Notre Dame men’s lacrosse takes down high-flying Virginia in overtime thriller under the lights, 11-10.

 

High drama, three weeks in a row.  This time the Irish found a solution to Lars Tiffany’s prolific offense, albeit by a closer margin than we would like!  Plenty of heroics this week.  Notre Dame took an early lead and went into halftime up 7-4.  As they are known to do, Virginia responded with a run and took the lead, 8-7.  The teams exchanged goals and ended regulation 10-10.  Both teams had chances in OT until defenseman Garrett Epple cleared coast-to-coast and found Ryder Garnsey in the middle for a spectacular game-winner and stylish celebration.


Goalie Shane Doss highlighted the stat sheet in facing 42 shots and making 14 saves, some which could only be described as unreal.  Mikey Wynne led scorers with a hat trick and showing why he is considered the most reliable scorer in lacrosse.  Perkovic broke out of his doldrum with a hat trick of his own (more on that below), and Garnsey added three assists to his game-winning goal.  Pierre Byrne, Bryan Costabile, Brendan Gleason, and  Bobby Gray also had goals.  Eight of the goals were assisted.

Some stats left the Irish with room for improvement, including a significant ground ball deficit (50 to 34), 0-of-3 on EMOs, only 9 of 24 faceoff wins, and inconsistent performance on both clears and rides.

Our three pregame questions:

-How will the defense adapt to this offense?– Frankly, Notre Dame’s solution seemed to be simply to play sound fundamental defense.  Midfielders took excellent care of the ball at the top while on offense, and got back quickly in transition.  Defense keep Virginia off to the sides, knowing they would shoot quickly, so they just gave them less desirable angles.  Notre Dame doesn’t adjust its defense much for anyone, and they didn’t do much adjusting to this offense, either.  Virginia had a few runs, that’s what they do, but at no point did it seems the ND defense was losing the plot.

-Can the Irish control possession?– Yes and No.  Faceoffs continued to be a problem.  9 0f 24 is simply not an acceptable number and really put the Irish on their heels.  That 6 possession differential off the faceoff is what put the game into question.  It was a frustrating night as Finley won many draws to himself but was unable to control the ground ball.  However, the offense was disciplined and did well to stay deliberate and efficient.  They didn’t play slow and took advantage of their own fast breaks, but was happy to settle into a 6-on-6 and to substitute liberally.  Notre Dame seemed primarily focused on limiting Virginia’s fast break opportunities and was conservative in most rides.

-Perkovic (week 5)-  Sergio is working himself into his proper form, bravo!  He opened the scoring with a Mikey Wynne impersonation at the doorstep off a beautiful Garnsey pass, dropped a bomb in the 2nd quarter, and tied the game at 10-10 to force overtime with a left-handed snipe.  3 of 5 shooting was nice and tidy.  It’s such a relief to see him hitting bombs.  It takes so much pressure off the rest of the offense as defenses have to respect that he needs so little room unleash fury.

 

Next week the Irish are back home to face a surprisingly good Ohio State.  The Buckeyes are 9-0 and obliterated the #1 Denver Pioneers on Sunday, after having beat ranked Towson a few days earlier.  Preview to come later in the week.