Our Notre Dame Fighting Irish men’s lacrosse team is the 2024 NCAA Division One Men’s Lacrosse Champion. The Irish thoroughly dominated the Maryland Terrapins, 15-5, in a game probably not even as close as the huge margin would suggest. Neither the Terps nor the weather could stop this team from its championship goal on Memorial Day.

To cap of this great season, on Thursday Pat Kavanagh won the Tewaaraton Award, recognizing him as the top player in men’s lacrosse, the first Fighting Irish player to be so honored.

We’ve basked in the glow of this win for a week, it’s time you finish our notes on the championship!

The Plot

In anticipation of bad weather, the start time was moved up to noon, but nature had other plans and a delay was called right after the national anthem. After a 2 hour rain delay, the game finally started at 2pm EST, with the boys warming up and starting the game in steady rain. 

For a championship game, our game narrative recap is fairly short. As we all know by now, the game stopped being competitive very quickly.

Maryland opened up the game with a quick goal, followed by a second a few minutes later.  Strangely, we did not get the sense at the stadium that the Irish were in any danger. The offense didn’t yet have a meaningful possession, and we could see the defense making adjustments in real-time.

After that it was all Irish. The boys scored 3 straight from Angrick, Taylor, and Busenkell before Maryland got a quick one to tie the game at 3. With each possession, the boys were immediately putting the Terrapin defense on their heels.

The Irish defense dug in and the offence went into overdrive. Seymour and Dobson had goals to close out the first quarter up 5-3. The second quarter might just be the most dominant quarter in NCAA finals history with goals from McLane, 3 straight from CKav, and Gray, stretching the Irish lead to seven with minimal worry on the defensive end. Maryland scored a man-up goal at the end of the quarter to keep from being shut out in the second, ending the half at 10-4.

The game felt pretty much over at the half, with Maryland not being able to do anything on offense, and even less on defense. The third quarter sealed the deal, with a goal from Faison, 2 more from CKav, and a goal from our fellow Atlantan, Fisher Finley. Maryland scored with 30 seconds left in the quarter to try and get some sort of momentum, but it would end up meaning nothing. The Irish were up 14-5 and already killing clock to end the game to start celebrating.

It’s hard to say this without being disrespectful to a championship opponents, but the teams and the 30,000+ fans new the game was over at the start of the fourth. Taylor was the only scorer in the frame (to put the Irish up a final 15-5), Entenmann was in beast mode, and the defense largely untroubled by anything Maryland was trying to do. It is worth mentioning that Maryland kept trying their best to score and could do absolutely nothing. On a similar note, it is also worth mentioning that the Irish only scored one because they didn’t want to score more, but it was very clear they could have chosen whatever final score they wanted. 

It was dominant, and the Irish were again champions.

The Scoring

Three lines in the state sheet require special mention:

-CKav finished the game with 5 goals and 5 ground balls

-PKav finished with an incredible 6 assists while covered by USILA Player of the Year Ajax Zapitello.

-Liam Entenmann, after letting in 2 quick goals, logged 16 saves and an insane 76% save percentage in a championship game

The remaining scoring was balanced across the entire lineup and through all three midfields. Busenkell had a goal and 2 assists, Taylor had 2 goals, anf Dobson and Angrick each had a goal and an assist. Faison, McLane, Finley, Gray and Seymour each had a goal.

Marco Napolitano was the state leader on defense with 4 ground balls and 2 caused turnovers.  And as an indication of the defensive domination, Parlette, Alacqua, Ramsey, Buchner and Donovan all logged caused turnovers from the rope unit.

Notre Dame’s defense reduced Maryland to a paltry 13.5% efficiency in the game (0% in the fourth).  Notre Dame played at 38.5% efficiency.  Breaking Notre Dame down by quarter tells an even more impressive story, with efficiencies of 45%, 56% and 50%, for the first three quarters before running out the clock with a 9% fourth quarter.

For Maryland, their statistical standout was faceoff specialist Luke Weirman winning an incredible 17 of 24 draws. Notre Dame’s domination is even more impressive knowing that their opponent had an overwhelming possession advantage and could still do nothing.

“Our” Thoughts

We addressed our pregame questions in our instant reaction to the game.  We think the best assessment of the game and the Irish play on championship weekend was given by Coach Corrigan to Inside Lacrosse right after the game:

“Let’s put it this way: we won it last year, [but] I wouldn’t stand on a soapbox and say we were the best team. I would say we won the championship and good on us. We were the best team this year, and that’s gratifying in its own way.”

They were indeed the best team. But how did they get to those lofty heights? Coach Corrigan was quick to direct attention to the players themselves, and how they came to achieve such greatness.  He reflected:

“I’ll remind you that I’m 2-34. So it’s a lot more about those guys in that locker room than it is about me because they’re the guys who have done this in the last two years.

Again, I’ll go back to not just the outstanding play of these guys because clearly you see how good they are, but their leadership has been phenomenal. One of the COVID effects that all of us have had the last few years is really large rosters. And when you’ve got 60 guys on a roster and a game like this, the NCAA only allows you to play 32.

You’ve got just as many guys who go into that game knowing they’re not going to play a second as you have guys who are going to play.

And that dynamic, it’s not something the coach creates. It’s something they create. It’s something that they are accountable for and to.

When you have great kids and great leaders, you just kind of take your hands off the wheel on a lot of things; let those guys handle it. They know how to handle it. When they don’t, they’ll come ask. So we’re really, really fortunate to have those kinds of guys, and I think that’s why we’ve made this run that we’ve made the last two and a half years.”

An era of lacrosse is ending with what may be the most dynamic and deepest assembly of college lacrosse players ever. This is not simple hyperbole but a sober assessment of one of the most unusual eras of our sport. When the Irish left the field after a 11-13 loss to Ohio State on March 10, 2020, no one remotely thought we were on the verge of a superteam era, where schools had a small window to assemble great rosters and have a much longer time to develop them. Even with NIL and agreeable transfer rules, schools are not likely to ever have such an opportunity again. In this era it was the University of Notre Dame Fighting Irish that emerged on top. A team like this may never been witnessed again, and we consider ourselves privileged to have been able to watch them.

What ifs

With a team as dominant as the 2024 Fighting Irish, comparisons have been drawn with other historically dominant college teams, the most recent one being the first “superteam” of the Covid era: 2022 Maryland. While we generally agree with commentators like Quint Kessenich that demanding such comparisons takes a lot of the fun out of the win, it may be worth discussing it in a context that respects and celebrates the dominant aspects of both teams. We welcome your good-natured thoughts on this issue in the comment section.  We’ll try to follow-up on any of your thoughts in an article next week.

One Last Pitch

If you are able, we ask you to consider helping with these two player initiatives:

Pat and Chris Kavanagh’s Ground Balls for NYC campaign to raise funds for the CityLax program, which promotes and funds public school lacrosse programs in New York City.

Max Manyak’s Pediatric Pep Talk, which organizes connections between college student athletes and children struggling with illness. You may recall Max and his program from the Emmy Award-winning video series “What Will You Fight For.”

Thank You!

With the end of the 2024 season, we must thank our friends and colleagues, Drew Brennan and David Brogan, for their companionship and help over the season. Thank you also to Fred Assaf for allowing us use of his fantastic team and game photos. And thank you to the friend and families of the Notre Dame lacrosse players who were very kind to us at games and over championship weekend.

A special thank you to Notre Dame Associate Athletics Communication Director Robby Hamman for his kind assistance with information and access throughout the season.

 

#GoIrish

ND-ATL 2.0