Our #1 ranked Notre Dame Fighting Irish (2-0) got their season started this past week with dominant wins over Cleveland State (24-6) and Marquette (22-9). Great way to start the season and begin the chase for three national championships in a row!
Things appeared to go largely according to plan for the Irish, so we will keep our recaps to the point.
Cleveland State
As is normally the case this time of year, the game was held indoors at the Loftus Sports Center, our beloved “Thunderdome.” The stars of this show were clearly the Irish attack unit.
The scoring was opened up by CKav just a minute into the game, followed by a quick goal from Taylor, assisted by CKav, giving the Irish the early 2-0 lead. Taylor added his second of the game, again assisted by CKav, two minutes later. An uncharacteristic scoring drought for the boys follow for a few minutes. Cleveland State put up two unanswered, making it a close 3-2 game until 4 minutes left in the first. After that it was all Irish, with a 12-0 run making the lead 15-2 before the Vikings had a last second goal to make it 15-3 at the half. The Irish were firmly in control.
The coaching staff made wholesale substitutions minutes into the second half, but it was more of the same with the Irish adding three goals. Some sloppy play as the reserve unit took over resulted in a 3-1 Viking run to make it 19-6 heading into the fourth. The fourth was then all Irish, with the quarter being a 5-0 spread in favor of the Irish ending with a resounding 24-6 win.
The final box score tallied a crazy 7 goals for Taylor, 4 goals and 5 assists for CKav (the 9 points being his new single game record), a goal and 3 assists for freshman Brady Pokorny, 2 assists from Angrick, a goal and assist from Busenkell, an assist from McLane, 4 goals from Ricciardelli, 2 goals from Hagstrom, a goal from Gutzwiller, 2 assists from Maheras, a goal from Wynocker, a goal from Vasquez, a goal and 2 assists from Behrman, a goal from Seymour, an assist from Doyle, and 2 assists from Grant. All of this was backed by great work between the pipes, with the two keepers totaling 11 saves on 6 goals against.
We’ll limit the critical data to the first half to account for the use of the starting an main units for better comparison purposes. In the first half, the Irish were 13 of 19 at the faceoff dot, a perfect 15 of 15 on clears, and held Cleveland State to 10 of 13 clears. The boys were very tidy with the ball with only 3 turnovers in the first half, and they held a whopping 26 to 15 ground ball advantage.
Our friends at LacrosseReference.com calculated that Notre Dame operated at an amazing 55% offensive efficiency in the first half, while holding Cleveland State to 22%. It is scary to think that there is a lot of room for improvement in the defensive efficiency with some early season communication issues leading to a few extra goals.
Great dominant win to open the season, and great to see such a wide variety of people contributing to that final score.
Marquette
A capacity crowd greeted Notre Dame at their Loftus Thunderdome for the Saturday game on short rest.
This game against the Golden Eagles started somewhat differently to that against the Vikings. A quick goal from Finley gave the boys the early lead, before two back to back goals from Marquette (1 being man-up) had the Irish in a deficit for the first time all season. This slight fear (or perhaps concern over sloppiness) was quickly dealt with by having seven goals to finish out the quarter against only one Golden Eagle goal thrown in the middle, making it 8-3 after one quarter. Midfielder WIll Angrick led the way with a first quarter hat trick. The second quarter was once again all Irish with 6 straight to open it up, giving the boys a 13-3 lead before Marquette responded with 2 at the end of the half to make it 13-5 at the break.
The Irish were firmly in command, but while the attack led the way against Cleveland State, the midfield reveled in their opportunity to shine against Marquette.
The second half started with CKav and Marquette’s O’Grady trading goals, before a 6 Irish goal run to end the third up 20-6. The substitutions began in earnest in the last frame, with the fourth was a bit more back and forth. The Golden Eagles wo the quarter 3-2, but by that point the damage was done, giving a final score of 22-9.
Angrick lead the scoring with 3 goals and an assist, Taylor had his own 3 goals, CKav and Pokorny both had 2 goals and 2 assists, Busenkell had 2 goals and an assist, McLane had 2 goals, Jeffery Ricciardelli and Finley both had had 2 goals and an assist, Maheras had 2 goals and 2 assist, Wynocker had an assist, Reinhardt and Ramsey each had an assist, Seymour had a goal, and Sforzo had a goal. This showing was once again supported by great keeper work, with Ricciardelli and Zepf totaling 9 saves on 9 against.
Personnel-wise, the interesting piece to observe was that the Irish ran a 5-man substitution rotation at attack from the get-go. There did not appear to be much regard for particular combinations, the team was confident to send out whoever was fresh. It’s hard to be more confident in your roster than that.
Again, to keep comparisons consistent, will limit the team data to the first three quarters of the game where the main units player. The boys had a very comfortable 32 to 20 ground ball advantage, but were otherwise 50/50 at the faceoff dot. Clearing was a little sloppy at 14 of 17 (mainly the result of Marquette’s faceoff strategy), but the ride was better holding the Golden Eagles to 9 of 14 in those first three quarters.
The LacrosseReference.com data was again very good. The offense operated at a ludicrous 59% efficiency during the first three quarters, with the defense impressively limiting Marquette to merely 24%. Again, it’s crazy to think the defense still has a lot of room to improve as the new personnel gains comfort and further dials in its communication.
Great follow up win to finish up the opening week. These two games certainly left a few questions, but showed a lot of great things.
Our Questions
As always, we’ll address our pregame questions and points of interest:
- Keeping up the offensive firepower: These two games certainly killed any doubt that the scrimmages were flukes. Between the two, the boys scored 46 goals (24 against Cleveland State and 22 against Marquette). Operating at a high 50% efficiency with the entire depth of the unit contributing was certainly still nice to see.
- The Roster: To our count, about 45 players saw the field between the two games. That is an absurd amount which was nice to see. While this number will likely not be maintained the further the season goes on, it is good to allow a lot of the guys to get their sea legs and have time on the field. As this number drops, we hope to see it hover around just above the 30-player mark.
- Goalie Wars: Ricciardelli started both games as expected from the scrimmages. Ricciardelli had 11 saves over the week (5 against Cleveland State and 6 against Marquette) with 9 goals against, with good confidence in the clear game, not too bad of a showing. Zepf also saw the field racking 10 saves (6 against Cleveland State and 4 against Marquette) on 6 goals allowed. Great showings by both of the goalies. The defense in front of them had communication issues at times, but we are confident those will be ironed out with a full week of practice available to the coaching staff.
Overall, a very strong season-opening showing. For those keeping track, ambassadors CKav and Shawn Lyght added 5 ground balls to their CityLax initiative. Please consider helping them along if you are able.
Now we move onto Georgetown! They handed us our one loss last year, so this will shape up to be a good one!
Go Irish!
ND-ATL 2.0
