Our #1 Notre Dame Fighting Irish men’s lacrosse (9-1, 2-1 ACC) dropped the #15 Duke Blue Devils (8-4, 0-3 ACC), 7-6. The score was a bit closer than we would like, but a road win that effectively eliminated a rival from the ACC and NCAA Tournaments is a satisfying win.
What We Liked
Thomas Ricciardelli was awesome. 17 saves against 6 goals is magnificent. We have a goalie peaking at the exact right time.
The defense was spectacular as well, holding Duke to 18% efficiency. Duke was disciplined with the ball, and Notre Dame didn’t cause a lot of turnovers. The boys succeeded the old fashioned way by just winning their matchups. Johnston and Sloat had half their shots like they always do, but the shots were rarely good ones. Other than Ortlieb, no one else on the team was much of a factor.
The midfield was consistently threatening, especially Matt Jeffrey (3 goals). Dylan Faison (2 goals) also validated his coaches’ trust. The unit as a whole did what they needed to do to win.
And to be fair, the field wasn’t terrible. The Freeman millions are having an impact.
What Made Us Nervous
Duke neutralized the Notre Dame attack and had the offense at 20% efficiency. This is not sustainable. The midfield picked up the slack and won the game, but there can’t be games where the attack unit disappears almost entirely. The one-goal margin of victory flatters the Blue Devils a bit, but it was way too close for no other reason than the front of the offense had difficulty tallying points.
Similarly, the Irish had another 16-minute scoreless stretch. We don’t know the solution at this point, but relying on your defense to play a perfect game is a dangerous strategy.
A critical reason why placing so much weight on the defense is dangerous is that the man-down defense is suspect. They went 2-4 against Duke which is consistent with their efforts this season. In a close game like this past weekend, a late penalty against Notre Dame would have likely changed the outcome. For as good as the set defense is, the man-down version has its challenges. There isn’t a lot of time to change course.
Syracuse Up Next
The #5 Syracuse Orangemen face the Irish this Saturday at noon, Arlotta Stadium, ACC Network Extra.
It’s Senior Day, so the first order of business is honoring our graduates. Following that, the key will be to harness the emotions of the day so that the team may focus on its talented opponent. This is always difficult.
Syracuse is 11-3, and has been a very different team on the road as compared to the Dome. Road losses to Harvard, Princeton and North Carolina have exposed flaws, as have close road wins against Penn and Denver. We hope they don’t figure things out on their trip to South Bend.
For the Irish, we will look for three things:
- Don’t let them switch Lyght or Schwitzenberg off their man. Notre Dame has historically not been overly focused on maintaining matchups, but Syracuse has figured out how to exploit that tendency. Whoever is assigned to Spallina must stay with Spallina.
- Notre Dame should exploit the Orange shorties. The Syracuse defense can be very aggressive and check happy, but to our observation a lot of this is to hide the weaknesses in the SSDM unit. Our middies need to dodge and beat the shorties to keep the poles from applying the pressure they want to.
- No 15-minute scoreless streaks. We are less worried about achieving a total than scoring consistently. Scoring droughts create too much pressure.
#GoIrish
Luke Burgar
ND-ATL 2.0
It was a minor change, but seeing the Irish lose a 1st place vote after this win was headscratching…Princeton also only won by one on the road
There are two prominent media figures who are going out of their way to be the Princeton guys. Hogan and Kessenich. Hogan is just trying to be contrary. His argument makes little sense. Quint is fixated on the occasional issues on offense. We disagree, but at least it’s a reason, unlike Hogan.