It was “Lacrosse Day in Chicago” on Saturday, April 4th and the afternoon delivered like most of us expected it would. On a cold and sometimes rainy day near the lake, our Fighting Irish took down #1 ranked Richmond by a final score of 12-8.
It was an awesome time and Chicagoland showed up with over 5,000 fans gathering at the “Stadium on the Lake” in Evanston to see a top four matchup. For those of you who have been following me for years now, you know that Evanston is my hometown, and still to this
day, one of my most favorite places on the planet. I have a lot of fond memories growing up in the area and still get back as much as I can with my parents just recently selling our house and moving a couple of suburbs over. It was awesome to be back home, to get together with family, friends and a lot of Notre Dame fans, and to watch Notre Dame win, moving to 7-1 on the season.
Oh yeah, here are some pics from the day as my parents were at the game with me and I also met up with my “Exit 77” podcast co-host, David Brogan and his family before the game too. Shout out to all the Notre Dame families who hosted the ND tailgate, that was an awesome experience both before and after the game.
Lots for us to talk about so let’s get into it with our different sections.
Eight is Great
Not a bad beginning to the game as the Irish got off to an 8-0 start; that is where the first quarter would end.
Goal by Chris Reinhardt at 14:55 to get things rolling.
Luke Miller and Josh Yago with back to back goals to make it 3-0 Irish.
Will Maheras and Luke Miller (again) and the score was 5-0 with a little over 11 minutes left in the first quarter.
Will Angrick then got on the board followed by a man-up Brady Pokorny goal to make it 7-0 Irish.
Josh Yago would get the last goal of the quarter at the 3:43 mark to make it 8-0 Irish.
What a statement from Notre Dame. It was exactly the start the team needed coming off a final quarter in Charlottesville where we failed to hit the back of the net. And it was an offense that a lot of us have been asking for from the Irish as we saw fast breaks, great passing, outside shooting, rebound goals, shots on the run and just an overall slinging of the rock to keep Richmond off balance.
Let’s also not forget that the defense came to play with some stingy team play and strong goaltending. We kept Richmond off the scoreboard across the first 15 minutes.
Richmond Goes on a Run
For as nice as our 8-0 start was, Richmond was the #1 ranked team for a reason, and they were not going to let that early Irish lead last. As the second quarter moved along, the Spiders cut the lead to 8-4 with just over two minutes to go in the half. The matchup was turning into a game of runs and the Spiders had all the momentum as we were heading to the break. It was another long scoring drought for our Irish, and as we have seen in the past, our opponents change things up a little bit and we lose the rhythm that we had from the start. Full credit to Richmond on both the defensive and offensive side, especially as their offense created a lot of good looks, particularly on the backside of the crease. They also got some juice goals which woke up their bench and the strong contingent of Richmond fans in attendance.
As we have seen from him much of this season, when the Irish need a goal, Josh Yago steps up, and he did so again on Saturday scoring on a one-handed goal with two seconds to go before half. Kudos to Coach Corrigan who drew up a great fake pick play by Yago; Luke Miller hit him on the run and he put it home from GLE to give the Irish a 9-4 lead at the break. Reminded me a lot of the goal that Jake Taylor scored toward the end of the game against Duke in the 2023 Championship matchup.
And hindsight is always 20/20, but sure Coach Dan Chemotti wished he had not called the timeout with 5 seconds left that allowed the Irish to draw up that play….and score.
Second Half Superlatives
Richmond again got back some goals and with a little over 6 minutes to go in the third, it was 9-6 Irish meaning that the Spiders were on a 6-1 run. Notre Dame needed to get back on the board and did so with two goals within 33 seconds as Luke Miller hit home (amazing pass from Will Maheras) as did Dylan Faison to make it 11-6 Irish at the end of three. The first ever goal for Dylan Faison in an Irish uniform at just the right moment.
From there the Irish defense took over and we allowed only two more goals from the Spiders in the fourth. Our last goal was Luke Miller scoring his fourth of the day to cap the win with the final score being 12-8 Irish. We handed Richmond their first loss on the season and thereby setting up a #1 vs #2 matchup this weekend in South Bend with the Tarheels coming to town.
What Else Did We Like from the Irish
We have to start off with the faceoff dot and the job that Tyler Spano did on the day. 16-22 to totally dominate and help the Irish control possession, especially during that 8-0 run. It was his best game in a Notre Dame uniform and Tyler continues to step up with Aidan Diaz-Matos out. He was the MVP on the day and just an awesome job across the afternoon. As well, let’s not overlook Christian Gallaher going 2-2 on the day.
