Notre Dame Men’s Lacrosse: Irish fall 11-10 to the Terps down in Atlanta

A loss to Maryland moves Notre Dame to 3-1 on the season. Still plenty ahead for our Irish.

When Native Americans invented the game of lacrosse, their fields could be upwards of 2,000 yards long. With no out of bounds, sometimes 1,000 Native Americans would be on each team and the games would last for days. A college lacrosse field’s dimensions are 110 yards x 60 yards. Ten players on each team line up against each other going to battle for 60 minutes.

Both versions of the Creator’s Game are special and if you are lucky enough to suit up or just be near to watch, you understand the nature of the sport, the ferocity, the speed, the relentlessness, the passion…..and always the desire to win.

You also see and know that whether on a field 2,000 yards long or 110 yards long, the game of lacrosse can be a game of inches. Like many sports, an inch here or an inch there can be the difference between winning and losing. An inch here or an inch there can mean a goal or no goal. An inch here or an inch there can be a penalty or not a penalty.

On a beautiful and sunny Saturday afternoon on March 1st, in front of 10,137 fans at Bobby Dodd Stadium on the campus of Georgia Tech in Atlanta, Maryland beat Notre Dame by a final score of 11-10. It was an early season matchup of #1 vs #2; it was fierce, furious, fast and skilled. It was a game that came down to a kick save made by Maryland’s goalie with 23 seconds left on the clock. An epic matchup that lasted over two hours and was decided by an inch here or an inch there.

I was in attendance down in Atlanta for the game (below is a pic of mine from the press box). Thanks again to the ND family for welcoming me to the tailgate. Let’s take a look at everything, there is so much to discuss. As well, keep your eyes out for the next “Exit 77” podcast which will be coming out late Thursday night as David Brogan and I will be recording that evening giving our thoughts and analysis.

Lastly, great to see our friends from 18Stripes who are local to Atlanta and were at the game as well. Here is their write-up on the matchup.

Photo Credit: Drew Brennan

First Quarter

The Irish’s starting lineup was as expected. Will Donovan, Ben Ramsey and Will Lynch on the faceoff with the following across our middies, attack and defense:

Devon McLane, Max Busenkell and Will Angrick

Brady Pokorny, Jake Taylor and Matt Kavanagh

Shawn Lyght, Will Gallagher, Nate Schwitzenberg and Thomas Ricciardelli

The Irish got on the board at 13:41 with a BTB goal by Jake Taylor off a great feed from Max Busenkell to make it 1-0 Irish. We won the faceoff, got into our offense with our second midfield line in Fisher Finley, Will Maheras and Jalen Seymour. Jake Taylor shot again, this time hitting the post, the long rebound came out to Will and he found Kavanagh in close which made it 2-0 Irish with 12:57 to go. The Terps got on the board off a nice move from Eric Spanos on the dodge, he hit home from the right side and it was 2-1 Irish with 11:21 left in the first. Lots of back and forth from there, including a Kavanagh rocket from outside that hit the post, and a great save from Maryland goalie Logan McNaney on Will Angrick from in close. Jordan Faison made it 3-1 off a nice spin move before Maryland scored with 7 seconds left in the quarter to get it to 3-2 Irish as the quarter came to a close. Notre Dame had a 6-0 faceoff advantage, a 13-3 ground ball advantage and a 14-4 shot advantage.

Second Quarter

The Irish had the chance for a couple of early goals in the quarter (from Buchner and McLane) but could not get them home before Jack Schultz from Maryland hit it low to make it 3-3 with 11:00 minutes to go. Later it looked like Maryland scored a goal, but they called no goal, push with possession. Maryland challenged that the goal went in so they reviewed it and still no goal. Penalty on the Irish with the Terps going man up, but Notre Dame’s defense held strong and did not give up a goal. Daniel Kelly next scored and it was 4-3 Maryland with 6:50 to go, the first time Notre Dame has trailed all season. The Irish got the next two goals to make it 5-4 Irish with goals from Jake Taylor (Max Busenkell) and then Max hit home off a great laying on the field pass from Angrick. That is where we would head to the half with the Irish up by one. Notre Dame 9-2 on faceoffs, 22-11 on shots and 20-9 on ground balls.

