Notre Dame Fighting Irish Lacrosse started spring practice for what is likely to be a very unorthodox season.  The Irish welcome both 12 freshman and 5 graduate students, as well as return 3 graduate players for what is certain to be a wild season.

Part 1 of our season preview will focus on the players, Part 2 will detail the schedule when it is officially released.  In the wake of the terminated 2020 season, eligibility extensions and uncertainty with many conferences, we have seen an accumulation of talent in the ACC and select other squads.  2021 will be the season of the SuperTeams, with Notre Dame being among them.

The Defense

Defensive Coordinator Ryan Wellner’s back line returns All-American graduate student Jack Kielty and preseason All-American senior Arden Cohen, who have started an incredible 36 games in a row together.  Both are USILA pre-season All-Americans this year. The Irish also return 6’4″ senior Carson Cochran, who also has several starts under his belt.  Veteran Charlie Trense is a notable loss to graduation.

The Irish add the All-Ivy League graduate transfer Kyle Thornton, the 2020 team captain at Penn.  The potential line of Kielty-Cohen-Thornton, supported by the talented Cochran and others, may be the most experienced and heralded close defense unit since the (un)Holy Trinity of Landis-Glazener-Epple that went on to dominate the Premier Lacrosse League as professionals.  Our longtime readers know this is not a comparison we would ever make loosely.  In a year where the college lacrosse world’s attention is fixated on returning and transfer offensive players, the Irish defense may wind up being the dominant surprise.


This unit is also incredibly deep.  Jonathan Ford returns from a great freshman year campaign, and is supported by senior James Littlefield, junior Griffin Hawthorne, and sophomores Max Schalit and Marco Napolitano.  The incoming freshmen also promise to be exciting, including Georgia’s Ridge Johnson, Ross Burgmaster from New York, and Conrad Delgado from California.

The Goalies

Another strong unit for Notre Dame.  The shortened 2020 season heralded the emergence of the 6’3″ goalie cyborg Liam Entenmann.  Liam had 48 saves for the Irish, including 16 against Maryland, and he also continues in his role as the Team USA U-19 goalie.  The early end to his freshman campaign probably kept him from earning preseason All-American recognition, but he is nonetheless among the best.  He will be supported at Arlotta by the excellent Matt Schmidt, who has the experience of 30 game appearances in the crease.

Junior Chris Nelson and freshman Mick Lee also inhabit goalie island for the Irish.  Here at 18stripes we will also be cheering for Notre Dame alumnus Jack Zullo as he completes his eligibility with the St. Joseph’s Hawks.

The Defensive Midfield

We’ll pivot to a trickier question.  The Irish graduated LSM Eric Restic and SSDM graduate student Patrick Aslanian (who had an incredible summer in Major League Lacrosse).  Notre Dame returns the SSDM tandem of the incredibly speedy Daniel Cassidy and transition threat John Hallenbeck, a duo we are happy to equate to any of the top rope units in Division I.  Hallenbeck was recognized in the USILA pre-season All-American list.

The Irish also return Junior LSM Jose Boyer who has played in every game since arriving on campus and who has generated excellent ground ball and caused turnover numbers (and who wears the heralded #46!).  He is supported by California sophomore Justin Cheng, who was great in his appearances in shortened 2020 season and who arrived on campus with a juicy highlight reel.  This will be a great tandem.

We are without information regarding who to expect in supporting roles.  On the LSM side, the roster doesn’t list other LSMs, but Jonathan Ford and Carson Cochran have played the position in prior years, with Cochran having a lot of success in transition. Also, players like Maximus Schalit arrived on campus with great LSM reputations.  On the SSDM side, sophomore Nick Harris was very successful as a freshman and was in the rotation every game.  Despite our best efforts at reviewing tweet videos frame by frame, we can’t identify anyone specifically, we just note Coach Corrigan has 18 other midfielders to choose from!  This is a position where we’ve learned to trust the coaching staff’s development strategy.

The Attack

One of the most noteworthy graduate transfers in the entire county is the arrival of Bucknell’s Will Yorke in South Bend.  In the 40-year history of Notre Dame lacrosse, the single game goal record by a player is 7.  Will Yorke has a 9-goal game to his credit. NINE.  N-I-N-E.  He also averaged 5 goals a game last year on the way to becoming the Inside Lacrosse Breakthrough Player of the Year.

Griffin Westlin appears to be tasked with taking on a quarterback role  for Coach Wojcik’s offense (with some help from Coach Garnsey!). He has played in every game since arriving on campus and emerged last year as the clear assist leader on the team.  We enjoyed the successful connection he developed with Pat Kavanagh, who himself is coming off a great freshman year (2 goals per game).  This tandem will be fun to watch.

