Our Notre Dame Fighting Irish men’s lacrosse are NATIONAL CHAMPIONS!
The boys annihilated the Maryland Terrapins, 15-5, in the most one-sided game in 26 years to repeat as champions. Chris Kavanagh scored 5 to earn Player of the Tournament honors, his brother Pat dominated his matchup to send 6 assists, and Liam Entenmann was incredible with 16 saves. 10 players scored for Notre Dame.
We’ll save a detailed discussion for a recap when we’ve come down from the clouds, but we can summarize the tone of the game as follows: Maryland scored 2 quick goals at the start to give themselves a glimmer of hope, but this only served to make them feel more helpless as the Irish juggernaut that followed dominated them in nearly every way a lacrosse team can be dominated for the remaining 56 minutes of the game.
The boys were active, unselfish, and scored just about every way one can score with a lacrosse ball. And the defense was equally as superb. Allowing a team of Maryland’s caliber to score only 3 goals in the last 56 minutes of the game is success beyond our imagination. The Terps could not find a single matchup they could exploit. This is not supposed to happen in the modern game!
An image that we think exemplifies the game and one which we will not soon forget is the opponent frantically trying to score a pride goal in the waning seconds of the game only to be left holding the ball as the Irish boys dogpiled their goalie in victory. It was that kind of domination.
A last reaction note, we must be very clear that Maryland is without a doubt a great team that beat other great teams to earn its spot in the championship game. The result was lopsided because they went up against an all-time great team in the 2024 Notre Dame Fighting Irish, and we hope sport history remembers what happened in this way.
Our Three Questions
We’ll go ahead and answer our pregame questions because the answers are so clear and the results so good.
- Mandy Merritt Magic: The Irish trainer had the boys dialed in and ready. The history of the Memorial Day game is one where the last two survivors hope for the best and try to keep it together for one last game. That was not this Irish team. On one day of rest, they were fresh, energetic and dialed in. They weren’t looking to just get by. Getting them to this state was not simply a questions of will, it was one of physical preparation and expertise.
- Zappitello: Maryland indeed deployed their USILA player of the year to the task of stopping Pat Kavanagh. Pat Kavanagh had a NCAA finals record 6 assists in the game. We’ve read from certain commentators that keeping PKav from scoring a goal was a form of victory. This is a complete misunderstanding of Pat Kavanagh. PKav will chose to score when the assists aren’t coming. A record number of assists is this athlete playing at his peak. Ajax Zappitello remains one of the best defenders in lacrosse, but today was PKav’s day.
- Depth: Maryland must have thought it was playing a zombie apocalypse phone game. Wave after wave of fresh, productive midfielders attacking them full gas. And when they had the ball, they were up against an assembly line of fresh SSDMs that they could not beat.
It was a wonderful weekend of lacrosse, and we congratulate the Irish boys on their historic win. For those who we have seen for the final time in an Irish uniform, thank you for the wonderful memories and best wishes for great success in whatever comes next for you! We will always be your fans.
Lastly, a special thank you to the families and friends of Notre Dame lacrosse who showed us such great kindness this championship weekend!
#GoIrish
ND-Atl 2.o
After what seemed to be a slow start for him Liam Entenmann was fantastic. It had to be so demoralizing for Md. to work so hard for scoring opportunities only to be thwarted by the ND netminder.
After an early hiccup, this team has dominated it’s opponents like few teams in history.
67% on Saturday, 76% on Monday! These are video game numbers. Entenmann was on fire!
I was pleasantly surprised at not just how many shots he stopped, but how many he cleanly caught.
You aren’t kidding on being historically dominant. And it’s not like Georgetown was even a bad loss (overtime L to top 10 team). But especially since scraping by Cornell they have been on an absolute all time tear.
They outscored their opponents by 27 points in the tournament, 58-31. And add another +19! for the 2 ACC tourney games.
Against teams in the RPI top 10, then went 9-1 and outscored opponents by 47.
They only played 3 games against opponents outside the top 25, and one of those was in the tournament.
Truly incredible season.
it looked to me on those early goals that at least one was the ball skidding off the wet surface with a higher velocity than usual — the play by play guys mentioned this right before the restart and I believe it was a thing. And then Entemann just kept going… interstellar. Towards the end you knew nothing was getting by him, at all, ever. Great moment in sports.
When Liam started doing Liam things, the crowd went nuts with each save. It was so impressive to watch.
This…is filthy from Jordan Faison. Gets blocked, and in one motion scoops it and goes behind the back for the goal. Just the look of utter dejection from Maryland, as the goalie just made a perfect point blank block and then boom.
https://x.com/NDlacrosse/status/1795177482959585490
I told Tom Zwiller at II that Zappitello needed to lock down CKav to give Maryland a chance. Having him mark PKav and letting PKav distribute 6 assists was a strategic waste of your best defenseman, and for your trouble CKav scored as many goals by himself as the entire Terrapin team. CKav absolutely deserved the tournament Most Outstanding Player award and he’ll be back next year.
I would love to know what happened to Brock Behrman for him to be covered in blood and gauzed up like a mummy at the end of the game.
Awesome performance. Anish said during the broadcast a couple times that this team just had too many different ways to beat opponents, which is true and the takeaway is that this team was as dominant as those best Alabama football runs or the back-to-back Georgia teams. Having watched all the games I took away that the team loved being out there, loved the competition, loved winning, and all of that together they could internally generate anything except focus.
I think if you could find stats by quarter for the season you’d see unforced turnovers decrease by quarter and save and faceoff percentages both increase as the games go along (maybe some fourth quarter weirdness during garbage time). It made watching the team constantly fun as they’d find their footing and slowly overwhelm the opponents. Great team, great title run.
That game ruled IMO
If you have time go watch the full semifinal against Virginia last year, not just when 2 down 3mins to go in regular to the team that already beat you twice before, and the final vs Duke with the Kavs hurting big time.
Massive chip on shoulder and a preview into the domination this year.