Notre Dame Fighting Irish lacrosse (5-3, 1-1 ACC) lost 6-10 to the Syracuse Orangemen (5-3, 3-0 ACC) in the Carrier Dome.

The Scoring

Brian Willets led the Irish with 2 goals, with Schantz, Costabile, Collins and Drake each having 1 goal.  Garnsey provided the only assist.

Travisano won the faceoff battle with an 11 of 19 performance, and Schmidt looked way stronger than his 7 saves may suggest.

The Irish outshot the Orange 33-27, and won the ground ball battle 29-24.  Turnovers continue to be a problem with 16 in this game.

Notre Dame was 0-8 in man-up opportunities.

Sexton had by far the best stat line with 6 ground balls and 2 caused turnovers.

The Plot

Pregame, the rumor of Brendan Gleason’s injury was confirmed.

The Irish got off to a sloppy start, gifting Syracuse a 3 goal lead.  Notre Dame caught up on goals by Drake, Schantz and Costabile, and the team appeared to have some momentum.  The score was 4-5 at the half, with Notre Dame squandering many scoring chances and allowing goals with sloppy play.  Some foreshadowing of later problems came late in the half with the Irish making poor efforts on two man-up opportunities.

Syracuse began playing a zone defense in the second half to great effect.  The Irish could not find a solution and the offense came to a grinding halt.  The Orange played very physically and gained confidence in their zone with every penalty killed.  The combination of cover on Garnsey and a tight zone completely frustrated the Irish.

Late in the game the Irish were forced to move to a 10-man ride to very limited success.  Poor late game shooting only made Syracuse goalie Dom Madonna look like a world beater.  The game fizzled out with Notre Dame having few chances to score.

Analysis

Typically, after a game like this we’d sleep on it and write later, but Easter obligations and a deadline to get material posted before the women’s hoops final necessitates that we go ahead and just say what we have to say.

We’ve never claimed to be objective when it comes to our Fighting Irish lacrosse, and we are sparing in our criticism, particularly of our student-athletes.  However, games like today expose problems in this season’s strategic thinking.  In the context of the Gleason injury, the short-bench strategy is perhaps the largest miscalculation, with our reservations having been frequently expressed on this site.  The strategy left the offense extremely vulnerable if there was an injury to Gleason, Garnsey or Costabile, and placed unrealistic expectations on young players who would need to be placed into tough situations against top-10 opponents without much game experience.

In the second half the offense became painfully predictable.  We watch a lot of Irish lacrosse, but even the casual observer is familiar with the dodge and re-dodge patterns that haven’t changed much since 2015.  Gleason’s A/M hybrid role allowed for some more creative plays, and which also gave Garnsey and Wynne room to explore their recent two-man creativity, but in his absence the Irish reverted to old patterns that most ACC defenders know well.  There is no more telling data point in this regard than the absence of assists.

In any event, the defense was not perfect, but holding the Orange to 10 goals should have been more than satisfactory as they have been giving up 14+ on average.  The idea that a team with Notre Dame’s depth of talent could be held to 6 with just a simple zone and physical play is a real problem with so few games left in the season left to play.

Maybe the Irish just had a bad day, but a self-scouting exercise may be in order.

Our notes

  • Thomas McNamara made his debut today with quite a few shifts.  It was good to see him recovered from injury.  Nick Stinn, David Cassidy and Wheaton Jackoboice also saw expanded roles.
  • Syracuse came ready to play a physical game, as the stat of 8 penalties to zero would suggest.  The antidote to this is scoring on the man-up.  The less a team scores on man-up, the harder the hits come.  The Irish experienced this reality and will have the bruises to show for it.
  • The game was tough, but the faceoff wing combos of Sexton, Cohen, and Crance came wearing their big-boy pants as the expression goes.  Well done.
  • Cohen had a few issues early in coverage, not unexpected for a freshman, but he tightened it up, and, as noted above, was a force on the wing.
  • Milliken must be the most underappreciated SSDM in the country.  Syracuse had almost no advantage in his on-ball matchups.
  • In our pregame notes we emphasized the need for Wynne and Willets to score at the crease.  They had plenty of opportunities, but were not able to convert much even at their point-blank range. 2 goals on 10 shots plus 5 turnovers is a rough stat line for players never more than a foot from the crease.  We haven’t watched the game a second time, so perhaps it was more Madonna having a great game, but at a glance there were more goals on offer.
  • We had hoped the D-mids would be able to convert more transition opportunities in our pregame notes.  Schantz had a nice coast-to-coast goal, but Sexton and Crance advanced the ball and weren’t finding guys to pass to.
  • One would think Garnsey’s teammates would know by now he throws a lot of no-look passes and that they would be more ready for them. Garnsey’s stat lines have been showing a lot of turnovers, but these are typically well-placed balls that the other players just didn’t see coming.
  • In this same regard, a lot of new players found themselves on the bench early in the season with a bunch of turnovers.  We note that the current players on the field have high turnover rate themselves.  We hope the coaching staff will see past those early miscues and give the youngsters some more chances on the field.
  • The Irish are likely to drop from the top-10 this week.  They’ll need to regroup quickly to get back into position for a seed in the NCAA tournament.
  • The next game against Duke will be critical.  A win should secure the Irish a spot in the ACC tournament.  Team ND-Atl is packing up the family truckster and will be there for the expected sellout.
  • Happy Easter!

#GoIrish