Notre Dame Fighting Irish lacrosse (2-2) lost the Western Rivalry, 11-14, to the Denver Pioneers (4-2).  The Irish had difficulty getting the ball often enough to keep pace with the Pios, but showed great heart in mounting a late comeback.

We’ll depart from our usual recap format as we only have a minute before the boys are off to Columbus for the next game. Our notes will be short and to the point today.

The Data

Wheaton Jackoboice had a career day with 4 goals.  Costabile, Willets and Mirer had 2 goals each, and Kavanaugh added 1.  Westlin was good in support with 3 assists.

Cohen had a good day on the defensive side with 3 caused turnovers and 5 ground balls.  Cassidy also played well with a caused turnover and 3 ground balls.  Leonard had had a tough outing against Stathakis, going 6 of 28 at the dot.  Entenmann played better than his line would suggest, giving up 12 goals against 7 saves before Schmidt relieved him.

Shots were in favor of Denver, 43-36.  Lacrossereference.com calculated that Notre Dame was heavily on the wrong end of time of possession, 38% to 62%, and that the Irish had 9 fewer possessions than the Pios.

Ethan Walker (4g, 2 a) and Jack Hannah (2g, 2a) paced Denver.

Discussion

We’ll reduce our normal format to some bullet points as we get ready for Ohio State on Tuesday:

  • Notre Dame and Denver traded goal with the score knotted up 5-5 in the mid-2nd quarter.  Denver then went on a 7 goal run through the middle of the 3rd.  The Irish used very physical play and the 10-man ride to bring the deficit to two.  The teams exchanged a few goals, but the Irish were not able to close the gap further in the last 5 minutes of the game.
  • We are very pleased with the fight the boys showed in the 4th quarter.  It was no fun being down seven, but watching them find a way to get back in the game was impressive.  Things stalled with 5 minutes left, but the preceding 15 minutes were great lacrosse worthy of the Western Rivalry.
  • As we elaborated above and last week, the Irish were challenged with possession, particularly at faceoff.
  • Denver gave Kavanagh and Costabile a lot of defensive attention.  Costabile is accustomed to this by this point and got on the scoreboard often, even if his shooting % was a little off.  Kavanagh was kept more quiet. Jackoboice and Westlin took advantage of their relatively less aggressive attention.  Hopefully this pays dividends moving forward.
  • Scoring balance remains good.
  • There looked to be some injury concern with Trense, and we saw a lot of defensive options on the field.  24 Domers played, and of the 14 reserves, 11 were on the defensive end.  With a lot of new bodies on the field, it did appear communication was not always sharp.
  • We received messages arguing about Entenmann being replaced.  We don’t have any inside knowledge on the decision and personally don’t think Entenmann played poorly, but we do note his replacement roughly coincided with the start of the 10-man ride, and it seems reasonable that Schmidt’s experience would be a good option in that specific circumstance.
  •  Regarding our pregame questions, the Irish didn’t commit many turnovers, but could have been better in the ground ball department.  The Irish were under constant pressure with limited time of possession.  As for shots, we hoped for 50 and they were well short of that.
  • If we had a complaint, it was that Coach Corrigan waited too long to implement the 10-man ride.  We know coach is hesitant to use that pressure unless the boys are way down, but we suggest the writing was on the wall regarding possession early in the Denver 7-goal run.

It’s a bummer to lose a rivalry game at home, but the Irish need to shake it off and move on with only 2 days rest between games.

Up Next

Notre Dame travels to Columbus to take on #17 Ohio State (4-2), Tuesday at 5:00, game to be broadcast on BTN.  Both teams are looking to add a quality win to their resume.  Ohio State has wins over Detroit, Boston U, Bucknell and Hofstra, with losses to UMass and Cornell, the latter being an impressive one-goal loss to a top-3 team.

The Irish lost to the Buckeyes in OT last year, but won the previous 13 games against this opponent.  A lot of familiar names on the Buckeye roster:  Tre LeClaire, Jack Myers, and Jackson Reid lead the scorers.  Ryan Terefenko as SSDM  remains one of our favorite players in lacrosse.

For the Irish, possession and faceoffs are the key, but they will face a tough test against Justin Inacio who has won 69% this year. Last year Inacio and Leonard played evenly, so there is reason to expect progress.

They say in lacrosse, Tuesday is for the hunter.  Let’s hope the Irish do some hunting in Columbus.

#GoIrish