Our #1 Notre Dame Fighting Irish men’s lacrosse (14-1) will face their old foe, the Denver Pioneers (13-3) in the national semi-final, this Saturday at noon (ESPN2). The forecast at the time of this writing is for mid-80s temps, partly cloudy and humid.
This matchup is a return of the old Western Rivalry. These teams faced each other 14 times between 2010-2020, including 5 overtime games and 3 meetings in the NCAA tournament.
The Opponent
In the preseason, commentators were unsure of what to expect from the Pios in their first year under head coach Matt Brown. Led by 17 graduate students and seniors, they quickly established themselves as a leading team, with top-10 wins over Johns Hopkins and Cornell in the first month of the season.
Denver shares seven common opponents with Notre Dame. In addition to beating Cornell (17-16), the Pioneers beat Ohio State (9-6), Georgetown (10-8), Marquette (15-9), Michigan (16-11 NCAA 1st round) and Syracuse (10-8 NCAA quarterfinal). They have a loss to common-opponent Duke (7-11). Their other two losses were to Yale (13-15) and Villanova (9-10).
Their adjusted offensive efficiency lags behind the Irish (32% vs 39.7%), but they have a slight edge on the defensive end (26.8% vs. 28%). Raw scoring defense, they are #2 nationally (9.19) vs. #4 for the Irish (9.4).
Where Denver joins the Irish in the wild statistical outlier category is in man-down defense, yielding goals in just 16% of attempts, 15 percentage points better than #2 (as compared to Irish man-up, 71% 12 points better than #2). Should Denver incur any penalties, we’ll get treated to a battle between the unstoppable force and the immovable object.
Coach Brown confirmed in recent comments what is evident from the data. Denver is team organized from back to front. The success of their defense drives what happens in the game.
Players to watch
Fans will notice right away that the Pioneers have some size to them. Beginning with their defense, they are led by All-American Jimmy Freehill (#15 22ct, 35gb, 6’5″ 205 lbs), Jack DiBenedetto (#31 15ct, 15gb, 6’1″ 210 lbs), All-American LSM A.J. Mercurio (#16 16ct, 29gb, 6’3″ 230 lbs), and All-American SSDM Casey Wilson (#59 13ct, 35gb, 6’2″ 200 lbs). This is a veteran group that makes it very difficult to access the front of the goal.
All-American Alec Stathakis is winning faceoffs at over 60% and will be a challenge for the Notre Dame unit. At 220 lbs, he is hard to push off the ball, and he has been at this a very long time. He played in their last game versus the Irish in 2020, where he won 22 of 28 draws.
Their goalie is Malcolm Kleban, who saves at 51%, but not much gets through to him across that defense.
Pioneer scoring is evenly balanced across their top 5 or 6 scorers. Of them, we’ve enjoyed watching #5 J.J. Sillstrop (29g, 17a) and #2 Michael Lampert (21g, 23a). While the team may be oriented from the defense, the Irish should not underestimate the ability of these two and others to score.
Our Pregame Questions
It’s going to be a warm day, and yet another top matchup at the faceoff dot will set the tone. But we think this still gives the advantage to the Irish if they trust their ability to get possessions and play like they have been the past month.
- Depth: We’ve had this at the top of the list for a month, and it will never be more important than on championship weekend in the warmest part of the season. The ability of the Irish to throw waves of fresh midfielders with varied skillsets at the Denver defense will grind them down. As we know, the Irish do not need the defense to be more than a half step late to overwhelm an opponent.
- Early Discipline: The boys have become much more disciplined team in the postseason and have shown they want it more than their opponents. However, they haven’t been at their best ball handling early in the games. It hasn’t been bad, but it did allow teams like Albany and Georgetown to linger around, and this can be dangerous. The risk is probably a bit higher against Denver who are adept at controlling the clock
- Start fast: It’s not a big secret generally that Denver will be deliberate with the ball and will try to keep possessions to a minimum like Georgetown did in the February game. As we saw in their quarterfinal versus Syracuse, they trust their defense to hold any lead. The most effective way to avoid this problem is to get a lead like the boys have been doing the past few weeks.
Notes
Liam Entenmann won the Ensign C. Markland Kelly Jr. Award as the national outstanding goalie of the year! In addition to this announcement the USILA recognized a record 11 Irish players as All-Americans:
Entenmann 1st team
P. Kavanagh 1st team
Ramsey 1st team
Dobson 2nd team
Donovan 2nd team
Lyght 2nd team
C. Kavanagh HM
Taylor HM
McLane HM
Lynch HM
Conlin HM
Congrats to all!
If you have a moment, please listen to the Exit 77 podcast with our colleagues Drew Brennan and David Brogan. They have a great preview discussion.
We are excited that we will be reporting on the game from Philadelphia, and hope to watch another Irish victory!
#GoIrish
ND-ATL 2.0
Weather and Q1 update: it is a scorcher here, and the Irish are playing well! Let’s keep it up!
Update: still incredibly hot and sunny, ND weathered a Denver push in Q2 and lead by 4 going into the 4th. Could be even worse for Denver, their defense and goalie are keeping them in this game.
It is indeed really hot here. Never a better day to be as deep as the Irish. HUGE ND fan presence, even more than last year. Great to see so much support.
Excited for the team, and also for you guys here. Great to see folks rally around your team, isn’t it?
Amd thanks again for sharing your knowledge and enthusiasm.
Bring on the Terps. Going to see if I can make it for the championship game, too!