Irish dominate the Wolverines to the tune of 19-7

A crucial win in Ann Arbor for the boys as we head into our bye week with a 4-2 record

Photo Credit: Notre Dame Lacrosse twitter

“The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated”

-Mark Twain

I will admit, in last week’s column, I might have been a little dramatic around our Irish as we headed into our match up with the Wolverines. While I still feel it was a must win, I probably did not need to take it to “high alert” levels with my football analogy. It was a bit much, but in a lacrosse season where we have seen lots of upsets and many of the top programs falter (Virginia, Denver, Yale), this has become an up for grabs season. Not sure many of us would have had a Top 5 of Maryland, Penn State, Army, Cornell and North Carolina on March 17th. As well, not sure many of us were expecting to see the tough outing our team had against the Buckeyes. And as we all know, our Irish schedule is not the fifteen game schedule that some have so each of these eleven games is going to matter a little bit more when early season losses take place.

Getting a victory in Ann Arbor as we headed into our bye week was key for the reasons we talked about in last week’s column: getting a win against the Big Ten conference; not losing three in a row; having something to build upon over our bye week.

I do feel it was appropriate to look at where our Irish were falling short in the early part of this season, and while two one goal losses were just that – one goal losses, we had seen some atypical play that we had not grown accustomed to seeing from Notre Dame over the last more than two and a half years. It was a focus for the players and the coaching staff to get back to playing Notre Dame lacrosse and get back to the fundamentals that had brought our program to the level we have come to expect.

Let’s get into it all as on a windy, early spring afternoon in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the Notre Dame men’s lacrosse team got back on track beating the Michigan Wolverines by a score of 19-7. The victory moved the Irish to 4-2 with a bye week upcoming, followed by the start of the ACC schedule and the Duke Blue Devils coming to Arlotta for a 12 PM EST matchup on Saturday, March 29th.

David Brogan and I will be recording the next “Exit 77” podcast this weekend on Saturday morning, be sure to listen in when it goes live. Secondly, get caught up with the write-up from our friends at 18stripes as they took a look at the win over Michigan.

What we talked about last week

If we look back at the focus of last week’s article, here were the main topics of conversation:

Thomas Ricciardelli’s big game against OSU

Dealing with Injuries

Sorting out the Midfield lines

Settling on a starting attack

Figuring out the 3rd Quarter

Leadership Continuing to emerge

Trust the coaches

Let’s not forget who we are (Notre Dame lacrosse)

Around the Michigan game, I think we can feel good with how Notre Dame responded as we looked to get the ship turned around.

Thomas Ricciardelli settling in

Another top tier game for Thomas as he had 10 saves on the day while only giving up 6 goals in over 54 minutes of play. It was an extremely solid performance where Michigan found it tough to hit the back of the net for long stretches. Love what we are starting to see from Thomas.

Improved SSDM play

We talked about the injuries to Tyler Buchner and Christian Alacqua, and in good news, Christian was back and looked strong against the Wolverines. Tyler was still missing and hope we will see him after the bye, but we saw another opportunity for players like Kyle Bergen, Chris Reinhardt and Logan Gutzwiller to get their chance to improve upon earlier outings. It was a stronger overall unit on Saturday and you can tell that someone like Ben Ramsey took it upon himself to work with the other players and make sure the unit play was back on par with where we expect it to be across this aspect of our defense.

Starting attack looks to be set

Reprising his role from when he was at Brown, Devon McLane is back on attack after playing midfield last year for our Irish. As our unit has struggled to find the third piece to go along with Jake Taylor and Chris Kavanagh, it looks like Devon will be in that starting spot moving forward. With two goals and one assist against the Wolverines, the attack unit had a nice flow to it and we could see how the offense could flourish with these three working together. There is certainly a calmness and a veteran presence that Devon brings to the table with so much experience across over his last five years. Overall, it was a nice change of pace and we saw four assists across our starting group which equaled the same amount we had had in the last 2.5 games.

Midfield lines are taking form

We saw the following across our offensive midfield lines:

Faison-Angrick-Busenkell

Maheras-Finley-Seymour

Matt Jeffery being the swing piece

I really liked what we saw from these groups on Saturday, and with Devon moving to attack, it moved our rotation of eight middies down to seven and allowed for the first and second lines to really look to develop that continuity across the groups. With these seven we saw 8 goals and 4 assists which was an extremely productive day. We also saw what we have normally seen from our midfield over the last couple of years as we were beating our man up top, driving and hitting a feed across the crease for easy goals. The skip pass was back in our repertoire too. Lastly, I liked how Matt Jeffery played some defensive middie while also handling some clearing duties. This will all pay dividends for him as he continues to progress and with his first goal of his career on Saturday, I think he will only continue to develop more and more confidence.

