The Fighting Irish lost to UNC, 14-10, in the ACC Championship finals on the campus of Duke.  While the loss itself probably does not impact Notre Dame’s NCAA prospects, the injuries to Ryder Garnsey and Sergio Perkovic in particular are of serious concern.

Brendan Gleason scored 3 goals, Bryan Costabile 2 goals and an assist, and Ryder Garnsey scored a goal and an assist playing on one leg.  Byrne, Schantz, Robert Collins and Willets scored a goal each.  John Sexton was once again a beast with 4 caused turnovers and 4 ground balls.  Shane Doss recorded 12 saves, and the faceoff unit split at faceoff X winning 14 of 28 (although only 1 of 11 in the 4th quarter).

Our pregame questions:

  1. Stay healthy and keep your eyes on the prize:   We fully admit Coach Corrigan forgot more about lacrosse over his morning coffee than we’ve learned in our lifetimes, but his decision to send out Perkovic over and over again while we was in obvious pain was maddening.  An ACC trophy would look nice in the trophy case, but playing Sergio in an otherwise meaningless game put at risk the big picture.  Likewise, Garnsey wa on the field way too long.  Like Sergio, Ryder is a total gamer, but the long game should have been better considered.  Fortunately, Garnsey looked a whole lot more mobile on Sunday than he did on Friday.
  2. Use the whole roster:  On the offensive side at least, the Irish did utilize their depth well.  The second midfield line saw extensive time on the field.  Drew Schantz was also used in the half field offense.  We were pleased to see Brian Willets on the field a good bit.  With Perkovic hurt, we believe he can fill a similar role.  Having said all this and as noted above, Sergio and Ryder were on the field way to much.
  3. Play a clean game:  Nope.  The game began with 5 straight faceoff wins squandered by head-scratching turnovers.  The Irish ultimately finished with 13 turnovers, more than half of the less-desirable unforced variety.  Notre Dame also committed five untimely penalties which exposed the struggling man-down defense.  Watching these occur live seemed worse than the statistics would indicate as the turnovers and penalties were such momentum-stoppers.

There was a fair amount to grumble about as there is in any loss, but considering the injuries this wasn’t too bad a performance.  North Carolina has been a troubling offense for Notre Dame for years.   The way they invert their offense can be very troubling for this defense, and they are very talented as well.  Under normal circumstance UNC is also exposed to counter-attack, and this is where the injuries were most evident.  ND couldn’t keep up, especially with the unforced errors.  Having said this, Notre Dame got a lot of production out of their secondary scorers, and this is promising.  Scoring 10 with the big guns on the shelf is not bad.

Let’s also consider that the injury situation has facilitated the emergence of players like Costabile and Gleason.  Notre Dame is showing scoring depth much greater than they have had in years.

Where does this leave the Irish?

An ACC trophy would have been nice, but the game was otherwise largely meaningless.  Mind you, we don’t like the loss any more than the team does, but our eyes are focused firmly on the #BigBBQ. In our opinion, it would have been difficult for the Irish to move to the 1 or 2 seed, and after those, there’s not much difference between the 3 and 8 seeds.

Notre Dame ends its regular season this coming Saturday at 2:30 at Army.  CBS Sports Network.  Staying healthy and recovering from injury will again be the primary concern, followed closely by playing a clean game.  A win and we’ll be comfortable with the selection committee sending the Irish to open the NCAAs at home at Arlotta.

Final Tidbit:

We firmly believe the ACC squandered an opportunity in not playing this tournament at a neutral site.  This is not simply Team ND-Atl griping about the games not being in Kennesaw (although having them 15 mins down the road would have been nice), but rather the loss of a great opportunity to showcase the top lacrosse conference.  After an exciting Friday, the Sunday game was played on a disinterested campus.  This was palpable on the telecast.  The finals should have been a showcase for lacrosse fans.  The ACC is not the  SoCon or America East, where an on-campus tournament is a necessity.  The ACC is still the top of the sport, but without an AQ, they must find meaning for a championship tournament instead of a dull return trip to Durham.

It seems the ACC plans to rotate the tournament among the member campuses.  We hope they will reconsider.

 

#GoIrish