Our #1 Notre Dame Fighting Irish men’s lacrosse (6-1, 1-0 ACC) sent the visiting #4 Syracuse Orangemen (9-3, 1-1 ACC) home with a 14-12 loss.
5000 fans filled Arlotta to watch the #1 men’s and now #1 women’s teams play!
The Plot
We apologize that this week’s recap is shorter than the game deserves. We update you from our mobile 18 Stripes office on a train in the English countryside.
The Orange struck first about a minute and a half into the game, but Riley Gray responded with 2 to give the Irish the early lead. Ben Ramsey added a third before Syracuse struck back twice to tie the game.
However, Will Lynch was dominant at the X, and the Irish surged ahead to end the quarter up 6-3, and the half 10-5. The Irish methodically increased the gap to 13-7 to end the third.
Syracuse showed spark in the 4th quarter consistent with their #3 ranking entering the game. They closed the gap to 13-10 before a Dobson goal slowed their momentum. The Orange regrouped and brought the score to an uncomfortable 14-12 late in the game. But for a Liam Entenmann save of the year, the Irish fans would have had reason to be nervous.
A few Syracuse penalties near the end effectively stopped the comeback as the Irish ran out the clock man-up and victorious at 14-12.
The Scoring
PKav and Dobson led scorers with 2 goals and an assist each.
The Irish depth was on display as 9 players logged goals.
However, the key stat if the day was the brilliant 20 of 29 at faceoff, led by Will Lynch’s awesome 19 of 26.
Our Pregame 3 Questions
The pregame questions were all answered well by the Irish.
- Faceoff parity: The unit did a lot more than achieve the necessary parity! Behind Will Lynch’s great effort, the unit kept Syracuse at arm’s length until the very end. Bravo!
- Syracuse aggression: The Irish handled the highly-regarded Syracuse defense very well until the Orange comeback in the fourth when things got sketchy. Fortunately, the boys were working with a comfortable lead. And as noted in our preview, their aggression works until it doesn’t. Late Orange penalties closed out their comeback effort.
- Defensive discipline: 3.5 quarters of tough defense and some Entenmann heroics during the last .5 were plenty. Syracuse showed they had the talent to make it interesting, but in the battle of top 5 defenses the Irish had the more consistent effort.
It wasn’t perfect, but this was a very good Notre Dame effort. Syracuse came into the game with a ton of momentum and confidence, but the boys let them know it wasn’t going to be their day early and convincingly. Credit to the Orange for finding a way to make it close at the end. We can see how they dominated Duke. They will be a handful in the ACC and NCAA tournaments. We don’t envy their opponents.
Up next, the boys travel to #3 Duke (10-2, 0-1 ACC) for a Sunday, April 7 rematch of the NCAA final at noon (ACCN).
#GoIrish
ND-Atl 2.0
The face off disparity felt huge. Felt like there was 10 minutes of real time without losing one. Liam’s save was ridiculous, arlotta felt like a Roman coliseum after that! How does the acc tournament work? Is there any auto bids (not that it would matter).
Will nd host a ncaa game this year?
That face off win directly into goal was incredible.
Hey folks more in the know: is Tyler Buchner on the lacrosse team right now? I was hoping he could find his place in the athletic world, and remembered hearing he was coming back to ND for lax.
Yes, he’s on the team as part of the deep rotation. He’s appeared in 3 games against the more overmatched opponents, Cleveland State, Marquette, and Michigan and has been credited with a caused turnover and a ground ball in his appearances.
This schedule is reminiscent of like 60s/70s football schedules. Basically just every top 10 team in the country. NBD.
The “Roman Coliseum” comparison is awesome!
Tournament will be top-4 teams over one weekend in Charlotte.Beautifully designed to juice the RPI of the qualifying teams.
Buchner appears to be in the 3rd SSDM pairing, which is impressive given his time off from lacrosse.
Syracuse dropped one to Cornell in 2OT last night. Good grief. They blew a 7-0 lead. It was a very ugly game with lots of penalties and a coach ejection.