#6/#6/#9 Notre Dame Fighting Irish men’s lacrosse (4-0, 0-0 ACC) will host the #9/#9/#6 Virginia Cavaliers (6-2, 0-2 ACC) this Saturday at noon, ESPNU.  So begins the much anticipated ACC schedule for our Fighting Irish.

Technically speaking, the Cavaliers are the defending national champions.

The Opponent

There is plenty of history and plenty of data.  We know what the boys are getting into.  The teams did not play last year in the shortened Covid-19 season, but they played twice in 2019 (both UVa wins) and twice in 2018 (both ND wins), with Virginia retaining much of its roster from those games.

The Irish did not play the Hoos before the season was cancelled last year.  As noted above, there isn’t as much roster turnover from those 2018-19 meetings as one may think.  Noted Irish nemeses Ian Laviano, Matt Moore, and Dox Aitken are all still there, as are goalie Alex Rode and FOGO Petey LaSalla.  To no one’s surprise, Kielty and Cohen started for the Irish defense all those games, too!

While Moore, Laviano and Aitken are having reasonable starts to the season, Virginia’s offense is more led by newcomers Connor Shellenberger and Peyton Cormier, along with transfer Charlie Bertrand.  The Cavaliers have a lot of offensive options.

Virginia has depended heavily on Petey LaSalla to get them possession at faceoff, and he has been excellent for them.  His success has papered over their concerns with turnovers and lower than expected efficiency, particularly on the defensive end.

Results-wise, Virginia has been all over the place this season.  They have excellent and convincing wins over Army and Loyola, but they also got pasted by Syracuse and North Carolina.  Last weekend they squeaked by common ND opponent, Robert Morris, 14-12.

Lars Tiffany’s team plays as one would expect: fast, and aggressive in the middle of the field.  Statistically they are not as fast as previous years, but this should not give anyone the impression that they don’t take a lot of risks.

Our Pregame Thoughts

In the last few meetings, players like Ian Laviano have really given the Irish headaches.  They have a tremendous list of offensive weapons, and their willingness to push the pace and take risks truly stresses the defense across the whole field.  Limiting their potent attack lineup is very important, but we will be looking at some different areas for this games.

  1. Experience gap:  In a normal season, the Irish would have played top teams like Maryland and Denver before ACC play.  That didn’t happen this year.  The boys took care of business against the teams they played, and they have the best game control stats in lacrosse, but they haven’t been seasoned yet like Virginia has.  Notre Dame has done everything they can do to prepare, but there is no substitute for experience.  Will this be important on Saturday?
  2. Control the middle of the field:  We have long maintained that beating Virginia between the restraining lines is the key.  With Kielty-Cohen-Thorton, we like the Irish’s chances if Virginia is forced to play half-field offense.  What keeps us hopeful that the game will play out this way is that it would be hard to find a better lineup than Boyer, Hallenbeck, Cassidy and Harris to slow down the Hoos, and more importantly, no better lineup with which to counter-attack.  We have fond memories of John Sexton taking Aitken’s lunch money over and over again.  We believe Boyer, also wearing the #46, is similarly up for the task.  If we had a question, it’s that Ford and freshman Burgmaster will have to obtain similar success against players of a size and quality they haven’t faced before.  Aitken is a big guy, and he wasn’t voted All-American four times by accident.
  3. Faceoff battle: We finally have a chance to measure our faceoff unit against another top unit.  Kyle Gallagher is the clear #1 in the country so far at .851 win rate, with Charlie Leonard in 5th at .714.  Virginia’s LaSalla is 10th at .667, but he has had some games where he has crushed it.  Virginia relies heavily on the excellent LaSalla, but this is a matchup where the Irish should be coming in with an advantage.  If our boys execute and limit the possession LaSalla can gain, Virginia will really be in a bind.  They will have to be careful as he is a scoring threat in addition to being a possession threat.

We think the Irish have an advantage in this game, but they will need to play to a high level.  The good news is that in the first four games of the season, The Irish play a solid 13 quarters superbly.  If they add four more to this total, there will be no concerns.

Elsewhere in the ACC

Thursday night, Duke held on to win over Syracuse, 15-14.  We enjoyed watching the ball, the two defenses seem to enjoy ball watching as well.  That being said, both offenses are really special.

We’d enjoy hearing your thoughts!

#GoIrish