Notre Dame Fighting Irish men’s lacrosse (5-4, 2-1 ACC) completed a great week on the road, beating #10 Duke, 16-15, and smashing Marquette, 18-8. The Irish are heating up just in time for their final push for an NCAA bid.
The Scoring
Lots of great data to report from these games!
Against Duke
A huge day by Pat Kavanagh fueled the Irish. He had a 3 goal, 4 assist, and 3 ground ball performance. Jake Taylor built on the previous week’s record with 2g/2a, and Jackoboice found the back of the net consistently with 3g on 3 shots!
Dobson and Chris Kavanagh added 2g each, and McCahon celebrated his return to 1st line midfield duties with 2 assists. Ricciardelli, Mirer, Will Lynch and Angrick had a goal each.
Entenmann had 11 saves, with Boyer (4gb) and Burgmaster (2gb) having strong days at LSM.
Once again, the team had an overwhelming ground ball advantage, 37-23, showing the great effort by the players. The man-up unit once again met expectations as the best in the country with a 3 for 3 game.
Unusually for this season, both teams were perfect clearing the ball, but the Irish were otherwise a bit sloppy with 15 turnovers.
The state line of the game, however, belonged to Will Lynch, who went 19 of 35 at faceoff. As hoped (and predicted), his freshman year improvement has been positive and consistent.
26 Irish players saw the field, including 5 freshmen. Montgomery and O’Neill led Duke scoring.
Against Marquette
Liam Entenmann led the Irish with 15 saves!
On the scoring side, Jake Taylor continued his run with 5 more goals! Jackoboice also continued his hot hand with 4 goals on 6 shots, and PKav had another impressive day (2g, 3a).
McCahon and CKav had 2g/2a days. Fay, Mirer and Lipka added a goal each, and Reilly Gray, Will Lynch, Angrick and Westlin each had an assist.
38 Irish players saw the field, including 2 Georgians (Bayman and Johnson). Devon Cowan led the Golden Eagles in scoring.
The Irish will be pleased winning another ground ball battle and having a 8 caused turnover day, but 6 penalties was a bit uncharacteristic of this team.
The faceoff unit continued its progress with a 50% day.
The Irish Controlled Duke
Notre Dame has played Duke these past few years far more than any other team on their schedule. As often stated here, there are no secrets between these teams.
The game opened with 2 PKav goals and kept up the pressure to end the quarter up 6-3. Duke fought hard to stay within range as the Irish continued their steady scoring in the 2nd, ending the half up 11-8.
The Irish stretched their lead to 13-9, but a Duke run made the Irish fans nervous as they closed within 1 at 13-12. The man-up unit came to the rescue and steadied the Irish with two goals to put the lead back to 3.
The teams exchanged goals until O’Neill scored with 8 seconds left to close their gap to 1. A nervous faceoff scrum ended the game with an Irish win.
The Irish were never behind or tied.
Two notes from our watch of the game:
- The faceoff improvement didn’t need to be overwhelming to give the team confidence. A level playing field made a big difference.
- Duke had to respect Taylor on the inside. The traffic jam of defenders on the crease collapsing on #13 left snipers like Jackoboice great opportunities.
A Confident Win Against Marquette
The Irish returned to the Valley Fields winter bubble for their second visit to local rival Marquette. There was a bit of initial concern as the announcers noted that Irish starting midfielder Eric Dobson would not be playing. The Irish did not get off to a quick start with the Golden Eagles finding the back of the net first.
Jackoboice and Taylor put the Irish up 1 before Marquette’s Cowan tallied his second to tie the game 9 minutes into the 1st quarter.
The Irish then blitzed Marquette by scoring the next 6 goals in about 7 minutes of game time to establish firm control of the game. They finished the half up 12-5, and continued to control the action to finish the 3rd up 14-7.
The Irish substituted liberally and finished the game up 18-8.
Our viewing notes emphasized these points:
- With an inside threat giving the Irish offense great balance, the boys are getting great looks and cashing in.
- Notre Dame took a lot of penalties and let far too many shots get to Entenmann. The Irish got away with these lapses in discipline, and Entenmann stood tall, but they will need to keep focus in the remaining games on the schedule.
Up Next
The Irish have Thursday night lacrosse coming up as they host #15 North Carolina (6:00 pm, ACCN). Notre Dame will have to figure out how to contain the Tar Heel’s Chris Gray. The Irish will then travel to Syracuse for a Sunday, May 1 game (ESPNU), and then end the regular season hosting Duke at Arlotta on May 8 (ESPN2).
#GoIrish
I probably need a selection refresher:
Is that about right? Currently the Irish are RPI 17 with 6 AQs in front of them, so they need to climb probably three spots (as they’d likely jump the NEC AQ) to make it as one of the last at-large bids.
8 at large bids this year. With Ivies occupying so much of top of RPI, Irish and Duke need to take care of business this weekend to create what may be a play-in game at Arlotta the following weekend.