7 Goals and 2 Assists for Luke Miller and Josh Yago. Extremely strong play from these two and they continue to have a great overall season. We talked about it earlier in the article, but Yago’s goal right before halftime was chef’s kiss good.
I am really liking Chris Reinhardt’s speed in the midfield. It showed up last week when he scored on a fast break goal against Virginia and he continues to do a tremendous job clearing the ball into the offensive zone. Great to see him get rewarded with another goal this week too.
Love the toughness and attitude that Christian Alacqua brings. Exactly what you want to see from your senior captain. You can tell he is one of the leaders on the team.
Not surprising to see a Faison wearing #14 and scoring for the Irish. Awesome to see Dylan get his first goal of his career as he was a part of the second line midfield for the Irish. The goal will only give him more confidence as the season moves along and as the competition continues to step up.
Another outstanding game from Thomas Ricciardelli. He had twelve total saves on the day, but I would say that four of them were highway robbery. There were definitely times that I am sure Richmond looked at each other and could not believe that the ball did not find the back of the net. Thomas is proving to be one of the better goaltenders in the country this season.
Awesome to see Will Angrick and Brock Behrman get back into the scoresheet. Will had one goal and Brock had two assists. Teams have been focusing on Brock and it was nice to see him dish off to Brady Pokorny and Luke Miller for goals.
Two really strong passes from Matt Jeffery and Will Maheras that led to goals. Matt hit Josh Yago early on with a skip pass that was then rifled in for a goal. And Will hit Luke Miller coming from X with a slick feed that allowed for an easy goal by Luke.
How about some stellar defense? Richmond had averaged about 19 goals a game in their last four games coming into the matchup; our Irish held them to eight total goals. I thought Shawn Lyght in particular did an outstanding job defending Aidan O’Neil. When Richmond is going well, it is almost always starting through O’Neil; Shawn held him in check for most of the day. Along with that, Gavin Creo, Richmond’s leading midfielder scorer, did not tally a single point on the day. Amazing work by our LSMs and our SSDM unit on shutting down that aspect of Richmond.
Other quick notes:
Brady Pokorny with another man-up goal. Nice lefty snipe from him.
Will Maheras and Nate Schwitzenberg coming home and playing in front of a lot of family, friends and folks from Loyola Academy (their alma mater).
Hoping that Aidan Diaz-Matos is okay and comes back soon for our Irish.
Notre Dame won the ground ball matchup 39-32. We knew that would be key coming off the UVA loss.
Twenty turnovers by our Irish is a lot. Something I am sure the coaching staff is on the team about in practice this week.
As the weather gets better, have to think that we will start to maybe see that third line midfield for our Irish.
It was great having the video board at the field; was cool to see the replays of the goals.
What an awesome crowd that was on Saturday and kudos to Chicagoland for coming up and showing out. Wish the weather was a little better, think there would have been even more fans in attendance.
What’s Next for our Irish
For those hoping that the ND vs Richmond matchup was going to be #1 vs #2, that was shelved following the Irish loss to Virginia. But with the Irish winning on Saturday and UNC taking down Syracuse, we now get the #1 vs #2 matchup that the lacrosse world has been waiting for. On Saturday, April 11th, the Tarheels come to Arlotta as the top team in the land and they will battle #2 Notre Dame at 5 PM EST.
I am going on record right now. The atmosphere in South Bend is going to be ELECTRIC. Get to the stadium early and get there with enough time to spare as this game is going to be packed. It is looking like it will be in the low 60s with some sunshine, the students will be raring to get outside, the football team will probably be in attendance and hopefully Coach Marcus Freeman will be there as well. The berm is going to be packed and I expect an absolutely raucous crowd permeating throughout Arlotta.
If you know the history of UNC and ND, these two teams are not the biggest fans of each other so we can expect a lot of chirping and we can expect a very physical game. It’s without question that UNC has been one of the best teams in the country this year and they will be ready to go with everything they got.
If you are in the area, if you live anywhere close, get to Arlotta on Saturday for the late afternoon matchup, you will not be disappointed and you might witness the game of the year so far in the college lacrosse season.
It’s massive for our Irish as we will be looking to get to 1-1 in ACC play; the alternative is not good with only four of the five ACC teams making the ACC tournament.
It’s that time of the year where we really learn what our squad has and what our team is made up of. I am a firm believer that we will see a strong Irish team show up on Saturday.
We inch ever closer to our “Time to Be Great” mantra.
Let’s Go Irish!
