#15 Notre Dame Fighting Irish lacrosse (1-3) host the #17 Michigan Wolverines (7-1) this Saturday at noon (ACCN).  The Irish look to refocus the season after three difficult losses to top-7 teams.

A quick peak back at last week

We didn’t have a chance to recap the 11-14 loss to Ohio State. The plot was very similar to the previous week where the Irish came back in the second half only to lose control of the game in its late stages. The Irish had particular difficulty with man-down defense (giving up 5 goals) and with Buckeye efforts to isolate the Notre Dame SSDMs.  The offense struggled to be consistent.

There were positives that require note.  The Will Lynch-led faceoff unit made a huge improvement against the very good Ohio State faceoff specialist Justin Inacio.  The boys’ ground ball, caused turnover and riding totals continued to be excellent and bright spots on the stat sheet.  As noted in earlier posts, these states will win the Irish a lot of games on their own.

The Opponent

The Irish are 3-1 all-time versus the Wolverines.  Their last scheduled contest was in 2020, which was the first game cancelled on account of Covid-19 epidemic.

Michigan has already played a lot of lacrosse this season.  It is difficult to assess how good their 7-1 record as it involves 6 wins against developing teams, and 1-1 against ranked teams, including their loss last week to Harvard.  Still, they are winning consistently.

Josh Zawada, Michael Boehm and Jake Bonomi have scored a lot of goals for Michigan this year. Nick Rowlett has been their primary faceoff option on a unit that has had good success so far.  Shane Carr has been saving shots at over 60%!

This weekend’s opponent is pretty good man-up and rides well, although they appear to be a little bit susceptible to the ride themselves.

The game will also be a battle of the Mirers, with Mo’s brother Oliver a regular contributor for the Wolverines.

What were are looking for

The overall plot of the last three games was very similar for the Irish, but the details in were quite different in each.  There’s a lot to consider, but our focus on Saturday will be on these:

  1. Defensive communication: The Notre Dame defense is complex and has historically relied heavily on clear and crisp communication. With a lot of new players in the primary units this season, opposing teams have exploited some hesitancy. This will improve as the season progresses, but the Irish will hope to see a big step up in standard this weekend.
  2. Consistency:  Offense, defense, riding, goalkeeping, etc. have all had moments of greatness.  The challenge has been not that that the Irish aren’t capable of superior performance, but that these performances go into hiding for long periods in the game.  Consistent execution at the level of their ability is what we hope to see.
  3. Continued face-off progress: The faceoff unit is new but very capable. We’ve noted this a lot.  They have to get used to playing at this level.  It is happening, and we look forward to seeing continued progress.

The Irish will look to continue to improve and to close the game out.  We’d love to see it all come together in a dominant game, but the first order of business is just to win.  We’re confident they will do it.

#GoIrish