It seems crazy that we don’t get to seniors Connor Morin (24g) and Mikey Drake until a third paragraph.  This is an indication of the depth this team has, especially since these two present the coaching staff with vastly different skill sets.  It’s been a while since Notre Dame has this complete a tool box at attack.

To add intrigue, there is buzz around sophomores Emmet Barger and Jake Taylor, too.  Barger can break ankles, and Taylor is a classic off-ball/inside finisher like Mikey Wynne.  We look forward to seeing what these two add to the mix.

Atlanta’s Charles Bayman comes in for what is effectively his freshman year (#ATL), where he will be joined by Casey Doyle (brother of lacrosse Domers Jack, Conor and Caroline), and Texan Bryce Walker.

Faceoff

In the national media, the graduate transfer to Notre Dame that has attracted the most attention is Penn’s faceoff specialist Kyle Gallagher.  Gallagher is on every pre-season All-American list behind only T.D. Irelan. The St. Anthony’s alum had a whopping .654 win percentage in 2020, improving on his fantastic .625 in 2019 (with 169 ground balls!!).  He is exactly even in his head-to-head against the vaunted Irelan.  He starts the season presumptively superior to anyone he will face on the known schedule.  We’ve had and have a lot of great faceoff players on the roster, but it’s been a long time since we’ve been able to say we have the best we’ll see.

Of course, let’s absolutely not forget that the Irish also return graduate student and All-ACC Charlie Leonard.  While Gallagher is a pure faceoff specialist, Leonard give the team an option with a bit more of a goal scoring nose.

Jacob Frane, Junior Almeida, and freshman Colin Hagstrom add great depth to this role.  Much like the goalie position, Notre Dame benefits from good depth, an important feature in a season which has the potential of being impacted by Covid-19 issues.  We don’t wish for this to be an issue, but the insurance policy is nice.

Midfield

The Irish start the season with lots and lots of options in the post-Costabile era.  At least 18 options at the position, and assume all of them are very tall.

We’ll start with the graduate student additions, as the coaching staff added some good ones.  Sean Leahey comes to Notre Dame from Providence, where in the equivalent of 2.5 seasons he accumulated a whopping 78 points, which comfortably puts him in the career lead for the whole midfield roster.  We enjoy his highlights, as he shows he’s comfortable inverting and attacking the crease like Jack Near.

Irish fans will be familiar with David Lipka (14g, 10a), who started on the Syracuse midfield all of 2019, and was a key contributor his entire time with the Orange.

Irish return Costabile’s two linemates, captain Wheaton Jackoboice (23g, 23a) and junior Quinn McCahon (15g, 12a).  Both are reliable scorers who are very good at feeding the attack from the top.  We’ve really enjoyed watching Jackoboice work to develop as a dodger and a shooter.  Both will need to become accustomed to the additional defensive attention in the absence of Costabile.

Senior Mo Mirer (12g) and superhero graduate student Tommy McNamara (9g, 2a) return.  Both provided reliable scoring from the second midfield.  Mirer lit up the scoreboard when hot.  They will be called upon to contribute even more this year.

Michael Fay, Quentin Buchman and Jake Moss have seen the field a good bit, as have Tate Young, Kevin Lynch. Mark McGinley and Reilly Gray.  Max Manyak (6’2″) returns from injury.

We are excited to see what our Floridian freshman can do, Eric Dobson and Carter Parlette.  If we recall correctly, Parlette had quite the Steak and Hotdog game debut.  They are joined by Chaminade product  Michael Lynch (bother of Irish laxers Kevin and Samantha) and Michigan’s Jack Conroy.

Bagpipes

Tommy McNamara returns for a graduate season, his third leading the Irish onto the field.

The Complete Package

The Notre Dame roster is absolutely stacked.  But it will have to be as 2021 is the year of the superteams, a year of haves and have nots.  The Irish are clearly one of the haves, but so is the rest of the ACC, along with Denver and Maryland.  What make the Irish additions particularly intriguing is that the incoming and retained grad students, as well as the incoming freshman, fill needs better than the additions seen in other teams.  Attack, Defense, Midfield and Faceoff all have All-American or All-Conference additions.  No other team has had their roster supplemented with that degree of scope and precise fit.

We’ll discuss more in our schedule preview, but ACC league play is likely to have the highest quality college lacrosse played in a long time.  It will be fun to watch.

But for now, we applaud our own 2021 SuperTeam.

#GoIrish