#3 seed Notre Dame Fighting Irish men’s lacrosse dominated the ASun champion Utah Utes 20-7. The Irish move on to the NCAA quarterfinals where they will face the #6 seed Johns Hopkins (12-5).  The game will be in Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis, Maryland, this Sunday at 2:30 (ESPNU).

We have a lot to cover today, so buckle up!

The Utah Plot

We’ll be brief. The game began with the teams exchanging possessions. It was a bit frustrating, as the Irish were getting good looks and the ball wasn’t going in. We’re not saying we were too nervous, but the anxiety meter wasn’t at zero.

Reilly Gray marched in for goal and then the floodgates opened, fueled by 7 of 8 faceoff performance for the quarter. CKav, Westlin, Taylor twice, Gray again, Taylor for a hat trick, Westlin, and lastly a magical pole-pole-pole goal by Burgmaster to end the quarter up 8-0.

The Utes found a way to cause some chaos to open the 2nd quarter and scored three straight in about 2 minutes of game time.  It was a reminder of the danger of Utah’s rapid style of play. A quick timeout by Coach Corrigan to restore focus, and then the boys rattled off the next eight goals to extend their lead to 16-3 by the early part of the 3rd quarter.

The Irish started rotating players in early in the 2nd half and got a lot of guys some valuable playoff experience.  Atlanta’s Fulton Bayman scored the last Irish goal to give them a 20-piece, and the final was 20-7.

The Scoring

We’ll begin with the key stat of the game:  The Irish were 22 of 31 at the faceoff dot (Lynch 15 of 19, Hagstrom 7 of 12).

Jake Taylor’s 5 goals and PKav’s 7 points (3g, 4a) led the Irish. Reilly Gray had a hat trick and CKav and Westlin each had 2g, 1a.  Agent Zero (Ricciardelli), Bayman, Ramsey, Seymour, and Burgmaster had a goal each.  Simmons had 2 assists, and Tevlin, Parlette, Donovan added an assist each.

Liam Entenmann was stellar with 13 saves, and Alex Zepf added 3 more saves in relief.  The defensemen were great across the board, with Ramsey and Conlin leading the stat sheet with 2 caused turnovers each, and Fake and Tevlin with 3 ground balls.

Lacrosseference.com calculated a lofty 40.8% offensive efficiency.  The defense held the high-powered Utes to 19.4%.  For the 10th time this season, the Irish gave their opponent their worst loss of the year.

Jared Andreala had a hat trick for the Utes.

The Irish used the entirety of their 32-man bench (to our understanding, NCAA tournament rules limit bench size).  Special note to the fans who set an Arlotta Stadium playoff attendance record! The berm was packed!

Our Three Utah Questions and Thoughts

The lads get a solid A in respect to our pregame questions:

  1. Defensive control:  The boys suffocated the Utes early in their possession. Other than the few minutes early in the 2nd quarter when Utah found opportunities in transition, the defense gave them absolutely nothing.
  2. Offensive production: 10 goal scorers and 20 total goals checks this box for sure. We’ll elaborate more below, but finding a solution for Dobson when opponents lock him out should be a key practice item.
  3. Clears: 22 of 23. No complaints here.

We’ll note two additional thoughts as the team prepares for a tough Johns Hopkins in the quarterfinals. Utah followed the gameplan used by a lot of recent Irish opponents in trying to lock off Dobson with a pole + help.  It’s not a big secret that the offense goes megaton when Dobson is scoring, so some analysis will be required to make sure the Blue Jays don’t get to dictate terms to the Irish by trying the same.  Second, the Irish tend to give their opponents a pinch of momentum when up big (Syracuse, UNC and Utah come to mind). It ultimately didn’t matter in any game, but the lapses in concentration needs to be avoided in this playoff run. The team needs to recognize the boundary between flair and sloppy.