Third Quarter

Bryce Ford got the Terps on the board first as he tied up the score at 5-5 with 12:55 to go. Thomas Porell entered for the Irish as he was on the wing on the next faceoff (we would not see Tyler Buchner in the second half). With 8:33 to go, Ford would get another one to make it 6-5 (1 second left on the shot clock) before Daniel Kelly scored again to make it 7-5 with 4:02 left. Before Kelly scored, there was a crazy sequence where Matt Jeffery caused a turnover and looked to have an open goal shot, but a diving save from Will Schaller prevented a goal and a tie game. Amazing hustle play by Maryland. Jake Taylor would get our Irish back on the board with a goal from distance off a feed from Jalen Seymour to get Notre Dame on board in the second half and make it 7-6 with 3:12 left. Maryland would get the last of the quarter to make it 8-6 as Jack Schultz scored again with the final 15 minutes around the corner. 29-21 in shots for the Irish and 11-6 FOs for the Irish. 27-16 ground balls for the Irish.

Fourth Quarter

Will Lynch won the faceoff to start the quarter and we have Devon starting on attack to start the fourth. The Irish kick of the scoring with an unreal diving goal from Kavanagh to make it 8-7 Maryland with 13:38 to go. Lynch won the faceoff, but the Irish go offsides getting it into the offensive end; Maryland quickly gets possession and scored unsettled to go up 9-7 with 13:15 to go. Fisher Finley took a shot that hit the post, Maryland would then make a save, got the ball in transition and Spanos hit home to make it 10-7 Maryland with 11:36 to go. Gut check time for the Irish and we delivered as our defense made some critical stops before we got one back in transition with a Chris from Jake goal to make it 10-8 Maryland with 6:53 to go (great play by Will Donovan as well on this score). On the next possession, after Will Lynch won the faceoff to himself, Kav hit home with a huge shot from outside to make it 10-9 Terps and a penalty on Maryland with 6:06 to go. The Irish went one minute man up and started with possession at the top of the box. During the man up, our feed inside to Taylor got knocked down, the Terps cleared in transition and scored shorthanded from in close as Daniel Kelly hit home to make it 11-9 Maryland with 5:22 to go. From here, the Irish made a couple of key stops and finally get the ball back with 3:40 to go, but we turned it over. Maryland’s next possession saw their shot hit the cage and we got the ball back into the offensive zone and called timeout with 1:48 to go. We came out and worked it up top to Jordan and he hit a rocket to the top corner to make it 11-10 Terps with 1:33 to go. Will Lynch won the next faceoff, timeout Notre Dame with 1:23 to go. Irish came out with Matt Jeffery, Busenkell, Taylor, Kav, Angrick and Faison. Faison started with the ball up top. Kav shot wide from the side with 43 seconds to go, :35 on the shot clock. Jeffery inside on a beautiful pass to Kav with a close look to tie and Logan McNaney with a great kick save with :23 seconds left. Maryland won the run out to get control and they ran out the clock. A game of inches with an 11-10 Maryland final score. Our Irish moved to 3-1 on the season.

Some Notes and Thoughts

It’s been over 365 days since I have written a “Some Notes and Thoughts” section where I talked about a loss (Georgetown 2024). Therefore, writing this week is a little different. For those of you who know me, my goal for this column has always been to be positive (life’s too short to be negative) which has been pretty easy with the Irish now 39-4 over our last 43 games. I am going to keep things positive as there was so much I liked about Saturday’s performance, but there is still a lot that our Irish can work on as we continue on with this season. Let’s get after it:

This had to be such a neat experience for Fisher Finley and Ridge Johnson with both players being from Georgia. You could tell they had a lot of family and friends at the game and with over 10,000 people in attendance, Atlanta made a statement as a college lacrosse destination for big time games. Count me in as someone who wouldn’t mind seeing the Final Four there at some point as the environment and stadium were top level.

Even though it was a loss, I think now I know what it must have felt like playing against Liam Entenmann for the last five years. Logan McNaney was excellent on Saturday and I counted at least six would be goals that he made incredible saves on against our Irish (including the final one against Chris Kavanagh). He was really good and while I think we can expect him to be really good moving forward, the close looks were there for Notre Dame and a lot of time we usually hit home on those looks and shots.

The way the first quarter played out, the Irish had a lot of chances to really take control of the game. Notre Dame had a 6-0 faceoff advantage, a 13-3 ground ball advantage and a 14-4 shot advantage. The scoreboard read 3-2 Irish. Lots to like about what we did in this quarter, but the chance was there to be up 5-1 after the first 15 minutes.

Second game in a row where we gave up a goal with under 10 seconds left before the quarter ended (this time with :07 left in the first). Always tough to do that, sure this will be a point of emphasis from the coaching staff this week.

Across the last two games, we have scored one goal in the third quarter. That means one goal in 30 minutes coming out of the break. Same thing, this will be a point of emphasis for the boys as the opponent is going to come out of the half with their adjustments made. How do we react to those changes will be something for us to watch this upcoming weekend in Arlotta.

