Our #1 Notre Dame Fighting Irish men’s lacrosse team (1-0) makes its way to Milwaukee to play the Marquette Golden Eagles (3-0) for a Sunday 2:00 pm EST (1:00 CST local) match. The game will be broadcast on YouTube.
We’ll go ahead an embed the game here for convenience:
The Opponent
Notre Dame is 11-0 versus Marquette (3-0 at Milwaukee), and won last year 21-10. Do not let the record suggest these games have usually been easy. The Irish were lucky to escape with wins in the 2016, 2017 and 2018 contests, and always get the Golden Eagles best shot.
Marquette has started its season with very comfortable wins over Air Force, Lindenwood and Detroit Mercy. The are just outside the top-20 in the polls.
It’s not a big secret that Bobby O’Grady (#13, 4 goals vs. ND last year) is the key to their offense and a player who has given Notre Dame a lot of difficulty. This year he is surrounded by a balanced offense with Luke Blanc, Carsen Brandt and Jake Stegman providing a lot of scoring. While Devon Cowan (#29, 4 goals vs. ND in ’22) hasn’t gotten off to the same start as these four, he is still someone the Irish will need to pay close attention to.
Mason Woodard (#77) is one of the best defenders in the country. We will be curious as to who gets his attention. In goal, Lehigh transfer Caleb Creasor has gotten off to a very good start, and the faceoff tandem of Adam Slager and Luke Williams has been winning over 70% of their draws so far.
The Irish will have their hands full on short rest.
Our Three Questions
Our focus will be on continued developments from the Cleveland State game:
- Middie Line Mania: Will we see more First Line Faison, or perhaps a new wrinkle to help launch some Dobson missiles? The Irish have so many good combinations available to them that they can really mess with Marquette’s scouting report if they choose.
- Continued Defensive Dominance: O’Grady, Cowan and company are a much different test than Cleveland State, and Gallagher and Lyght haven’t played them before. But supported by a top rope unit, it doesn’t seem like much has bothered them so far this winter.
- Keep Winning the Clear and Ground Ball Game: What sort of success will Notre Dame’s unrelenting pressure find on the road? It seems silly to even say it, but the best way to keep O’Grady and Cowan from being a problem is to make sure they see the ball as little as possible.
The Valley Fields bubble is a claustrophobic experience, sort of a Loftus Thunderdome with restricted fan viewing. It will be a very different environment than what the Irish are used to. However, the hope is the Irish can get off to a fast start and keep the Marquette attack from becoming an issue.
#GoIrish
ND-Atl 2.0
Shawn Lyght got walked on the second Marquette goal. I’m hoping to see someone step up and fill (partially fill?) Chris Fake’s very big shoes.
Awesome play by C Kav to win that ground ball and set up the Devon McLane goal.
Would like to see Dobson get going a little. Tough angle to see shooting lanes from on this broadcast, but he got a pick moving left on the last ND possession of the first quarter, passed on the shot and threw an errant pass for a turnover.
And Dobson scores the first goal of the second quarter.
Allowed a second fast break goal and Conlin takes a penalty… that’s kind of dubious since I can’t tell if they’re calling a high check, which it wasn’t because it was in the armpit, or a late check, it was pretty close to simultaneous with the shot, which is why it was in the armpit. Glad to see the Irish kill that one off.
P Kav forces the turnover, one pass assist to Faison to set up the play-by-play guy “The last two Notre Dame bowl MVPs are on this lacrosse team” which is a finish-your-drink line for the lacrosse season drinking game. 9 to 4, good half overall.
Two P Kav to Jake Taylor goals in the first part of the third quarter. It’ll be interesting to see if it still seems ridiculously unfair to be playing both Kavanaughs and Taylor together again this year when we get into the meat of the schedule, but right now they look like a cheat-code out there together.
Marquette has some kind of substitution hand signal when they clear midfield that involves throwing both hands up and whenever it’s in frame it looks like they’re celebrating escaping the ND ride.
Ben Ramsey has been great on defense. Haven’t seen any mistakes, can press way out without losing his guy, physical on the ball, on the spot for ground balls. Would like to see a long stick stand out as well.
Nick Harris suffers the first on-field injury of the season, which is hopefully just a clavicle contusion blocking a shot. 16-7 with 15 minutes to go.
Another for Dobson and one for Reilly Gray. I know they’re both primarily offensive middies, but I’d love to see them take the odd defensive possession in preparation for Duke’s patented “pick-for-O’Neill” offense. Let one of those guys break a couple Duke picks and I bet they get a little less aggressive.
Speaking of which, Nate Schwitzenberg breaks a pick then intercepts a pass. Cool sequence off the bench for the freshman late in the game.
A perfect early season win. Nice and dominant with just enough things to coach up going forward.
All the SSDMs looked really good. probably Parlette’s best game, too. He was great.
If there is a criticism this game, it’s that fast break D still has issues. Not unique to ND by any means, just noting one of the very few areas where they weren’t awesome.
He got a lot more consistent as the game went on. On the other side of D formation coach seems to have pivoted back to Napolitano, perhaps to help navigate the picks.
It was exasperating in the moment having allowed two low-ish effort goals but they settled in well. I definitely trust Corrigan to have the defense playing at a high level, but as a fan you don’t live as one-game-at-a-time and I see Maryland in two weeks. No pressure, freshman.
We plan on taking a look at settled scoring with each of the middle lines on the field. Individually, 1st line scored way more themselves, but we’re curious if there is much of a dropoff for team overall with 2nd line.
USA Lacrosse Magazine is also talking about Notre Dame’s defense:
Jeff Myers over at USALM is pretty convinced the defense is fine, so he has lower standards than us or Corrigan for a Corrigan defense.
https://www.usalacrosse.com/magazine/college/men/work-progress-defense-notre-dame-looks-just-fine-2-0-start