Notre Dame men’s lacrosse overwhelms Ohio State to start NCAA tourney run

Chris Kavanagh made sure that Sunday’s NCAA Tournament first round matchup at Ohio State wasn’t his last game in a Notre Dame men’s lacrosse uniform.

The senior attacker provided a relentless effort at the heart of a commanding 16-5 win over the fourth-seeded Buckeyes to secure the Irish a spot in the NCAA quarterfinals. Kavanagh, who was last year’s Most Outstanding Player in the NCAA Tournament, led the Irish (9-4) with three goals and two assists, but the pressure he applied on Ohio State (14-3) can’t be captured through statistics.

In the middle of the third period, Kavanagh bullied Ohio State goaltender Caleb Fyock, who had possession behind the net, to knock the ball free. Kavanagh then dove to keep the ball available for Will Angrick, who secured the groundball and managed to score on an open net in the middle of a chaotic scene.

Earlier in the game, Kavanagh deflected a pass from Cullen Brown intended for Fyock, collected the ground ball and fed Devon McLane for an unexpected goal to give the Irish a 5-3 lead. The Tewaaraton Award finalist repeatedly impacted the game.

“It’s just his competitiveness that kind of bleeds through everything, right?” said Notre Dame head coach Kevin Corrigan. “Whether we’re talking about riding ground balls, him attacking the defense, him looking for ways to play off ball to make it hard for the defense to play. He’s just focused all the time on competing and kind of getting the best for our team that he can. And that’s a contagious mentality, that’s for sure.”

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The weight of expectations may have prevented the two-time defending national champs from reaching its potential during the regular season. The Irish (9-4) failed to secure a home game for the first round of the tournament and were tasked with a rematch against an Ohio State team that came into South Bend, Ind., on March 8 and left with a 10-9 win.

The way Notre Dame played Sunday in Columbus, Ohio, provided evidence that the Irish still have the potential to defend their title once again. While that’s the ultimate goal for Notre Dame, Corrigan has simply been looking for his team to play more complete games from start to finish. The 60 minutes at Ohio State were a good start.

“We were a lot closer to doing that today without question,” Corrigan said. “We played with a looseness. Whether you want to admit it or not, I think there were times during the year where we felt like we were letting ourselves down or letting down our teammates and former teammates and stuff like that. Just putting pressure on ourselves that we didn’t need, and today we didn’t play with that.

“We played with great unity and really great spirit. I think that’s the magic ticket, because it’s all about this group and all about what are they bringing every day. We had a great week of practice despite we didn’t have a practice over one hour all week, but we really went at it and had fun and played. We just brought that into this game.”

Sunday’s game came following a week of final exams back on Notre Dame’s campus, which limited the practice time for the Irish. Though Notre Dame fell behind 3-1 early in the second quarter, it responded with the next six goals in the quarter in a nearly 10-minute stretch. From that point on, there was little doubt in what kind of performance the Irish were putting together.

Graduate senior Jake Taylor recorded a hat trick with three goals and one assist. Angrick scored two goals, and seven teammates scored one goal each.

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Notre Dame dominated possession, which started with an 18-7 advantage on faceoffs. Senior Will Lynch, who was motivated by losing 11 of his 20 faceoffs in the loss to Ohio State in March, won 17 of his 23 faceoffs. Lynch admitted that he didn’t prepare well for the first Ohio State game, and he made up for it this time around.

“This week, we really went through that film and dissected what went wrong in that matchup and certain techniques, standpoints, like my weight and my stance,” Lynch said. “And really not getting myself spread out. When I kept my weight balanced, it opened up exits. The wing guys did a phenomenal job of riding their poles upfield and opening pockets for me. So really all credit to them. We prepared great this week and gotta keep it going, going down the stretch.”

The lopsided possession in Notre Dame’s favor, which included a 43-28 shot advantage, made for long stretches in between save opportunities for Irish goalie Thomas Ricciardelli. He stayed locked in by making sure to take extra work from assistant coach Ryder Garnsey during TV timeouts. Ricciardelli spoke to Liam Entenmann, Notre Dame’s goalie the past two seasons and two-time ACC Goalie of the Year, in the past week. Ricciardelli responded well with 15 saves.

“It’s always a next-save mentality, no matter what,” Ricciardelli said. “You can’t ride the highs too high, because then you’re going to ride the lows really low. It was always a neck-shot mentality.

“The defense was giving up shots that I like to save. I don’t want to say easy shots, because no shot’s an easy shot, but very save-able balls. I appreciate them for giving me the opportunity to make a few saves, and I guess get hot in that regard.”

Notre Dame will look to stay hot next Sunday in a quarterfinal matchup with fifth-seeded Penn State (11-4) in Annapolis, Md. Penn State advanced to the quarterfinals with a 13-11 win over Colgate on Saturday.

If the Irish follow the blueprint of Sunday’s win over Ohio State, they’ll be hard to beat.

“Every aspect of the game today our guys were really working hard and smart at executing,” Corrigan said. “As a result, we beat what I know to be a very, very good Ohio State team. They had a terrific season and rightfully so. They earned their home game here today. But for us to beat them that way, it took the kind of effort that we had today in all aspects.”

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