Johns Hopkins

Johns Hopkins is the bluest of blue blood lacrosse programs.  It would not be unfair to say they are to lacrosse what Notre Dame is to football, in every positive, and negative, connotation. The Blue Jays are having a strong recovery season after a terrible 2022.  The obliterated the Bryant Bulldogs 22-8 in their opening round game. The game was interesting for about a half a quarter with Bryant up 3-2, but then Hopkins went on an insane 15-0 run. Ooof.

The Blue Jays are 12-5.  They have a lot of common opponents to the Irish, beating Georgetown 13-12, losing to UNC 7-11, beating Utah 12-8, losing to Virginia 13-18, beating Syracuse 11-9, beating Michigan 15-11, beating Ohio State 17-8, and splitting games with Maryland, a 12-11 win, and a 9-14 loss in the Big 10 Tournament.

Statistically, they are 19th in adjusted offensive efficiency at 31% (ND 2nd at 36.6%), and 30th in adjusted defensive efficiency at 31% (ND 2nd at 22.6%). The are .487 at faceoff for the season (ND .463). Our football colleagues at 18 Stripes remind us these metrics are a pretty good indication of who a team is (especially with so many common opponents), but we can’t help but think the stats undersell Hopkins having seen many of their games.

Johns Hopkins tries to play a very similar game to Notre Dame.  They have a disciplined and organized defense and prefer to keep control of the pace of pay with a deliberate half-field offense.  Offensive coordinator John Crawley can be counted on to come up with some clever wrinkles within the offense and to make sure that work gets spread evenly across the lineup.

There are a lot of players we like to watch on this team. Georgetown transfer LSM Alex Mazzone (#6) is a ground ball machine (he had 4 gbs and a caused turnover against the Irish last year). Defenseman Scott Smith (#18) is a disruptive presence who we suspect will be glued to one of the Kavanaghs. Attackmen Jacob Angelus (#23, 17g 42a) and Marquette transfer Russell Melendez (#31, 35g 16a) are true dual-threat players on offense. They are joined on attack by the very large, pure scorer Garrett Degnon (#40, 39g 5a).  Midfielders Brendan Grimes (#9), Matt Collison (#16) and Johnathan Peshko (#51) are big and will be a handful for the defense. Goalie Tim Marcille has Atlanta roots, so he gets a thumbs up from us, and their faceoff unit is by committee, much like Notre Dame, with Tyler Dunn (#30 .511), Logan Callahan (#5 .456) and Matt Narewski (#39 .471).

Johns Hopkins has a reputation of being a very good fourth quarter team.

The last meeting between these teams was in the first round of the 2019 NCAA Tournament, where the Irish won 16-9.  That game will be remembered for the magical return of the now-Notre Dame graduate assistant coach Ryder Garnsey. It’s also worth noting that the Notre Dame graduate assistant coach in 2018 is current Johns Hopkins offensive coordinator John Crawley.

Thoughts

Our usual three questions aren’t a good fit here.  The Blue Jays will try to play the same deliberate style as the Irish. There is no unusual style to account for, the boys simply need to execute their game better than their opponent, and probably do it in front of a hostile crowd.  Given the Blue Jays strength late in games, the Irish will have to work hard to put the game out of reach as early as possible. It’s a neutral site in Johns Hopkins back yard, so we’re sure the Hopkins band will be there and all the usual suspects. As our friend Drew Brennan at One Foot Down said, it’s time to be great, nothing more.

A Reminder of What This Means to the Team

The Lacrosse Network released a great special on the Kavanagh brothers as they prepare for this playoff run. The video has tons of the Kavanagh magic, but ends with a truly moving moment when the mere idea of a championship is discussed. A lot of people are cynical about college sports, but there can be no doubt as to how much this team and season mean to Pat and Chris.  A special thank you to Paul Carcaterra for taking time with the boys.

WLAX Advances to Quarterfinals!

The women’s team began their tournament march by crushing Mercer, following by an amazing 15-14 win over seeded Florida.  The Irish face #3 seed Boston College in the quarterfinals on Thursday afternoon.  Notre Dame is the only school with a team in both the women’s and men’s lacrosse quarterfinals!

#GoIrish