The #2 Notre Dame Fighting Irish men’s lacrosse team (3-0) visits the defending national champion and #4 Maryland Terrapins (3-1). The game is scheduled for 1:00 pm Saturday and will be broadcast on BTN+.

The Opponent

The Irish are 6-9 all-time against the Terrapins.  The boys had a stretch between 2010 and 2017 where they were regularly beating the Terps in low scoring rock fights.  The past three years have been less kind to the Irish, with Maryland on a three game win streak which includes knocking the boys out of the 2021 NCAAs in overtime at Arlotta, and a 9-11 game last year in South Bend. And to be blunt, Notre Dame has had some trouble playing them in College Park.

The 2022 version of the Maryland Terrapins was a generationally good squad that cruised to 18 wins on their way to a national championship.  The team graduated a ton of talent, but they certainly had plenty to spare.

The Terps began 2023 by thumping Richmond 15-4, but followed that game up with an uncharacteristically poor performance against Loyola, losing 7-12.  It was their first regular season loss in almost 3 years. They recovered well to beat Syracuse the following week, 15-12, and an impressive win last week against then #4 Princeton, 11-5.

The strength of the current squad is its defense. Defenseman Brett Makar (#1) and Ajax Zappitello (#36) are among the nation’s best. Both generate a lot of caused turnovers and collect a lot of ground balls. John Geppert (#20) is a great LSM and Dante Trader (#5) has been a impressive at SSDM after taking year off to concentrate on football. Their star goalie, Logan McNaney was recently injured, but he has been competently relieved by Brian Ruppel and Teddy Dolan. They are a difficult team to consistently score upon.

On the offense, Daniel Kelly (#45) and Daniel Maltz (#37) are their top producers, but they are fairly deep with scoring options.  There are a lot of new faces in the lineup, but this is more of a reloading situation than a rebuilding one.  They generate a lot of assists, much like Notre Dame, and have a solid man-up unit.

An area where Maryland enjoys a substantial advantage over everyone is at faceoff. Luke Wierman (#52) may be the best in lacrosse.  He’s winning 72% of this draws this season and has been performing at this clip consistently for quite some time. It is very difficult to produce scoring runs on the Terrapins with him at faceoff X.

The game plan

The Irish will have to win very differently against Maryland than they have against their first three opponents.  The presence of Wierman probably keeps the Irish from their usual fast start where they dominate early.  The boys will probably need to grind this one out.

The good news is that there are paths to victory.  Maryland dominated faceoffs against Loyola and lost convincingly.  In that game there were many lessons on the application of defensive pressure to their offense and dictating where they can shoot from. The relative inexperience on this end of the field as compared to 2022 will provide opportunities.

On the offensive end, the Notre Dame scoring depth will be a real challenge to the Terp defense if the boys can generate some flow.  Maryland has some of the best poles in the game, but against the Irish, it’s not as simple as shutting down their top two scoring options and taking your chances against the rest. Notre Dame is far too multiple for that kind of strategy. They will need to defend the entire field against the boys. That sort of space creates opportunities for a team that has been passing as well as the Irish.

Of course, the elephant in the room is how to deal with Wierman. in 2022 he won 75% against Lynch and company, and this includes Lynch winning the first four.  The Irish only managed 2 faceoff wins the final three quarters. Obviously, Notre Dame needs to improve and avoid such a significant deficit.  Lynch has greatly improved in the year since that game, and the Notre Dame ride has gotten much better, too.  In short, the Irish will seek to outwork the Terrapins, and we think they have the ability and motivation to do so.

The boys also showed some vulnerability against the 10-man-ride last week. We’re sure they worked on it at practice and tidied it up, and it’s not Maryland’s style to go to a 10-man given their normal faceoff advantage. We remain hopeful this won’t be an issue.

Overall, the Notre Dame offense and defense are both still in a position to dictate terms as opposed to taking what is given to them. This will be helpful in overcoming the challenges at the dot and at a difficult away venue.

Our pregame thoughts

This is a tough game to assess.  Maryland is an extremely challenging opponent, and the boys are playing on the road at a venue where the program has not enjoyed a lot of success. 2023 Maryland may not be 2022 Maryland, but they are ranked #4 for a reason and went into the season ranked #1 for many still valid reasons. At the same time, we really like where Notre Dame is in its development this season. They are motivated and playing some of the best lacrosse the team has played in some years.

  1. Create faceoff parity: Lynch and Co. do not need to be perfect, they just need to continue to improve and keep the fight up for four quarters. Included in this is the obligation not to leak possessions by being careless with the ball.
  2. Defensive pressure: From our observation of the Loyola game, the Irish need to be willing to be disruptive. They don’t have to take big risks, but they should challenge Maryland physically and make them uncomfortable.
  3. Multiple offense: Keep the ball moving around and continue to be willing to let any player make their move. Obviously, they let the Kavanaghs cook, let Dobson hammer away, etc., but also let the experienced players do what they do.  An example of this is Simmons and Tevlin sniffing out this opportunity with all the attention directed to PKav and Dobson. Watching this play unfold, it was clear the ball was going in the net 10 seconds before Tevlin’s shot.

We really like where this team is going into this game.  They will remain focused and we expect they will execute what they intend to execute.  It will not be easy, but we don’t think the Irish want it any other way.

 

#GoIrish