The Notre Dame Fighting Irish (2-0, #5/7/8) beat the Richmond Spiders (2-2) yesterday at Arlotta Stadium, 11-7.  The Irish came off a two-week break to play 52 minutes of sublime defense, with 8 minutes of mess sprinkled in after halftime to make things interesting.

The Scoring and Stats

Brendan Gleason led the Irish with 3 goals and 3 assists, Costabile added 2 goals on a Perkovic-like 11 shots, Wynne with 2 goals, and Garnsey, Williets, Sexton (#46trucking), and Collins a goal each.  Garnsey had two assists, and Willets and Jackoboice had an assist each as well.

On the defensive side, the close defense had an exceptional statistical performance with Crance taking 6 ground balls and causing two turnovers, Kielty with 2 gb, 3 ct, and the freshman Cohen with a whopping 6 gb, 3 ct.  These are huge numbers for a Notre Dame defense.

Freshman goalie Schmidt had 6 saves, and Travisano won a respectable 12 of 22 faceoffs.

As a team, Notre Dame had 41 shots to Richmond’s 27,  and won the ground ball  and turnover battles 29-20, and 14-17.

For Richmond, their goalie Goodman stood out with 13 saves.

The Plot

The Irish started slow on offense but built a 5-0 lead by halftime.    The 6-on-6 set was methodical, but not particularly innovative (although a good performance by the Richmond goalie had a lot to do with this).  The return of Sexton and Schantz allowed the Irish to run a bit, with Sexton scoring once on three shots, and Notre Dame looked threatening in these situations.  The defense was in complete control in the first half.  Starting the third quarter, the wheels came off, with Richmond going on a 6-goal streak and the Irish being unable to keep any kind of possession.  They stopped the bleeding with a nifty Willets goal, and the defense went back into lock-down mode.  The Irish cruised in the 4th quarter, but the final score flatters them a bit as the result was unclear into the last few minutes of the game.  Again, 52 minutes of fabulous lacrosse, with 8 minutes of catastrophe nearly doing the Irish in.

Pregame questions

Our pregame thoughts focused on these matters:

  1. Matthew Schmidt in goal:   Schmidt looked good making six saves and keeping a level head in clears.  We’re sure he’d want to have a few of the goals back during the Richmond 6-goal run, but the bulk of them were not his fault in any way.  Another solid performance.
  2. Injuries:  We were relieved to see Sexton and Schantz back, and their presence was noticeable.   The Irish controlled the middle of the field (perfect in clears) and had some good opportunities early with unsettled chances.  However, face-off midfielder Hyland remains out.  Travisano continues to win the clamp well, but needs space to control the ball.  Fortunately, Sexton played a lot of wing and cleared bodies for him, but this remains a tenuous solution in the absence of Hyland (and staring at Baptiste coming in two weeks, who had a record 22-for-22 performance this weekend).
  3. Attack rotation:  The Irish played an 8-man rotation between the midfield and attack, much different than last week.  Corrigan was quoted as noting this was simply a plan to keep the eight best offensive players on the field against a team that did not run much.  We were disappointed not to see Morin and Mirer get some runs, along with some of the other sophomore and freshman options.  It was difficult to judge this approach as personnel changes were so fluid. We need more time to evaluate the chemistry.  However, we don’t think the Irish will be able to get away with a short bench next week against Maryland, so our expectation is that we’ll see a more traditional approach moving forward.

Observations

Considering that the youthful defensive lineup was a preseason questions mark, they were absolutely dominant for lengthy swaths of the game.  They are aggressive and mean.  Millican, Schantz and Cohen made some hard hits, and Kielty and Cohen seemed perfectly comfortable without a lot of slide help.  There was a fair amount of ball watching and poor communication during the Richmond run, but they got their act together quickly and shut down the Spiders the remainder of the game.  This looks to be developing into an area of great strength for this squad so long as they minimize the mid-game confusion.

With Sexton and Schantz in the game, Notre Dame had full control of the middle of the field, and the Irish looked ready to run in the first half.  It was cool to see several poles with enough confidence in their handle to advance the ball with an eye towards scoring.  As noted above, they were perfect on clears as well.  We hoped to see Cassidy and Cochran on the field to see how their speed would blend in, but they did not see the field.  The defensive midfield, with its depth, speed and stick skills, may be the antidote for the static half-field offense if they continue to gain possession and press forward so aggressively.

As noted above, the Irish kept a very short bench in the settled offense, and the players on the field were presented as the best options available.  We are not convinced by this.  It took a while for these combinations to develop any fluidity, and there wasn’t much creativity on display.  There were a lot of options left on the bench that could have brought better creativity or more dominant size.  If nothing else, getting these options some on-field experience ahead of Maryland would have been nice.

We do have some concern that the Irish seem unable to get Wynne the ball in his preferred scoring areas, forcing him to create more of his own offense, and they can’t seem to get Garnsey any space to operate, which seems to frustrate him.  Neither situation is ideal and will prove problematic if they can’t play to their top players’ core strengths.  The younger players are excellent, but they will have bad games where it will be necessary to count on these veterans.

The Irish are on a good trajectory.  The Detroit game had 40-45 minutes of good lacrosse, and yesterday they played 52 minutes of great lacrosse.  Ideally, Notre Dame would have one more game before heading into the meat of the schedule, but all things considered things look good.

Up Next

Notre Dame travels to College Park this coming Saturday for an 11:00 a.m. game against the #3 and defending national champion Maryland Terrapins (what is with the Big 10 and these silly 11 a.m. starts?). The game will be broadcast on the Big 10 Network.