#2/#3 Notre Dame Fighting Irish men’s lacrosse (6-1, ACC 2-1) gave Duke (10-1, ACC 2-1) its first loss in a dominant 13-8 victory.

For six years, the Irish have defeated every #1 team they’ve faced, and Coach Corrigan, now with 311 wins as the Notre Dame head coach, alone holds the record for victories at a school.

The Scoring

It was a big day for the midfielders!  Mo Mirer led with 4 goals, followed by Wheaton Jackoboice with a hat trick. Will Yorke continued to own the interior with 2 goals. Pat Kavanagh added to his highlight reel with a goal and an assist, while Dobson, Cassidy and Gallagher each had a goal.

Grad student midfielder David Lipka has 3 assists.  Westlin and Leonard had an assist each, too.

The game will be remembered mostly for the defense.  Kyle Thorton had 2 gbs and 2 cts, and Cassidy had a 3 gbs and a ct to go along with his goal. Captain Jack Kielty had 2 gbs and a ct while dominating Duke star attackman, Michael Sowers.

Liam Entenmann had a strong day with 12 saves.

As a team, the Irish were perfect clearing the ball while tormenting Duke into 8 failed clears.  Similarly, Notre Dame dominated the turnover stats, 12-22.

Surprisingly, the faceoff unit hard a rough day, only going 7 of 23, but the dominance in other aspects of the game kept the Irish slightly ahead in total possessions, negating this limited Duke success.

Jack Kielty and Mo Mirer’s performances put them on top of the ACC and National Player of the Week accolade list.

23 Domers saw the field during the game, including freshmen Dobson and Burgmaster.

Star freshman Brennan O’Neill led the Blue Devils with a hat trick.

The Plot

It’s really starting to become silly that we seem to begin every conversation about Notre Dame scoring with a ridiculous Pat Kavanagh goal.  His goal to open the Irish scoring against Duke was no exception.

The Irish kept the pressure up after the Kavanagh goal and went up 3-2 by the end of the first with goals from Jackoboice and Mirer.  The defense really frustrated Duke, forcing them into many uncharacteristic turnovers and putting all sorts of pressure on the Blue Devil clear efforts.

Notre Dame extended their total to 5 goals with a pair from Yorke. Duke, however, slowly crawled back in an tied the game. Two quick goals as the half expired demoralized Duke and gave the Irish a lead they wouldn’t give up.

The Notre Dame defense continued to turn the screws in the second half while the offense consistently accumulated goals. A few minutes into the 4th the Irish were up 12-6 with Duke really not looking like they were going to find a solution to the Irish defense.

A very late goal by Duke ended the game at 13-8 and sort of made it look respectable for the visitors, but for most of the second half it did not appear Duke had any answer for the Irish.

It was a methodical performance by the boys.

Our Notes

We watched the game a few times to make sure we weren’t missing anything before posting, as well as took a peek at Duke’s following game versus Virginia.  We follow up on a few discussion points we identified before the game:

  • The Irish found a way to limit the Duke attack, and Sowers specifically.  Kielty played Sowers straight up, and the rest of the defense held their matchups. Duke tried a lot of big-little plays to shake off Kielty, but on the few times that they did, Irish shorties held up very well.  The game reaffirmed our position that the there is no comparable back line to that of ND, and there really isn’t a comparison to their defensive midfield either.  Having said this, it would be a mistake to assume Duke coach Danowski won’t have a new plan to greet the Irish next Thursday.
  • Naso got the best of Gallagher and Leonard.  The Irish tandem was productive with the wins they had, but they won’t be happy with handing Duke a possession advantage at faceoff.  They have another week to work out a solution.
  • The Irish offense was consistent and relentless.  Other than the beginning of the third quarter where neither team scored, there was no point in the game where the offense was not putting pressure on the Duke defense.  No doldrums this game.
  • It was an obvious bit of insight on our part, but Duke did gameplan to put the burden on the Notre Dame midfield as we anticipated.  Both midfield lines performed well.  4 goals from the first line, and 4 goals and 3 assists from the second midfield was the ideal response to the Duke effort to lock out the attack as a strategy.

To compare, Duke followed this loss with an OT win at Virginia.  While not an entirely polished performance, the Blue Devil offense was productive against the Cavaliers in ways that were completely blocked by the Irish D.  Other than move Sowers around the field a bit more, Duke didn’t appear to change much of its offensive strategy, it was just that Virginia didn’t have the players to stop it in the same way the Irish could.

Up Next

The travel to Durham on April 22 for a Thursday night rematch against Duke, followed by their game against UNC  three days later.  Stating the obvious, this by far the hardest part of this year’s Covid-complicated schedule.  Not only are the Irish playing their two most difficult road games back-to-back and on short rest, they are doing it on the back end of a momentum crushing 12 day break.  It is what it is, we trust this team to overcome this challenge.

The good news is the Irish are equipped to handle this with great roster depth, a very balanced offense, and the confidence knowing they know how to beat these teams.

#GoIrish