Across all three divisions of Men’s and Women’s NCAA lacrosse, just under 900 programs competed during the 2024 season. Only two are left.
The Maryland Terrapins and Notre Dame Fighting Irish will meet in the Division I national championship game on Monday. The game features a clash between the last two champions. Notre Dame is looking to repeat, while the Terps will look for their second in three years, and third since 2017.
Notre Dame has been dominant this season, losing only once in February. Since then, they have run over the rest of the country and have seemed to play their best lacrosse lately. Heading into the national championship, they have scored 15 more goals than their opponents in the NCAA tournament, and will be considered heavy favourites this afternoon.
The Terps are on one of the unlikelier runs we have seen in the last couple of seasons. After a decent start to the season, the Terps faded down the stretch and were held to just 5 goals in a loss to Johns Hopkins. Then they lost in the Big Ten tournament to Penn State 19-9. Their season seemed to be literally in doubt (there was question whether they would make the tournament) and they certainly seemed to be susceptible to a first round upset.
They responded with a resounding 16-8 victory over a young Princeton team, and then went up the Long Island and got a come back victory over the Duke Blue Devils. On Saturday, they pounded the Virginia Cavaliers 12-6. What’s remarkable is not just the fact that they turned the season around, but that they did it so emphatically. They have been crushing teams.
Grizzled Veterans
Looking to Monday, this game features the most outstanding player from each of the last two NCAA tournaments, and they play the same position. I’m not sure there is much debate over whether there are better big-game goaltenders in the college game than Logan McNaney and Liam Entenmann. Entenmann is coming off his best game in the NCAA tournament with 12 saves and just 6 goals allowed. McNaney had 8 saves and 6 goals allowed for the Terps.
Two years ago, Logan made 17 saves in the national championship game. Last year, Entenmann made 18 saves.
The fun part of this matchup is the stylistic differences. Entenmann, listed at 6’3, 203 lbs, but certainly looks taller than that in the net. He is the biggest goalie in the NCAA tournament. McNaney may be the smallest, listed generously at 5’10, he thrives on a quiet style. He’s very patient in the net and rarely takes a false step. Both he and Entenmann cut the field for their defences by dominating the low-angle and punishing bad shots.
This will be a fun battle to watch.
Possession is King
The goaltending battle will be fun, but the biggest matchup of the day will undeniably occur at the faceoff X. One of WIll Lynch and Luke Wierman is likely to be named the Most Outstanding Player of the tournament after both of their incredible runs.
Lynch has come alive in the tournament, and dominated all-american Alex Stathakis from Denver. While many assumed that Stathakis would win the matchup, Lynch won 18-23 and totally tilted the game in favor of the Irish. Unlike other dominant teams historically, the Irish don’t always dominate teams in the first quarter. They have a style that seems to wear teams down over the course of the game and at some point the damn breaks. Lynch is a reason for that.
Wierman has been on one of the most impressive runs in tournament history for a faceoff man. In the tournament, he has won 71% of his faceoffs, picked up 33 ground balls, and scored 4 points. The scoring has really been amazing, and it could have been more significant. Wierman was stopped by Kyle Morris on the opening faceoff of the UVA game and the Terps missed a few in transition that could have been assists. Nearly every faceoff in the first half resulted in a transition opportunity.
Wierman and Lynch both played significant minutes at non-faceoff positions in high school (Lynch took up the faceoff position in South Bend) and they are both talented with the ball in their sticks. This battle will continue long after the whistle.
This battle underscores the main theme of this game, which is the difficulty of trying to scout it. Wierman should do well against Lynch, but we just saw Lynch role into an underdog matchup and absolutely dominate. But one thing we do know, is that similarly to Denver, Maryland’s hopes will rely on a possession battle.
Anyone’s Guess
As the tournament progresses, the challenge of scouting Maryland becomes more and more of an advantage for the Terps. They have basically ditched traditional lines and it seems like a new combination of three midfielders comes onto the field on any given possession. The attack has seemed to settle into a combination of Eric Spanos, Danny Maltz, and Daniel Kelly. But that is liable to change.
