighting Irish hammered the #4 Ohio State Buckeyes 15-6 this past Sunday. It was a game dominated by the Irish for nearly the entire time. It was a great way to start the tournament.

Just as Iosef Tarasov found out when he killed John Wick’s dog, just because a great isn’t on their game at the moment, it doesn’t mean they won’t be the death of you if you kick them when they are down. Our Irish got revenge on the team that took some shots after a tough home loss. We’re talking about the Ohio State poking the bear with their victory pictures in front of the Notre Dame championship banners after the regular season match-up. 

The Plot

The Irish opened up the game pretty quickly with a goal from Will Angrick giving them the early lead. Just a few minutes later however, the Buckeyes got their act together and were able to put 2 goals in to end the quarter up 2-1. The boys were not helping themselves with some poor clearing and sloppy ball handling.

The Buckeyes picked up right where they left off to start the second with their third in a row to make it 3-1.  

This is where the Irish turned it on and went on maybe the most dominant run by any team all season, especially considering the match up.

With Lynch winning almost every face-off, the boys were almost playing make-it-take-it. They went on a 6-1 goal run to finish this quarter (14-3 to finish the game). This run started with a great man-up goal by Agent Zero from the inside, before Taylor added one of his own under a minute later. CKav was up next with his first of the game, and McLane got in on the action to get himself started for the day. Ramsey was able to get his third on the season as an SSDM (defensive goals are always amazing!) and CKav quickly got to work scoring his second on the day. Unfortunately, in classic Irish fashion, the Buckeyes got a goal with 8 seconds to make it 7-4 but the damage was already done. The game was entirely in the Irish’s favor.

What was most encouraging was to see was that after the quarter run, the boys didn’t go into a drought. They backed it up with yet another run. That is a sign of a good team and what we have been saying all season. It has taken a while but if they can keep it up for the rest of the playoffs it will be very good.

The onslaught continued…

Like we just said, the start of the second half was much of the same. The Buckeyes tried to build on their last second goal by adding another at the start of the third, but the boys quickly shut down any hope by picking up where they left off. Taylor was the first to respond to this slight 2 goal run by the buckeyes, getting his second. Angrick followed quickly before Taylor got his hat trick. Finally, Busenkell got one to end the quarter.

Not much to comment on for this quarter. Just simply domination by the Irish.

The fourth quarter was once again the same, albeit a bit measured since the game was out of reach. Reinhardt scored under a minute into the quarter, and the Buckeyes scored their final goal a few minutes later. In the final few minutes of the game, the Buckeyes tried to get their frustration out after getting dominated all game. They got a bit chippy, to which the Irish replied with two of the most emphatic screw-you goals (excuse our language) we have seen, coming from CKav and Behrman. Both being scored with under 2 minutes to play and up by 7. The Irish typically run out the clock in these circumstances, but they made an exception for Ohio State.

The Scoring

Before we get into who scored and how many, we just want to point out the fact that the Irish had 10 goals scorers this game (and a total of 12 with points). A great way to spread the love. The Buckeyes had a mere two. 

CKav lead the team in points with 3 goals and 2 assists, Taylor had 3 goals and an assist, McLane had a goal and assist, Faison, Ricciardelli, Reinhardt, Behrman, and Ramsey each had a goal, Busenkell had a goal and assist, and Donovan and Seymour each had an assist. 

Specialist wise, Lynch had an crazy day at the dot going 17 of 23. Lynch’s domination played a huge role in the win. It effectively let the Irish play make it take it lacrosse. Hagstrom also took a few of his own and was able to go 50%, which is also amazing. Between the pipes, Ricciardelli had 15 saves giving him an impressive 71% save rate. While we are on the topic, we want to give a congratulations to Caleb “Big Tasty” Fyock who, despite his team getting dominated, had an impressive 15 saves and went over 50%. He was certainly doing his best for his team. As former goalies, we have to give love to the keepers.

Stat wise, as one might expect, the Irish dominated all categories. The boys won the shot battle 43 to 28. They also doubled up the Buckeyes on ground balls, winning that battle 40-20. The vast chasm in these stats shows that this game wasn’t a win, it was a domination. 

We’ll point out two critical defensive stats. CKav had three caused turnovers riding Ohio State, two of which immediately resulted in goals. On the defensive end, Shawn Lyght carved up the Buckeye offense and had two clinical caused turnovers himself.

Our friends at lacrosse reference give the offense a 33.3% efficiency, which is great though the game flow made it feel like it was much higher. We suspect the overall rate was impacted by the slow 11% efficiency first quarter and the 19 turnovers. If there was a one “flaw” in the game that can be improved upon, it is this turnover figure. The boys can’t make a habit of it.

Some thoughts…

We don’t know how many of you are familiar with the John Wick series, but for those who aren’t, there are four movies in the series, with John Wick progressively getting stronger and more dominant in each of them. Take this as you will, but this game correlated strongly with the first movie and there just happen to be 4 rounds of playoffs…..

Up Next

The boys play Penn State this Sunday in Annapolis. The NCAA quarterfinal game is at noon and can be streamed on ESPNU. Make sure to tune it, it will be a good one! A ticket to the Final Four at Gillette Stadium is up for grabs.

#GoIrish

ND-ATL 2.0