A #1 versus #2 matchup for the National Championship deserves a manifesto. Below is the guide to the upcoming epic Notre Dame and Princeton matchup, heavy with Eddie Glazener-ese specifics, all the important details, and a new fan viewer guide. 

Our #2 Notre Dame Fighting Irish (13-2) beat the #6 Syracuse Orange (13-6) 15-7 this past Saturday in the semi-finals. Their spot in the finals is earned.  Great to be back on Championship Monday, but the Irish will need to bring the same energy for Princeton. 

Before the Game

I have a few grievances I need to get off my chest first. Most importantly, why Virginia? Philly had to back out for the World Cup, completely understandable. Having to move to a college because no NFL or professional stadiums are open, again completely understandable. But why play it at Virginia? They are a regular national contender and were RANKED IN THE BRACKET THIS YEAR. They didn’t make it to the semis so it wasn’t a problem, but even having the risk of a home court advantage in the finals just feels wrong. Even still, the most common fan to see here is a Virginia fan and they aren’t playing. If they were it would just be a bad look. I honestly expect better.

Second, by the fault of nobody we were given the second semifinal game. There isn’t anything we can do about it, but having the second game makes winning it all so much harder. It might not sound like much but those few hours extra to rest plays a huge difference. I still have complete faith in trainer Mandy Merritt to get the boys healthy (she is the best), but the extra difficulty is a bit annoying.

Rant over, let’s move on.

Recapping the Syracuse Domination

Since our instant reactions were posted yesterday, we will keep this brief.

We can not highlight enough how big of an impact special teams played in this win. As we talked about many, many times our man-down unit struggled a lot during the regular season. The turn around to this game, stopping all 5 of the Cuse man-ups, including defending a 2 minute locked-in, was the difference maker. 

Similar things can be said about the offense. Like we mentioned in the preview for this game, man-up has not been up to standards this post season. On Saturday, the unit converted on all but one man-up. But, most importantly the 3 goal run during the locked in penalty.

Unfortunately, we can’t put off talking about the face-off struggles. They do get some props, for the 3 in a row won that allowed the Irish to pull away and get the win. But right after the penalty the unit went right back to losing the draws. Plain and simple, winning 3 face-offs in the first half will not work against Princeton. The second half bounce back this unit had, going about 50% after the break, will need to be there from the start. With so little statistically separating the teams, the boys can not afford to let the Tigers play make-it-take-it for half the game. 

Lyght was outstanding yet again, holding Spaillina scoreless with only 2 assists. It looks like the Tewaaraton comes down to who wins the match-up on Monday between him and Kabiri (and honestly the game might come down to this match-up as well). 

That being said, even as the #1 Spallina sceptic, I have to say the way he was treated after the game was very sad. I get that Syracuse lives and dies by lacrosse and expects national championships, but come on, the kid’s college career just ended. Give him a bit, and there’s no reason to berate him. It was very obvious the only way he was getting by was the fact that he gets to play again in the PLL next week, which again is very sad to see.

Ricciardelli once again was amazing. The saves he was making were ridiculous and kept the Orange from getting on a run, or getting back momentum at the end of the game. Quite honestly, I think he should be player of the tournament, or at the minimum in contention.

Princeton

A #1 vs #2 match-ups is what everyone hopes for, and luckily enough it’s what we got. The teams are very, very close statistically. There isn’t much separating them. Perhaps the Irish have a better defense, but this is splitting hairs. Efficient offenses, lock-down defenses, very good faceoff units, and hot goalies. 

If Princeton could be described simply it would be off-ball. The Tigers are assisting around 60% of their goals this season. They play a team focused, everyone eats, offense similar to the Irish’s own. 

This style should play well into our Irish defense, as it is what we match-up best against. To add to that, while it is a team focused offense, it flows through superstar Nate Kabiri. We 100% believe Lyght will dominate this match-up, as this is what he does. Slowing down Kabiri will make this game more manageable. 

Let’s just say Princeton is very good.

