Our #6 Notre Dame Fighting Irish men’s lacrosse team (2-1) dropped a heartbreaker in overtime to the #13 Georgetown Hoyas (2-2), 10-11.

It was a tough one for the boys, but better to have this happen in February.

The Plot

The game got off to a less than ideal start. Georgetown was getting the better of the Irish at the faceoff dot and the boys were unexpectedly sloppy in the clear game. The defense was holding fast and the offense was getting good looks, but nothing was going in until Jake Taylor opened the scoring with an incredible BTB goal off a ground ball 7 minutes into the game. But then a snipe from Bundy, and goals from the Hoyas’ Llewellyn and Vardaro put the Irish in a hole down 1-3 after 1 quarter.

Taylor and McLane scored quickly in the second to level the score, but Llewellyn’s second put the visitors ahead 3-4 at the half. While the Irish were still down on the scoreboard, they were making corrections to the 1str quarter errors and getting a bit more efficient with the ball.

Georgetown crept ahead in the 3rd, but McLane, Dobson and Faison were able to level the score at 6-6 to end the third. Lynch’s 5 of 6 at the dot was helpful in the Irish recovery.

The forth quarter was a penalty mess. A total of 3 2-minute unreleasable penalties were served (1 GT, 2 ND), and 3 minor penalties were assessed on Georgetown (side note: the new replay rule really disrupts the game).  Irish Captain Pat Kavanagh was clutch to score late to tie it up.  The Irish were unlucky not to go ahead late, and the teams went to overtime.

A furious ground ball scrum got Lynch and the Irish the ball after the opening faceoff, but the two shots they got off in the possession were relatively low percentage.  In Georgetown’s following possession, Aidan Carrol got a step sweeping across the top, and with his teammates sealing off the Irish slide, he got a rip to Entenmann’s left hip off from dead center. The Irish went down 10-11.

Scoring

Jake Taylor (2g, 1a) and Pat Kavanagh (1g, 2a) led Irish scorers. McLane and Agent Zero had 2g each. Dobson added a goal and an assist.  Faison and CKav had a goal, and Seymour had an assist.

Entenmann’s 8 saves against 11 goals was not his best stat line, but the saves were all really good. Will Lynch recovered from a tough start and wound up with a great day at faceoff X winning 15 of 22.

Will Donovan topped the defensive stat sheet with 5 ground balls and 4 caused turnovers. CKav and PKav combined for 5 ground balls and $100 for CityLax!

Aidan Carroll’s hat trick (with OT game winner) was tops for the Hoyas. Alabama’s Anderson Moore had a very good 11-save day.

In team figures, Notre Dame had the edge in shots (36-35), ground balls (26-18) and turnovers (15-17).

The Irish were 3 of 5 in the extra man, and after a tough first quarter, were a perfect 14 of 14 in clears the rest of the game.

Our friends at Lacrossereference.com tell us the efficiencies were 32.4% for the Hoyas and 27.8% for the Irish. Both teams were very deliberate with the ball averaging nearly minute-long possessions

Our  Pregame Three Questions

We have to give some difficult answers this week. Nothing to panic about, but the result was what it was.

  1. Can our defense contain the Hoya big-3: Carroll’s OT goal sticks out as a problem, but 6g/4a is an underperformance from their starting attack. If we are being honest (and not greedy), if we were told before the game their big-3 would be limited to 6 goals and they had to find 5 goals elsewhere, we would be OK with that. Not overjoyed, but we’d assume the defense did enough.
  2. Overwhelm the new-look Georgetown defense: This didn’t work out according to plan. The Hoya defense played very well, 0g/1a on 5 shots from the second midfield was a surprise to us, as was the shortening of the bench to the extent their opportunities became progressively more limited. More on this below, but it is something to monitor.
  3. Manage opponent transition offense:  The team did very well managing true transition opportunities, but in the process also often trapped offensive midfielders on defense. Georgetown was very patient to exploit this situations by inverting and preventing the Irish from setting up their settled 6-on-6 defense. We don’t have a reliable stat to determine if overall this was an improvement or just exchanging one challenge for another.

Thoughts

There’s no reason to overreact to the loss. Our boys are experienced champions who will learn from this, and our coaches know what to do. No one freaks out when Duke loses to Jacksonville or High Point in February, we shouldn’t loose our minds over this, either. Losses are opportunities to improve focus, too, and that doesn’t hurt. However, some analysis is necessary and our thoughts were drawn to to a few matters:

Figuring it out

The game got off to a rough start and the Irish were in a hole, but the stats show they did not get discouraged and were figuring things out.  Irish efficiency improved every quarter: 12%, 25%, 30%, and 44%. There’s also no question that effort was there as the Irish came away with the ball in most of the contested ground balls and had nearly double the caused turnovers.

SSDM utilization

We have who is probably the top SSDM in the country in Ben Ramsey, and probably the best rope unit overall. Ability is not an issue in any respect. Our thoughts are drawn back to our preseason question on how this unit will be utilized in the post-Tevlin and McCahon world. We found ourselves agreeing with Quint Kessenich that the shorties were being run into the ground, and we immediately thought of the 2021 NCAA quarterfinal where the team was confronted with the same problem and had the same result.

It’s a tricky situation. Without genuine 2-way midfielders who can reliably absorb a handful of possessions on defense, the unit was left to absorb all 34 defensive possessions. Against a team that was committed to going deep into the shot clock (like the Hoyas this weekend and 2021 MD), and when the top pairing gets the bulk of the reps, the unit reaches the point where fatigue sets in and they lose a quarter step to the offense. That’s all Georgetown was looking to gain at the end of the game.

We don’t know of a solution other than to perhaps trust a third pairing for a handful of possessions. The coaches probably know other methods, too, but we just hope that we can avoid counting on players like Ramsey, Harris and Parlette to defend 25 possessions and faceoffs on top of that. That’s an extremely difficult ask, and hopefully unnecessary with this roster. The good news is that not many teams are capable of exploiting a defense in this manner.

The Stars need to remember their strengths

Every player strives to be more well-rounded in his abilities, and every offense strives to share the ball as much as possible. This is aspirational and critical to the overall development of a team. However, it’s also important in the moment to remind your opponent that individually, you are also the best in the country. These things work hand in hand. When they have to respect your strength, the other aspects of your game become easier to deploy. We get the sense that on offense the boys sometimes are hesitant to play to their individual strengths. This will work itself out, but we hope the coaches encourage the boys to take chances when those chances involve their incredible abilities.

 

#3 Maryland is up next for the Irish this weekend at Arlotta. We are confident the boys will be well-prepared and ready to go.

#GoIrish

ND-Atl 2.0