Our #1 Notre Dame Fighting Irish (5-0) beat the #7 Ohio State Buckeyes (6-1), 9-8  this past Saturday. It was a hard fought defensive battle. It is a great sign that the highest scoring offense in the county can also engage in defensive challenges!

Ohio State

The headline from this match was Ricciardelli’s performance to ice the game. It’s no secret that he has had his ups and downs this season. Perhaps it is better to say he hadn’t yet had a stellar game, and I’ll be the first to admit that I wasn’t entirely sure if I trusted him. Entenmann’s shadow is very long and that may not be fair of me.

But there is no doubt that his fourth quarter performance, out saving Big Tasty 5-1 with only 2 goals allowed, was the difference maker in this game. He has proven that he is capable of being the goalie we need him to be, and we will be looking for a a momentum-building performance this weekend against Michigan as the team pivots to ACC play.

Other notable defensive performances came from Nate Schwitzenberg, leading the team with 2 CTs, and Donovan with 5 ground balls. Lyght was great as always. Having two of the leaders for the Schmeisser Award, in Lyght and Donovan, on the same team has certainly been nice.

Offensively, it was the Miller and Yago show, each with 4 points on the day (3g1a for Yago, 4g for Miller). 

Outside of ago and Miller the rest of the offense was uncharacteristically slow and lacking output. Some credit is due the Ohio State defense, and winning is hard, particularly on the road. We’ll consider it a one-off occurrence. It’s not a crazy worry, but they can’t let it happen again.

Key Play

Let’s take a moment to dive into a critical play from the game. It’s become a go-to play for the offense to free up Yago, and in this game led to the winning goal. It is an uncomplicated fake pick and slip setting up Yago for a stepdown.  Not fancy, but always timely and well executed.

While Yago gets the majority of the credit for this play, the real hero is Will Maheras. With Will being given the shorty match-up, the defense appears to be sliding adjacent and will be more likely to slide to him. He knows this and sees it as an opportunity. He has to dodge strong and be threatening topside. 

Yago, being adjacent, can tell the pole guarding him is antsy to slide since a high-level dodger is threatening one of his SSDMs topside. So, Yago comes over and acts like he is going to set a pick to tempt his pole to slide or at least show because they are so close. Seeing this idea take form, the rest of the team fades to the backside, isolating Yago and Maheras into a two man game. 

With the rest of the team gone, there’s no effective two-slide, Yago is freed up to bait his defender. This idea ends up working. The instant the pole shows. Yago abandons the pick idea and slips it, leaving him wide open for a step down with no second slide in sight. Yago doesn’t need to go far, and the pass doesn’t need to be great for this to be effective. Well done, again!

Michigan

Michigan started off the season with 3 quick wins but have dropped their last 4 as they have entered their harder part of the schedule. 

Coming off of Maryland and Ohio State, this will be somewhat of a break for the Irish. But as the Wolverines have shown against Army, they aren’t a pushover. 

For the Michigan offense, it is Canadian Nick Roode (22g3a) and the 6’2″ Luke Shannehan (17g7a), and that’s about it. If Lyght and Schwitzenberg can control them, it will be a smooth ride.

Goalie Taylor Hunter sits right about 50%. Nothing crazy, but with goalie coach Liam Entenmann anything is possible. It will be a nice reunion with Enti either way. 

The game will be played at Arlotta Stadium on the ACCN network at noon EST. We are glad to be off a random streaming service for a week!

 

#GoIrish

 

Luke Burgar

ND-ATL 2.0