Notre Dame Fighting Irish men’s lacrosse fell to the Maryland Terrapins, 13-14 in overtime in the NCAA quarterfinals.

The boys played well in front of their families and friends at Arlotta Stadium, but unfortunately, this closes the books for this great Irish team. They finish the season 8-4, with the four losses being one to each of the Final Four teams, by a combined five goals, including two overtime games.

The Scoring

Wheaton Jackoboice led the Irish with 4 goals. Griffin Westlin had a goal and 3 assists, with Pat Kavanagh providing a goal and 2 assists. Freshman Eric Dobson tallied 2 goals and an assist.

Will Yorke scored 2 goals.  Quinn McCahon added an assist. The second midfield line was again productive, with Leahey scoring 2 goals and Lipka adding another.

Jared Bernhardt paced the Terps with 5 goals.

The faceoff unit had another great day winning 20 of 30 draws. Liam Entenmann had another fantastic day in goal with 16 saves, many of them spectacular.

The NCAA scoresheet is less detailed, so we don’t have good official defense stats. We’ll note some timely caused turnovers by Cohen and Thornton, along with great ground ball totals from Boyer, Cohen and Kavanagh.

Notre Dame was on the wrong side of the turnover battle, 18-10.

Lacrossereference.com observed a +4 Notre Dame possession advantage, along with a 53%-47% time of possession advantage.  Both teams played quickly, and to our surprise, it was noted that both teams averaged less than a shot per possession.

The Plot

There was a lot of energy at Arlotta that afternoon with the fans having recently witnessed the earlier quarterfinal game go to overtime. Irish alumni from Matt Kavanagh to Eddie Glazener arrived to pump up the team.

Tommy McNamara led the team on the field with the sound of bagpipes, but the joy was tempered with the observation that he was in warmup clothes and clearly hurt. Junior Jake Moss stepped in to replace him on the field.

The game opened well for the Irish with a quick goal from Wheaton Jackoboice assisted by McCahon.

The mood started to sour with Maryland scoring without too much trouble, Notre Dame having difficulty holding onto the ball, and the Terps also seeming to win every ground ball battle.  Their score ticked up methodically to a very troubling 1-5 by the end of the 1st quarter.

Most troubling was that in the sloppiness, Maryland was doing a good job running the Irish midfielders into the ground with long magellan dodges on clears.  By the end of the quarter our notes were littered with remarks that this will be a problem late in the game.

As has often been the case this season, the 2nd quarter was dominated by the Irish.  A quick Will Yorke goal on man-up steadied the boys, and the midfield took advantage of all the attention paid to Pat Kavanagh. Five straight goals gave the Irish a brief lead.

We’ll note the game definitely had its chippy moments throughout, with both teams unwilling to concede any ground to the other.

Maryland’s Bernhardt muscled the Terps back in the game with two goals, and with Jackoboice answering for the Irish to leave the teams tied at 7 at the half.  The Irish went to the locker room happy to have turned the game around so well, but concern remained that Maryland continued to find answers for the Irish defense even during the Notre Dame onslaught.

The Irish faceoff unit continued its dominance in the second half and propelled the team to a strong 12-9 lead to begin the 4th quarter. Entenmann was brilliant in goal this quarter as well. The Irish only seemed to be a goal or two away from closing the game out.

However, signs of fatigue were evident, and it became more difficult to hold back the Terps.  Maryland shocked the Irish with three goals in 46 seconds to tie the game and put the Irish in a difficult spot.

A Logan Wisnauskas goal put Maryland ahead, only to be answered by Jackoboice’s 4th goal of the day. The teams exchanged possessions for the last four minutes of the game, with the Irish having the ball for the last possession of regulation.  Coming out of a time out, Notre Dame was not able to get a good shot off to win the game, and the teams went into overtime.

Overtime began with a surprise Terp win on the opening faceoff.  A straight forward give and go up the right side between Maryland’s DeMaio and Wisnauskas led to a doorstep goal over Entenmann’s left shoulder.  Maryland celebrated, while the Irish and their fans were stunned.

Our Pregame Questions

We’ll review our pregame thoughts one last time for the season:

  1. 13 goals: The boys hit their target, but it was one too few.  Credit to the Terps for solving the defense better than most, but 13 had a very good chance of being enough.
  2. Faceoffs: The unit won 20 of 30 draws (67%), perhaps even exceeding expectations. They were a huge part of the 2nd and 3rd quarter run that put the Irish in the command. Unfortunately, the OT faceoff did not go their way. We’re not sure what happened, but from our vantage point it appeared Gallagher went with a Leonard-like deceptive move and got caught out, but it’s hard to tell. The unit did their part to give the Irish a chance, we can’t be upset with one draw.
  3. Turnovers:  The Irish weren’t bad taking care of the ball, but the Terrapins were far more disciplined on offense and were almost able to completely negate the possession advantage the Irish gained at the dot.  Looking at faceoffs and turnovers as a whole, it’s easy to see how this game ended up in overtime. Having said this, the early game sloppiness had a huge part in putting the Irish down 1-5. They recovered very well, but we are not out of bounds saying that even a turnover or two less in the 1st may have resulted in the Irish winning this going away.
  4. Defensive Titans:  Both defenses had their moments, but it would be fair to say it was the offenses that controlled the game. If there was a surprise in the game, it’s that the offensive units for both teams were so productive against two of the best defenses in lacrosse.
  5. Midfield:  As we suspected might be the case, Nick Grill shadowed PKav, with Maryland looking to put the scoring burden on the midfield.  The Irish midfield, for its part, was up for the challenge and succeeded.  Nine goals by the midfielders is fantastic production, and other than perhaps some late moments where fatigue became an issue, it never felt as though the Irish midfield did not have answers for the Maryland defense.

End Notes

In this last recap we thank the Notre Dame team families and friends for being supportive of our season writing about the Irish, Notre Dame Assistant Athletics Communications Director Robby Hamman for accommodating us, lacrossereference.com for leading the sport with stats, @the_broganator9 for finding us at the game, and Mrs. Giles-Harris for being nice to us during the Duke-Loyola game.

We asked Baumer Family Head Men’s Lacrosse Coach Kevin Corrigan what lesson he hoped to teach this team from the result.  His heartfelt answer began:

You have to understand that at the end of the day you have to be grateful for the fact that you feel as terrible as you do in this moment. Not many things in life that give you that kind of an emotional feeling, whether it’s the elation of winning or the shock and depression of losing. Just to go out there and realize how fortunate they are to go out there and compete with each other and for each other. And how good that is, and how lucky they are to have that, it’s only matched by the intensity of the feeling of winning and losing, whatever side of that coin you are on.

It’s no secret that we aren’t objective, but we have to add that we are really bummed for the boys.  It was really unfortunate that these two teams met so early in the tournament. This was a thrilling team that overcame many obstacles to even have a season, let alone one with so many great moments. We hope our Irish are as proud of their accomplishments on the field and in the classroom as all us fans are of them.

#GoIrish