Our #1 Notre Dame Fighting Irish (10-1) beat the #6 Syracuse Orange, 16-11, this past weekend. This win gives the boys the #1 seed for the ACC Tournament. 

The Good

I feel once again obligated to say a great game from Ricciardelli. He had 9 saves on the day, sitting at just under 50%. However, his saves came at key moments to maintain momentum. He played a critical role in the win. 

Tyler Spano has cemented himself as a premier FOGO, after an early season battle for the starting role, going 13-21 on the day. Diaz-Matos did well in his own right going 5-9. This one-two punch is one of the more underrated in lacrosse. They have been able to fly under the radar while continuously winning the battle at the dot against the likes of Syracuse and UNC who get way more love from the lacrosse press.

While not a stat we typically point out, the boys had nearly 20 more shots this game. Coming into this form late in the season is exceptional. Being able to control the tempo and create tons of shooting opportunities is why this offense is so deadly. And unlike team such as Duke, the shots are balanced across the roster.

After a bit of early fight from Syracuse All-American Joey Spallina, with him putting up 3 in the first quarter and a half (one being man-up), Notre Dame All-American Shawn Lyght was able to silence him. While the love Spallina gets is understandable, I have yet to see he dominate a match-up against a top pole. He is heavily reliant on the off-ball pick game and space from early slides, and when that is shut down, like our defense managed to do in the second half, he doesn’t know what to do.

I would be lying if I said I didn’t laugh when he tried to talk smack like a high school senior while losing by 5 and getting silenced in the second half. 

Offensively, 4-3-5-4 quarters speaks for itself. Consistent scoring around the clock is what this team needs to prevent the same downfall as last year’s team. It wasn’t perfect but it was good. As we noted in our pregame notes, consistent scoring would be more important than total scoring.

Maheras with 1g 4a and Miller with 3g were the leaders of the day. Having this level of production from players who aren’t considered “the guy” adds to the strength of this offense. Obviously, the likes of Yago and Angrick will provide action, which they did with 2g each, but if you focus on them you still have many more problems across the roster to deal with.

The Not-So-Good

This will be a lot shorter, because in honesty this was a great game to watch.

The only negative from this game was the 10 minute stretch in the middle of the second where Syracuse went on a 4 goal run.

Defensively, 4 goals in this short of a timeframe can’t happen. Plain and simple. But, we don’t need to make a big deal about it in this game. After this Syracuse run, the opponent only scored 4 goals the rest of the game. It is obvious the Irish adjusted, but it would be very helpful not to have this happen in the first place. If a run like this happens again, then we may need to begin to have a few conversations and comparisons to last year.

The same needs to be said about the offense during this period, with no production happening. Just as I said with the defense, they recovered and scored 11 after this so I’m not going to go crazy. But I’m not going to pretend I didn’t start having flashbacks to Penn State last year. They boys kept up a scoring pace far better than they have in quite some time, but this mini-drought was a reminded of what happens when you let off the pressure.

The Critics

There aren’t many critics when you are #1, but ESPN and Inside Lacrosse analyst Quint Kessenich has his concerns:

I worry about Notre Dame’s midfield-based half-field offense. When you peruse the past national champions, every single offense in the last decade had a strong presence at X. Attacking from behind the goal has virtues.

We agree that this offense is different in that it very often relies on the midfield to generate opportunities. Maheras’ stat line in an example of this, as was the lines of Jeffery and Faison last week. This is not a Pat Kavanagh offense. But we remind Quint that the 2023 National Champions won on Memorial Day without a dominant or functioning X attackman. A balanced offense is great on its own merits.

Up Next

On to the ACC tournament. First round vs Virginia on Friday in Charlotte on ACCN. It’s an important game in the sense that the Irish would be well served to avenge their only loss of the season. They’ll be one of the top seeds in the NCAA Tournament, regardless, but they will want to know they corrected the problems that led to the earlier loss.

If the boys win then it’s on to the winner of Cuse vs UNC on Sunday on ACCN. Make sure to tune in!

#GoIrish

Luke Burgar

ND-ATL 2.0