How about that third quarter?

When Michigan got the first goal of the third quarter to move the score to 8-4 Irish, I thought to myself, here we go again. As we hit the 7:30 mark of the third it was looking like much of the same that we had seen across the three previous games. It wasn’t to be the case though as our Irish exploded for seven goals across the last 7 minutes of the quarter to take a 15-4 lead into the fourth. So wonderful to see this as we thoroughly outplayed our opponent in the third quarter. We got on a run and the game was over before the final 15 minutes even started. It was a much needed change.

Leadership Continuing to emerge

We saw evidence of this as clearly there was a strong week of practice leading into the Michigan game. Led by captains Chris Kavanagh and Ben Ramsey, I would imagine there were some really good conversations had across the fifth year seniors and seniors. This is their team, they are the ones who know how to win and they know how to make sure everyone is aligned with the messaging during the week and the follow through when the opening whistle is heard.

Trust the coaches

As stated, all trust in the world that the ship would be turned around and that the coaches knew what they were doing. This was proven out across the changes that were made and the domination that we saw in Ann Arbor. Sure, not everything is completely set, but getting the victory as we headed into the bye week was paramount. Now this week and next is all about fine tuning the machine as we head into the Duke matchup.

Let’s not forget who we are

Do you like to see a strong ride from our Irish? Check. Do you like to see some quick restarts and transition? Check. Win the ground ball battle? Check. Fundamental lacrosse with not a ton of turnovers? Check. Dominant faceoff play? Check. Solid defense and goalie play? Check.

We got back to what has gotten ND lacrosse to this point. It was so good to see as we played our most complete game of the season.

What else did I like on Saturday?

Will Lynch was 13-16 at the faceoff dot and Colin Hagstrom was 5-8 at the dot. Christian Gallaher and Pat Eilers also got out there; overall it was a dominating performance from our Irish faceoff unit.

Love the continuity that our close defense is developing. Shawn Lyght, Nate Schwitzenberg and Will Gallagher are all three playing strong and fundamental lacrosse right now.

Will Angrick continues to up his game and he continues to play at an extremely high level this year. So fun to see him start to get some serious national recognition as well.

Will Maheras with two goals and one assist. Second straight strong outing for Will as he has become extremely tough to defend with his quickness on the outside.

Loved when we doubled the longpoles on the faceoffs. Another wrinkle that our opponents will now have to get prepared for when playing us.

Chris Kavanagh with 4 goals and 3 assists. Enough said.

Jalen Seymour looking like Reilly Gray taking his man behind the cage and then scoring from GLE.

Jordan Faison, so very, very hard to defend with the ball in his stick.

Max Busenkell’s all around game is just fun to watch.

How about that burst of speed from Matt Jeffery on his first goal? Wooooosh.

12 different Irish players scored on Saturday. Great work team.

Nice to see Jeffery Ricciardelli, Brock Behrman and Brady Pokorny all hit the score sheet. It can’t be easy as we know they all three want to be out there, but awesome to see them take advantage when called on later in the game.

Way to go Gavin Burlace with his first goal of his career!

What’s Next

The Irish have a bye this week so the team gets to rest up and take advantage of an open Saturday. It’s a chance for everyone to heal, continue to work on their craft and get ready for the stretch run of the season. If things work out how we all hope they should, this will be the last weekend off for the team through Memorial Day weekend.

Additionally, it’s an opportunity for the coaching staff to evaluate the first six games and plan out the next five. What did they like? What didn’t they like? Where can improvements be made? What are our opponents focusing on when they play us? Who are some new players the staff can count on moving forward?

We begin our ACC slate of games with the Duke Blue Devils coming to town on Saturday, March 29th. There is not much more to be said as this has become one of the bigger rivalries in college lacrosse over the last decade. We are not a fan of them; they are not a fan of us. I think we can all expect a packed house in Arlotta with some intense and physical lacrosse across the two hours we go against each other.

We are 4-2 and there are five games left on our regular season schedule. Every single one of these games matters, but none of them matter more than the one that is next up. Let’s Go Irish, let’s get a big one against Duke. See you all at Arlotta in a little over a week.