Our #1 Notre Dame Fighting Irish men’s lacrosse team (1-0) put on a show in defeating the Cleveland State Vikings (1-2) by a score of 25-3. This was the largest offensive output for the Irish in 32 years.

According to the scoresheet, FIFTY-THREE Irish players stepped on the field, including five freshmen (Faison, Greenspan, Behrman, Schwitzenber and Lyght).

The Plot

It didn’t take long for the Irish to get started. A Faison dodge 38 seconds into the game opened the scoring for the Fighting Irish 2024 season and for Faison’s career at Notre Dame. CKav, Seymour and Walker continued the scoring to put the Irish up 4-0 at the end of the first quarter.  Holding the Vikings to 4 of 7 clearing was instrumental in keeping the visitors from any meaningful scoring opportunities.

The boys put their foot on the accelerator in the second.  Faison’s second goal was followed by a 3-minute hat-trick by Jake Taylor.  Irish goals continued quickly, interrupted only by a faceoff miscue that gave Cleveland State a point. The Irish were up 11-1 at the half. Cleveland State had no response.

Allatoona High School’s Amiri Austin opened the second half with a Cleveland State goal, but the Irish domination otherwise continued with Busenkell and freshman Behrman included in the scorers bringing the Irish lead to 19-2.

There was no let-up in the fourth quarter, with Ridgway, Busenkell (again), Bayman (2x), Grant and Sforzo finalizing the winning score at 25-3.

Highlight Video (too long to embed, 25 goals will do that)

The Scoring

Jake Taylor had 5 goals, PKav had 5 assists, and CKav has 3 goals and 2 assists to top the scoresheet. Faison (3g, 1a) and transfer Devon McLane (2g, 2a) were right behind them.

Fulton Bayman (2g, 1a) and Max Busenkell (2g, 1a) come up next on the points list, with Jalen Seymour (1g, 1a), Agent Zero (1g, 1a), and Griffin Grant (1g, 1a) right behind them.  Walker, Behrman, Ridgway and Sforzo added a goal each, and Finley, Parlette, and Maheras provided an assist each.

18 of the 25 goals were assisted.

Liam Entenmann was again stellar with 8 saves against 2 goals. Zepf, Ricciardelli and Lee got time in the crease in relief.

The faceoff unit was good and consistent across the board: Hagstrom (8 of 12), Lynch (7 of 11), Greenspan (3 of 4), Eilers (1 of 2) and Alacqua (0 of 1).

Chris Conlin’s 3 GBs led the non-faceoff ground ball stats, but the Irish 44 ground balls were otherwise spread out nicely across the playing roster, indicating an excellent effort by the boys.

The Irish dominated shooting (49 vs 17), ground balls (44 vs 17) and turnovers (10 vs 19).

As incredible as this may seem, but the 11 of 17 statistical clear total flatters the Vikings. To our count, 5 of the 11 “successful” clears resulted in turnovers almost as soon as Cleveland State could get the ball over midline.

Our Questions

We came into the game with three thoughts in mind:

  1. PKav bubble wrap: Pat Kavanagh indeed started and played and was in peak form with 5 assists. The coaching staff rotated in several attackmen, but this did not appear to have anything to do with load management. It seemed more a strategy to overwhelm the opponent with fresh depth.
  2. The Starting Defense:  Sophomore Will Gallagher got the call to start with Chris Conlin and Shawn Lyght. Marco Napolitano was rotated in quickly in reserve.  They all played very well in the limited opponent possessions. It was interesting to see the Irish play a 4-man rotation in the core defensive unit.  We’re curious if this will be an ongoing thing.
  3. The Midfield: More on this below, but it was exciting to see wave after wave of midfielders. We didn’t see this coming at all, but Dobson, McLane and Faison were the first unit, with Gray, Seymour and Walker forming the second.  The coaching staff seemed to put a lot of thought into how to create waves of impossible coverage decisions for the opposing defense. We hope this continues because it was a lot of fun to watch.

Thoughts

Our friend and colleague Drew Brennan has some comments you should read. For our part, our key takeaway from this game was the incredible depth. The team can comfortably run 5-6 different players at attack, 4+ on defense, and an armada at midfield. This gives the team the ability to throw fresh and unrelenting pressure on the opponent the second they get the ball, and there is no let up in the pressure when we are on offense.

We are far beyond the classic approach to midfielders where your top-3 form the first line, and you put together a second line to give the first a rest and hope there isn’t much of a production drop off.  This is something altogether different.  Each line presents an A+ challenge to the opposing defense.

This is where the Faison issue is fascinating. Having a midfielder on the shelf that can run past any SSDM is an incredible luxury that allows the coaching staff to balance the lines. Faison proving he is a legit scoring threat 38 seconds into the game put Cleveland State into an impossible position. There was no way they could relax coverage against PKav, CKav or Taylor, and Dobson is an all-universe midfielder with a cannon, and McLane is an all-american in his own right.  This leaves Faison to abuse his defender, and when they hedged to give the defender some support, the other 5 made quick work of what was left of the defense.

A Jake Taylor goal was a great example of this. Faison (#14) at this point has shown himself to be a scoring threat, so when he gets the ball coming out of the box,  the defense has a horrible choice as someone is going to need to help, the guy covering Dobson (#8) in his favorite scoring area (bad idea) or the guy covering CKav (#50, also bad idea). The defender covering CKav goes, CKav rolls off, Faison has an easy pass back, and now they have All-American Chris Kavanagh with nothing but green grass ten yards out from the goal. The defense panics in response, and CKav rips in the pass to Taylor (#13) for an easy goal. Later in the game Cleveland State moved a pole to cover Faison, and then the other five had their way with the reorganized defense. 25 goals didn’t happen by accident.

Will this work against teams with a deeper SSDM lineup? Tough to say, but we don’t get the sense that a lot of players have been able to stop Faison since he wandered over from the football facility.  And his presence on the Dobson line allows the coaching staff to stack the second line (as evidenced by Seymour and Walker both scoring in the first quarter). It’s going to be fun to watch this play out, whether the lines stay the same our if there are even more surprises.

Up Next

The Irish visit Marquette on Sunday at 2:00 EST (1:00 CST). This game at the Valley Fields bubble is going to be difficult. Mason Woodward is one of the top defenders in the country, and attackman Bobby O’Grady has had some fantastic games against the Irish.

And CONGRATULATIONS TO THE NOTRE DAME WOMEN’S LACROSSE TEAM!!! The Fighting Irish toppled #1 Northwestern as we publish this, ending the Wildcats’ 22-game win streak!

#GoIrish

ND-Atl 2.0