Our #1 Notre Dame Fighting Irish lacrosse (2-0) take on the #11 Georgetown Hoyas (2-1) this Saturday at noon. The game will start at noon in Washington D.C. and will be streamed on Flolive.

It’s time for the first ranked opponent of the season!

The Opponent

The Hoyas come into this game at 2-1 with wins over Loyola and Penn, and having dropping a game to Johns Hopkins in between. 

Offensively, Georgetown’s new top threat is transfer player and former Irish attackman Fulton Bayman. Bayman has tallied up 6 goals and 4 assists through the start of this season.  The Atlanta native is a two-time national champion with the Irish and was a very reliable understudy to the PKav/CKav/Taylor unit. The hope is our defense has sufficient familiarity with him to limit his production. Outside of Bayman, the offensive threats include Aidan Carroll, who had the overtime goals against us last year and who has started the season with 3 goals and 5 assists, Joe Cesare with 4 goals and an assist, and Kevin Miller with 4 goals.

Defensively, they are led by defenseman Ty Banks who has proven himself to be a great defender and has already caused 4 turnovers with 5 more ground balls. To help out Banks, the Hoya have keeper Anderson Moore. The Alabama native Moore had a breakout year last year and proved crucial to their win over the Irish last year. This year, he has started with an almost 60% save rate with 27 saves on 23 goals against.

Our friends over at LacrosseReference.com have the Hoyas as the #2 ranked team by LaxElo, behind only our Irish. Through their first three games they have controlled the pace of the game through time-of-possession with deliberately lengthy possessions. They remain very good at seeing the game at their own pace. This slowing down of the game gave them a big advantage against us last year, so it will be important to make sure we control the tempo this time around to prevent the same difficulties as last time.

Our Questions

Notre Dame’s success in the first two games allows us to expand our pregame interests:

  1. Settling in on defense: While by no means was the defense bad through this first week, it certainly left a bit of room for improvement. Most of that improvement must come in the early minutes of the game. Both Marquette and Cleveland State were able to get a few on us early, which allowed them to stick around much longer than they should have. Should the Irish be able to limit the Hoyas early, there will be an opportunity for a convincing win.
  2. Attack or Midfield: The first game ran mainly through the attack, then the following it mainly ran through the midfield. While both proved to be extremely successful it will be interesting to see which they try and run through against a stronger opponent. We considered adding a “why not both” meme, but the practical reality is that Georgetown will likely choose to limit one or the other, and they are entirely capable of doing that.
  3. Going Outside: This will be the first time all season where the Irish play outside. To our understanding, they’ve only begun practicing outside this week. While mid 40s and sunny isn’t crazy cold, it certainly isn’t warm. It will definitely require some adjustments compared to the relative comfort of Thunderdome, and this might make it a bit more challenging for the boys.

This game is shaping up to be a good one! With this being our first ranked match-up it will give us the next good look at what this team will be for the season. Putting the game on a random streaming service certainly isn’t helping fans appreciate the strength of this team, but that’s not the Irish’s fault. 

#GoIrish