The #7 Notre Dame Fighting Irish (1-1) fell to the #3 Georgetown Hoyas (3-0) this weekend at Arlotta Stadium, 16-11. After a slow start, the Irish had a 8-0 comeback run to close within one goal but couldn’t secure the win.
The Scoring
Mo Mirer let the Irish with 4 goals. Dobson and Chris Kavanagh had 2 goals each, while Pat Kavanagh had a goal and 2 assists. Reilly Gray and freshman Will Angrick also scored a goal each.
Liam Entenmann had 9 saves in the loss, while Jason Reynolds had 3 caused turnovers and Carson Cochran 2 more.
Declan McDermott led the Hoyas with 4 goals and an assist, with Irish alum Connor Morin having 3 goals and an assist. Georgetown goalie Owen McElroy had an incredible 24 saves.
It was a tough day on the field for the faceoff unit. with Lynch going 3 of 15 and Hagstrom 6 of 14.
Even with the faceoff disparity, the ground ball numbers were incredible, with the Irish holding a 38-29 advantage. Chris Kavanagh had an amazing 7 gbs, with Pat Kavanagh 4, Reynolds 5, Cohen 4 and McCahon 3. These are huge effort stats.
The Irish were tidy, with only 10 turnovers to the Hoyas 20. They were also accurate, with 35 shots on goal to the opponent’s 25.
Our friends at laxreference.com calculated that the Hoyas led possessions 41-35, and were more efficient, 39% to 31%. The Irish played very quickly with 31 seconds to first shot, and were persistent, with a very good 1.49 shots per possession.
The Plot
We’re not going to belabor the point. The Irish got off to a rocky start. After tying the game 1-1 on a Dobson goal, the boys let it get away from them finishing the quarter 1-6. The didn’t get much better early in the second, with the Hoyas extending their lead to 2-11.
P Kav and Reilly Gray got two to end the half 4-11. Then Mo Mirer went on a tear against his short-stick matchup, scoring 4 in an 8-0 Irish run to close the lead to 10-11. The Irish had incredible momentum.
The Hoyas fought back, and Will Angrick kept the Irish in range halfway through the 4th quarter, before Connor Morin shut the door with two goals.
Our Questions and Thoughts
We think Quint Kessenich said it best that this was an early season game where the Irish were up against a team with more big game experience at this point of the year. It didn’t help that they were up against a great goalie who was playing hot as fire with 24 saves. The Irish won’t go up against any other goalie capable of that.
What encouraged us the most was that the boys never gave up and gave and incredible effort evidenced by the amazing ground ball stats. Given the large faceoff disparity, it would be expected that at best, Georgetown would have a slight groundball advantage. Instead, they were -9. This doesn’t happen often and the team should be proud of the effort. Nobody likes to lose, but no one will say the Irish didn’t give great effort.
The faceoff unit had a bad day, and Notre Dame will look to shore up this group during the week. There is no need for alarm. We remember when the other ACC faceoff specialists were freshmen, and remember they had days like this past game. Things got better. Our unit is very young, some patience is required.
Credit: Fred Assaf
We had some pregame questions in mind
- Attack: We asked what their first game against a top level defense would be like and could they avoid quiet spells. Unfortunately, the opened the game with a very long quiet spell as they adjusted to the quality of the defense. The good news is that through solid effort, they turned things around.
- Midfield: Mirer did get assigned the first line with Jackoboice and Dobson, and they were very effective. Mirer abused his short stick assignments in his 4 goals. When this line is on the field, defenses will have some hard choices on whom to assign poles. The rest of the lines are a work in progress, but we like what we see so far.
- Depth: The Irish played 27, which should be considered decent uses of depth by recent Notre Dame standards (compare 22 for Georgetown). It’s not quite the 30 we hoped for, but trending in right direction. If we had a concern, it’s that of this 27, 8 were longpoles. This seems unusual, but we’re glad they got to showcase their abilities.
We’re not going to get anxious over one game. It was a solid, physical effort, and there is only so much you can do against 24 saves. +9 gbs and +10 turnovers will win you 90% of games on those metrics alone. The season won’t be a problem with this energy.
The Irish have another tough game this Saturday at 2:00, when they host the #1 Maryland Terrapins in a rematch of the 2021 NCAA quarterfinal.
Special thanks to Mr. Fred Assaf for allowing us use of his great game photos!
#GoIrish