Will Lynch won 16-22 faceoffs and in the first quarter he was 6-0; in the fourth quarter he was 7-0. ELITE play from Will Lynch again and he continues to prove himself out as the best in the college game. He was the reason we were able to make our comeback across the fourth quarter. To note, Colin Hagstrom also won both his faceoffs.

Maryland found something they liked in low shots against Thomas Ricciardelli. While he stopped the first few shots that were low, Maryland hit home on a bunch later on. This will be something for Thomas to focus on and I would imagine he will be seeing a lot of bouncers from Coach Garnsey this week in practice.

We ran eight offensive middies out there on Saturday, and with the temperatures in the 70s, it was something that I think we expected we would see. Last year early in the season we focused on our first two lines of middies and slowly worked in our third line which we all know paid huge dividends later in the season. On Saturday, as we ran eight players out there, we were mixing and matching across the top two lines. Let’s see how the coaching staff handles things moving forward. Do we set our top two lines? Do we continue to mix and match across eight? Do we have a ninth middie who the coaching staff trusts to therefore make three full lines?

We became pretty spoiled with an attack of Pat, Chris and Jake over the last two years. It was a luxury and made it so hard for defenses as they looked to stop us. Pat Kav is not there this year, and same as the midfield, we have been mixing and matching across Brady Pokorny, Brock Behrman and this week Devon McLane as we try to find the right combination at that third attack spot. I think this will be one of the biggest things to watch at Arlotta this weekend. How does the attack come out on Saturday? Does the staff look to shake things up maybe with Ricciardelli, Maheras or even Matt Jeffery? Do we isolate Pokorny early giving him the chance to continue to build his confidence? I would imagine this week of practice will help clarify what the coaching staff is thinking here.

A few uncharacteristic offsides on faceoffs from our Irish. Maryland took advantage in those situations with some unsettled offense and goals. Another point of emphasis that I know will be drilled down as we head into Saturday.

Maryland doesn’t usually play with a lot of tempo in their playbook, but on Saturday they picked opportune moments and they took advantage. Whether off of good outlets from McNaney, strong LSM play or unsettled resets, Maryland was ready and put home some nice goals with some good passing. They had us in trouble with their transition, but all fixable aspects for our Irish.

I have talked a lot about the Irish, but I do want to give credit to the Terps. They played a great game on Saturday across their offense, defense and within the middle of the field. Their goalie was a difference maker and they walked out of Atlanta undefeated and the #1 ranked team in the country.

I am not worried. Once again, I am not worried. I said this in texts after the game, and after watching the replay at home, it only reinforced how I felt about this game (and the Irish). Notre Dame controlled the faceoff dot. We won the ground ball battle. We outshot Maryland. We gave up multiple transition and unsettled goals off of some uncommon mistakes. We were stopped on the doorstep about five or six times. Yes, there are certainly some aspects that we can work on, and where we go with our middies and attack across the next two games will be what we will be watching. But we continue to have leadership, talent and a coaching staff that knows how to win. I am confident our team will be prepared and ready to go against whomever we are facing.

Martha’s Pictures

Being in Atlanta meant that Fred and Martha Assaf were in attendance. So great to see the two of them before the game, and with Fred at Pace Academy’s playoff semi-final bball game, Martha was on duty and taking sideline pictures. I will put a bunch of them below. All photo credits to Martha Assaf. Just the best! Also notice the Notre Dame lacrosse alumni who were in attendance and watching from the sidelines. So cool to see them watching from the field.

What’s Next

We are back in South Bend this weekend on Saturday as the Irish take on Ohio State at 2 PM EST at Arlotta. The Buckeyes, after starting off the season with a loss to Utah, have won six in a row, including a dominating win at home against Virginia.

Similar to last year, we will all be watching how the Irish respond to an early season loss. Georgetown beat Notre Dame early in 2023 and that defeat spurred the Irish to fourteen straight wins and our second National Championship in a row.

Four things I will be looking for on Saturday:

-How do the midfield lines shake out?

-What does our starting attack look like?

-Does Ohio State look to push the ball?

-Where does Ohio State’s shot selection focus?

If you are close to South Bend, this will be the first opportunity to see the Irish outdoors on campus. Get there, cheer on Notre Dame and let’s get a big bounce back victory against Ohio State. I have full faith we will be itching to get out on the field and that we will come out with something to prove. Plus, we owe OSU from a certain game played in Atlanta a little over a month ago. Go Irish!