Our #1 Notre Dame Fighting Irish took care of business in their NCAA semifinal game in Philadelphia, beating the Denver Pioneers convincingly, 13-6.  The boys will face the Maryland Terrapins for the NCAA National Championship this Monday at 1:00 (ESPN).

It was hot. Very hot. But the Irish and 32,000 fans persevered and thrived.

The Plot

The first 4 minutes of the game started dry from both teams before Denver opened up the scoring with a goal. The boys fired back quickly with 3 goals, CKav from Angrick, PKav, and a crazy diving backhand goal from CKav off the pass from his brother, bringing us to the end of the first quarter up 3-1.

Denver fired off two quick goals to tie the game to start the second, but goals from Taylor (from Walker) and Faison gave the boys a 5-3 lead. Right before half, Denver scored, bringing it to 5-4 at half.

PKav opened up the second half with an unassisted goal, but Denver replyed quickly keeping it a one goal game. Dobson assisted McLane before getting a goal of his own, followed by a CKav goal assisted by PKav to end the third quarter up 9-5.

Denver scored a minute and a half into the fourth, but it was all Irish after that. McLane had 2 goals, PKav had a goal from CKav, and notably Harris scored his third goal of the season off an assist from Lynch.

The Irish were the aggressors throughout.  Denver valiantly kept it close for as long as they could, but the Irish overwhelmed them in the second half.

Highlights link

The Scoring

With all due respect to Liam Entenmann and the Kavanagh brothers, the first stat mention goes to Will Lynch, for his 18 of 23 masterpiece at the faceoff dot. Brav0!

Pat Kavanagh led from the front, with 3 goals and 2 assists.  His brother Chris was not far behind with 3 goals and an assist. Devon McLane joined them in the hat trick club.

Eric Dobson had a goal and an assist, while Nick Harris, Jordan Faison, and Jake Taylor recorded a goal each. Bryce Walker, Will Angrick and Will Lynch each had an assist.

Liam Entenmann reminded us that he is the best in the game, logging 12 saves against 6 goals (67%).

Ben Ramsey had 6 ground balls and 3 caused turnovers!

The boys has a massive lead in ground balls, with 44!! to the Pios’ 24.

The data point that the Irish may hear about in their meetings is their 20 turnovers to Denver’s 15.

Lacrosse Reference calculates that the Irish were 29.5% efficient with the ball, while their defense held Denver to only 18.2% (10% 3rd quarter and 17% 4th quarter!)

27 Irish saw the field on the official scoresheet, but we think this will be revised higher as there were several additional boys who saw the field late in the game on the defensive end that were not formally recorded.

Our Three Questions.

Under the pressure of championship conditions, our boys answered the pregame questions pretty well.

  1. Depth: All three midfield line and all 5 SSDMs provided great minutes. This was critical to Notre Dame’s success and a key reason why the Irish were able to pull away in the second half.  It was very hot and humid, and there came a point where the Pioneers just couldn’t keep up.
  2. Early discipline: A few first quarter jitters, particularly in securing possessions after faceoff wins are a mild criticism. These can be forgiven as the boys otherwise took care of business and secured a lead.
  3. Start fast: The boys jumped out to a 3-1 lead and were definitely the aggressors early.  The Pios caught them at 3-3, but they played the entire game in catch up mode.  This kept the opponent out of their comfort zone and kept them from their tactic of taking the air out of the ball with a lead. It wasn’t perfect, but the key here was to get a lead. More would have been gravy.

Notes

We had the opportunity to ask some postgame questions and left that conference impressed with the absolute focus on team and results. Again, emphasis on focus and team. Here are some highlights:

Q. Coach, when you sit there and you see Chris answer a question about when him and Pat both had hat tricks and all he cares about is getting a W, you have such high character players, how enjoyable is it to coach these kids?

Coach Corrigan: No question, our whole locker room is full of guys like that. And I’m unbelievably fortunate to
coach the group of kids that we have. They’re great, great kids. The character is off the charts. Here’s the thing. This is great — we’re going to play for the national championship on Monday. We also had the highest GPA of any men’s team on campus in the spring. We also just got an award from the Boys & Girls Club that we’re the volunteer of the year in greater St. Joe County. So we got kids who are just great kids, great people to be around. I consider myself blessed. And then on top of that, you’ve got guys who are competitors at the level that they are. And I quote a Jeff Van Gundy quote where he says, if your best player does not have complete intolerance for anything that doesn’t
lead to winning, then you’re in trouble. And we don’t have that problem. Our guys, they could care less who scores, who does what. They just want to win and they do every piece of the game that contributes to winning, not just scoring.

Q. Will, we enjoy watching you taking multiple approaches at faceoffs. How pleased were you with how your wings were able to anticipate how you were going to exit and play it out?

Will Lynch: Definitely very pleased. The way we kind of look at the faceoff matchup is more of a 3-v.-3 — I know
a lot of people think it’s a 1-v.-1, but the success we have doesn’t happen without all three people being on the same
page. So just our game plan all week, whether it be when we were watching film — yeah, they did a great job,
opening exits, competing for ground balls. So the success you see today, the 18, whatever, for 23 number definitely does not happen without all three people being on the same page.

Q. You’ve addressed this a little bit, but the faceoffs, I was so impressed by Lynch. I think it was Denver’s worst performance in 15 years. Could you tell me what you were seeing on faceoffs and what was the week of prep like going into that?
Coach Corrigan: Our guys do a great week of preparing. And we can prepare all we want if Will Lynch goes out there does the heavy lifting. But Ryan Wellner works with our faceoff guys. We have an injured defenseman who helps, who has a knee injury is out for the year, and he helps — Mason Wordelman. And our coaches do a great job. They really do. And as always they don’t get enough credit. But at the end of the day, the credit really goes to those
guys on the field. And Will Lynch just stepped up as he has here in the last part of the season. His wing guys as
well. I think Will Donovan is probably as good a long pole wing as there is out there. And Ben Ramsey, he’s a great
short stick out there. Carter Parlette is a great short stick out there. And we feel really confident winning and being able to turn that to possession and losing and being able to defend with the guys we have there. And that’s a big part of it as well. It allows you to get a little more aggressive knowing that you have the personnel out there on the field to handle whatever happens.

The game was an example of the selfless focus of this team. Playing on that stage in front of so many people and if such difficult conditions is not easy. The game was not perfect, but every player was clearly zeroed in on their job and looking to execute at the best of their ability, from faceoff X to bench mob. When everybody is on the same page like this, the transition from a 5-4 score to a 13-6 score is an inevitability. The boys revel in each other’s success, and at the same time hold each other accountable.  It is the recipe for success.

The National Championship Game will be Monday at 1:00 ESPN.  The weather forecast looks terrible, but we do not think anything can break this team’s resolve.

#GoIrish

ND-ATL 2.0