The Nitty Gritty

If you are newer to lacrosse, please run this section through Google translate, select “Eddie Glazener” as the language.

Against Duke, the Tigers mainly showed a 2-2-2 pairs and a 2-3 with triangle rotations, and very rarely a 1-4. As Coach Corrigan says, this final game is less of game planning and more of who is less tired. So we can expect to see these same offensive ideas from Princeton. Both of their main sets revolve around a lot of off ball movement, so the boys will have to maintain composure and not let the Tigers get our defense spinning. If things start to break down mid-possession it can get bad quickly.

On their man-up, the Tigers run a 3-3 wheel into a 2-2-2. The 2-2-2 is what Syracuse showed, so if they boys are able to survive the initial movement and get to that, they should be completely fine. With the unit switching from a 4-man to a 5-man rotation, that 3-3 wheel becomes a lot harder to get to work so we are nervously optimistic on this front.

During the portion of the Duke game when it was raining, they showed more isolation dodges than usual with them mainly coming from X. This idea seems to be their fall back for the rainy conditions to prevent the increased turnovers that come with the rain. With the forecast showing heavy rain all day, this may come out more often. In an our guys vs there guys dodging situation, we take the Irish every day of the week and twice on Mondays.

Defensively, the Tigers play a very physical brand of defense. Not much to be said about that except for the boys can’t let it get to them. Syracuse was physical, too.

On their man-down, they run a 5-man albeit a different 5-man than our Irish. The Tigers man-down doesn’t seem to want to go back and play at X. But, they allow their goalie to zone hawk and pick off the lazy passes to X, which we saw happen and lead to a goal in the Duke game.

Most importantly, Princeton pushed transition. A lot. While it’s no fun, our defense will have to be ready to slide to SSDMs. On this note, the ride Corrigan currently has the boys running is less designed to get the ball back and more of a get the right guys back on defense exercise. It shows his complete trust in the defense and the efficiency of the offense. It will be interesting to see these two styles collide and will once again come down to who is better at what they do. The expansion of the SSDM unit to 6+ guys should be helpful. The ability to roll in fresh legs on a day when everyone is tired is a luxury.

Viewer’s Guide

So what does all this mean for the Notre Dame fan new to lacrosse?

The temptation is to focus on the Kabiri/Lyght matchup. It’s not a great mystery that whoever gets the better of that battle will give his team a huge advantage. But it’s not that simple. Princeton has a lot of guys who can score, everyone will have to be on point on defense. It would also be silly to ignore the other side of the field. The boys will have to be efficient at all times, no let ups or long dry spells. And the faceoff unit will have to keep possessions in balance, at a minimum.

So here it is:

  • Keep and eye on #90 (Lyght) and #2 (Kabiri). The power of Lyght is that offenses can’t run through him, his is not a violent style. You’ll know he is doing his job because Kabiri isn’t involved. 
  • If the offense is scoring consistently, we’re good. If we don’t hear from them for 10 minutes, we’ll be reliant on a big run. The good news is that the Irish do both styles well, but the first involves a lot less stress.
  • At faceoff, anything over 50% is more than great. The boys are efficient on offense, so long as they have a steady diet of possessions, things will look good.
  • A few hot saves from Ricciardelli to remind us he’s dialed in will do a lot to calm the viewer’s nerves.
  • Managing turnovers. There may be weather and field issues, and everyone gets the jitters at the Memorial Day championship. No one expects this to be flawless from the opening whistle. But adjusting quickly and settling down will be essential.
  • Don’t panic if everything listed above doesn’t come to pass. If we hit all these points we win by a dozen. We only need to win by one.

We hope this helps.

Focus

Monday is shaping up to be great. Are we looking forward to possibilities on Monday? In the wise words of Coach Corrigan: no. On one day of rest, there is only room for focus, and absolutely no space for dreaming. Do your job and the rest takes care of itself.

The game will be played at 1pm EDT and broadcast on ESPN main. Make sure to tune in!

 

#GoIrish

Luke Burgar

ND-ATL 2.0