Notre Dame Fighting Irish lacrosse (#12 4-3, 0-1 ACC) lost in OT, 10-11, to the Ohio State Buckeyes (#5 7-0, 0-0 B1G).  So endeth the great winning streak.

Things we going well for the Irish until things fell apart a bit late in the third.  Notre Dame again had difficulty holding off an opponent’s 2nd half charge, a bit of a theme these last four or so games. The boys mustered a great comeback to force overtime, but Ohio State secured the game-winner.

The Scoring and the Data

Willets and Costabile both had hat tricks for Notre Dame. Jackoboice added 2 goals and an assist, while Morin and McCahon had 1 each.  Gleason had 2 assists.

Canadians Reid Jackson (4 goals) and Tre LeClaire (3 goals) led the Buckeyes.

Arden Cohen’s 6 ground balls and 3 caused turnovers stuck out in the defensive statistics.

The Irish had 3 more turnovers than the Buckeyes but 4 more ground balls.  The Irish were also 2 of 5 man up and perfect man down.  Every other stat was basically dead even between the teams.  There wasn’t much separating the teams on the scoresheet.

Regarding tempo, the Irish were slightly quicker, going to the cage 39 seconds into the possession on average to Ohio State’s 45 seconds.

The Plot

Morin and Jackoboice quickly opened the scoring for Notre Dame, with the Buckeyes coming back to tie in early in the second.  The games started with the defenses both flexing their muscles.

The Irish pulled ahead with four straight goals to go into the half up 6-2, and extended to 7-5 early in the 3rd quarter.  The game looked to be in control for the boys.

Late in the 3rd quarter the halftime mashed potatoes kicked in and the Buckeyes were able to force themselves back in the game and closed the gap.  The late-game worries of the last three matches quickly crept in.

The boys seemed to stop the bleeding with an excellent fast break Willets goal, but Ohio State kept the pressure on and pulled ahead by two with 2 minutes remaining.

Notre Dame had a fantastic comeback, with Jackoboice and Costabile scoring in the waning seconds of the game to tie it up.

The Irish won the OT faceoff, but Willets was stuffed on a great look at the crease.  Ohio State set up in reply.  Notre Dame slid to the ball carrier, but depending on how you want to look at it, no second slide came to the Buckeye’s Colby Smith or there was some miscommunication with the defenders sorting out a pick. Smith ultimately received the ball for a wide-open game winning rip.

Three Questions

We identified these as the pregame issues of focus:

  1. No faceoff regression:  Leonard continued his good play against the excellent Ignacio of Ohio State.  It was statistically a draw, but we were further encouraged with how aggressively the wings played.
  2. Keep the defense tight:  We had a specific concern that the stylistic differences with the Canadian Ohio State players would present a hard adjustment for the defense.  We have to admit that we did not notice anything in particular as problematic, but as Jackson and LeClaire scored 7 of the Ohio State 11 goals, it suggests the adjustment did not go as well as hoped.
  3. Costabile’s radar:  The star midfielder’s shooting stats were back to normal, with a nice 3 of 7 for the afternoon.  But while he was on target, Willet’s close range efforts weren’t landing at the rate he would hope (3 of 12).  They were all good looks, a lot of it was just bad luck.

Observations

Matt Schmidt was tracking the ball very well with 10 saves late into the 3rd quarter until  giving up a very fluky goal for the Buckeye’s 6th.  It seemed to rattle him a bit as he was not nearly as sharp the rest of the game.

Notre Dame got a lot of really good looks in the second half, especially Willets, but the Irish just couldn’t convert them.  The Irish  did a great job of finding him in scoring positions, including in overtime.  On a luckier day those go in and the Irish win going away.

Watching the game a second time, there was no lack of fight from the Irish in the second half.  We joke a bit in referring to the now common second half doldrums, and speculate on their halftime snack choices, but the Irish had no lack of energy.  Shots didn’t fall and this kept Notre Dame from stopping the bleeding.  The fact that they were able to come back late in the 4th quarter and win the OT faceoff scrum is further indication that the boys didn’t just give it up.  As odd as this may sound, there is material to build upon in this game.

As Coach Corrigan noted at the beginning of the season, there are a lot of young players in critical roles on this team.  Games like this one are part of the growing pains, but they don’t expose fundamental flaws.  It was an OT loss to a top-10 team.  These things happen.

**EDIT** If our recap seems muddled today, it’s that we had some differences of opinion within Team ND-Atl, and also with our friends and colleagues who help us in this review.  We suggest to our readers and fans of this team that the any “frustration” should be of the positive nature, that we see how close the team is to being great and that we want them to get over the hump, and opposed to the negative flavor that suggests that there is some kind of deterioration.  This is the same team that beat Maryland and Denver.  As mentioned above, this team is relatively young, and their schedule is incredibly difficult.  We think there are good things ahead this season, but as fans we must be patient.

Up Next

The Irish face the #8 Syracuse Orangemen at home on Saturday at noon, ESPNU.  The Orange are hitting their stride and will be a good test for Notre Dame.

Thanks again to LacrosseReference.com for being generous with their data.

#GoIrish