Most importantly, the Terps don’t seem to care who is covered by who. They dodge short sticks wherever they are on the field and have been attacking primarily from behind the goal. There is a stylistic difference here between the two teams. Notre Dame has some big, athletic midfielders who can shoot on the run from distance. Players like Eric Dobson, Will Angrick, and Reilly Gray fit this bill.
Outside of Ryan Siracusa and maybe Jack Koras, all of Maryland’s midfielders will look to score in other ways that simply dodging. Eric Malever and Braden Erksa are attackmen playing midfield, while Zach Whitter spends the whole game below the goal. Jack Brennan does a little bit of everything.
I think this strategy is a good one against this Notre Dame team. This is a ridiculously good defence and they are as well-coached as any. But you have to attack them somehow, and relying on the invert game is the best option.
The invert game got Maryland some easy looks like this one.
Notre Dame almost never slides to their poles, and they are so good at supporting dodges from the top that even if you can draw a slide, it’s hard to punish it. But they seem to want to support single inverts slightly more, so Maryland may have some success. Notre Dame’s SSDM unit is one of the best in the nation and winning matchups has proven to be a tall task this season.
The key for the Terps is to not assume that the slides are coming. They need to dodge hard and look to score.
Against Notre Dame on Saturday, Richie Connell scored a goal in this fashion.
This style neutralizes individual defenders like Shawn Lyght. Lyght is dominant, and has neutralized some of the best players in the nation. But with the emphasis on dodging short sticks, and the de-emphasis on caring at all about matchups and personnel, the Terps can avoid that buzz saw.
Same Same But Different
The challenges of scouting this Notre Dame offence are in some ways similar. They are so multiple, in personnel and scheme, that it’s hard to figure out what to stop first. Maryland will first need to decide whether to short-stick Jake Taylor inside. The Terps have had success over the years against off-ball players, but did give up 6 goals to Dyson Williams two weeks ago.
Putting a short on Taylor opens the defence up to a variety of two-man games both on the wing and behind the net though, so don’t be surprised to see Maryland play it straight up.
With that alignment, the first two challenges you face are guarding Dobson and Jordan Faison. A major key for Maryland will be forcing Dobson to be a righty, and forcing him to the alley instead of the middle of the field. I think plays like this are great for Notre Dame and must be avoided by Maryland.
Of course, when he is going right, he’s still outstanding. But I think he leans slightly more towards feeding as a righty, so Maryland can be slower to go. But he’s a great feeder. This is also where Devon McLane comes in, one of the hottest players in the entire nation, with 21 goals in his last 7 contests. Maryland needs to be buttoned up here.
Faison can really move, and the Terps have to be ready to support his dodges, even if it’s on a pole.
Once you defend the midfield dodges, then the Kavanagh experience really kicks in. Maryland is obviously going to trust Ajax Zapitello on the ball, and that will be another fun battle. Ajax has thus far held Coulter Mackesy, Josh Zawada, and Connor Shellenberger to a combined 6 points in three games, and even some of those points came in situations where he was not on-ball. It’s going to be a fun battle with Pat.
The biggest question is who will guard Chris Kavanagh, who has been on a tear in the tournament. Will Schaller was very good against McCabe Millon, and could draw the matchup, or the longer Colin Burlace could do it. Burlace is coming off the game of his life where he was outstanding off-ball, and that could be enough to slide Schaller onto Chris. Schaller is a talented young player but this is the toughest assignment he’s ever had in a big game. His play will be crucial for the Terps.
Then after all of that, you need to worry about the second and even third lines. I am skeptical about whether we see that third line today, but if they do, it’s another group of personnel for the Terps to be familiar with. ND comes at you in waves.
X Factors
It’s clearly Lynch and Wierman here, so I will go with team X Factors instead.
For Maryland, it’s limiting turnovers both on offence and in the clear. Notre Dame pops the game open at some point in every contest by scoring off the ride. It gets their crowd into it, their bench into it, and most importantly it ignites the brothers Kavanagh.
For Notre Dame, they need to limit errors in the sub game and not allow the Terps to score on faceoffs and early offence. Maryland looked to push a lot against UVA and got 4 points from non-offensive personnel. Notre Dame needs to do what they can to avoid that.
It’s one of the best days on the lacrosse calendar: Championship Monday.
Two teams remain. Only one can win.