The #3 Notre Dame Fighting Irish men’s lacrosse team (1-0) hammered the Marquette Golden Eagles (1-2), 21-10, and announced their 2023 championship campaign. The new-look Irish offense generated high quality looks so frequently and with such efficiency that it was hard to keep track. And the defense looked pretty good, too.
The Scoring
Where to begin?
The starting attacked posted an astonishing 19 points on their own: Chris Kavanagh with 5g, 2a, Pat Kavanagh with 6a, and Jeffery Ricciardelli with 5g, 1 a (not to mention 9 gbs between them, too!). The starting midfield wasn’t far behind: Bryce Walker 2g, Eric Dobson 2g and Quinn McCahon 1g. Atlanta’s Fulton Bayman announced his arrival into the main rotation with 1g, 2a, and new arrivals Brian Tevlin (1 g, 1a) and Jack Simmons (1g) seamlessly blended into the offense. Griffin Westlin added 1g, 1a, Reilly Gray 1g, Emmet Barger 1a, and Fisher Finley with his first goal for the Irish.
The Irish dominated the ground ball battle, 37-23, with Chris Kavanagh leading the non-faceoff players with 5 gbs. Pat Kavanagh added 2 gbs with his ferocious riding, so please make a point of adding to his CityLax Ground Balls with PKav campaign in support!
The Irish were reasonably tidy with the ball for a first game. They had 14 turnovers, and after an initial failed clear, they succeeded in the remaining 18 opportunities. The ride limited Marquette to 16 of 21, an excellent effort.
Notre Dame was statistically even at faceoff. Will Lynch posted a very strong 16 of 26, including a win streak that got the Irish off to a hot start. Colin Hagstrom was 1 of 7 in support, but to our observation did a good job getting his wings involved, so the raw stats probably don’t paint a fair picture.
Liam Entenmann had 8 saves in the win, with Alex Zepf providing nearly 5 shutout minutes to close the game.
The shot totals were 53 to 23 in favor of the Irish. Of note, we can’t think of more than a few that weren’t high quality looks. That is extraordinary.
Freshmen Will Donovan and Max Busenkell saw the field for the Irish, with Donovan getting a lot time at critical moments.
Marquette was led by their stars, Bobby O’Grady (4g) and Mason Woodward (1g, 4gbs, 1ct).
The Plot
Notre Dame dominated from the opening possession. Eric Dobson got on the board for the Irish 28 seconds into the game, with Brian Tevlin cashing in less than 2 minutes later. Before 5 minutes of gametime had passed, Simmons, Walker and CKav had the boys up 5-0.
A miscue let to a goal in transition by Bobby O’Grady, who followed up with a second a few minutes later. The Irish then stepped back on the gas with goals by Walker, Dobson, CKav, and Ricciardelli to end the quarter up an impressive 9-2.
Notre Dame quickly scored three more to open the second quarter before Marquette essentially raised the white flag and mixed in some zone defense to slow the bleeding. The Irish took some time to solve the zone but continued to generate high-quality shots even if they didn’t cash in. On the other end, Marquette’s chances started to pay off leading to a 4-0 Golden Eagles run. A Reilly Gray goal to end the half stopped the run with an Irish lead of 13-7.
In the third, Notre Dame more-or-less solved the Marquette defense and bombarded them with 16 really good shots. But for a heroic 7 saves by Michael Allieri, we might still be writing the scoring section above. Eventually the Irish broke through and scored 3 more without loss to end the quarter with a 16-7 commanding lead.
Bobby O’Grady traded a few goals with the Irish to open the 4th, but the Notre Dame reserves brought a 21-10 win home.
Observations
The trend in the last few years is to follow basketball to a more “positionless” offense. Notre Dame made a big move in this direction against Marquette. Bryce Walker nominally at midfield to start, PKav setting up shop at the restraining line, and a man-up unit with FIVE pure attackmen. Classic Attack/Midfield designations don’t fit what we see on the field. It’s fun to watch.
The brand new defensive combinations looked good for their first. Conlin/Fake/Napolitano with Burgmaster in support gave little indication they are a new unit. Will Donovan and Ronan Doherty look great in the LSM rotation with Jose Boyer. The SSDMs picked up in the same great form they were last year. There is plenty of room for improvement, but this is a great start.
Two goals stood out for us. The first was a man-up assist by Fulton Bayman to a scoring Eric Dobson. Bayman at X looked off the defense towards PKav and threaded a no-look skip pass 20 yds through the Marquette formation to a wide open Dobson. A 100 mph bouncer was well on its way before the goalie could even get set. The second was a beautiful inside-out pass sequence PKav-Agent Zero-CKav. Ricciardelli’s catch and release is measured in nanoseconds.
Tic-Tac-Toe
Beautiful ball movement on the EMO ends with Chris Kavanagh completing his hat trick! Watch on ACCNX.#GoIrish☘️ pic.twitter.com/5xH5qOLUp4
— Notre Dame Lacrosse (@NDlacrosse) February 15, 2023
Coach Corrigan was critical of a few things including the defensive lapse in the second quarter and the challenge scoring when Marquette switched to zone. The team experimented with a lot of different player combinations trying to solve this defensive change. Some were more fluid than others. While as fans we thought it all looked great, he’s not wrong that there was a lot of potential left on the table. That’s a scary thought for later opponents. All this and the teams most prolific scorer is set to return later this season!
Our Three Pre-game Questions
We kept it simple going into this first game.
- Hot start: Wow, did they start well! They stepped on the field motivated and sharp.
- Play clean: After a first clear miscue, they were perfect for the rest of the game. 14 turnovers is average, but considering it was their first game, they checked this box.
- Foot on gas: We know Coach may disagree considering the middle second and middle third quarters, but they certainly were applying a ton of pressure for 60 minutes. It took a few minutes to solve the zone, but the shots were still of excellent quality, and as fans it’s hard for us to complain about the effort we saw. We need to also consider that Bobby O’Grady and Mason Woodard are elite players, too.
Up Next
The Irish face the Cleveland State Vikings (0-1) in South Bend on Sunday at noon, ACCNX. Cleveland State lost at Ohio State 19-12 in an game where the Buckeyes were up 14-2. We’ll try to get a preview up before the game.
#GoIrish
I only turned the game on just in time to see the goal you link to in the article, which made them look dangerous on the EMO. Then they kind of slowed things down eating shot clock while up big throughout the fourth, which is fine, but not exciting.
The positive is that I did confirm I have access to ACC Network Extra Plus or whatever it’s called, so I should be able to catch most of the games. Hopefully this is just a good start to a great season.
When Marquette went to zone it took some time for the boys to figure out the look and how to exploit it. These guys have all seen plenty of zone in their lives so they were going to figure it out eventually, but it definitely slowed down the pace (which was all Marquette seemed to desire at the time, it fidnt look like they were happy to be in that position). Coach C acknowledged they didn’t practice for it, and his words suggested frustration with the effort. We were just excited he was confident enough to put three or four different personnel combos on the field to try it out. That kind of depth is impressive.