SOUTH BEND — For Notre Dame lacrosse, opening the NCAA Tournament on the road Sunday, May 11, against fourth-seeded Ohio State (Noon, ESPN2) almost feels like a relief.
It’s definitely a giant reset button for the unseeded Irish (8-4), who dealt with nagging injuries and erratic play during the regular season in their pursuit of a third straight national title.
“That is kind of how we feel,” junior goalie Thomas Ricciardelli said before Thursday’s practice. “It brings us back to kind of why we played the sport in the first place. It’s really to have fun and just loving each other and going out there and playing for each other.”
The Buckeyes (14-2) stunned the Irish on March 8 at Arlotta Stadium, handing coach Kevin Corrigan’s team a 10-9 loss that was its second straight by a single goal. Having lost the previous weekend to No. 2 Maryland, Notre Dame went on to drop a pair of meetings with Syracuse, including an ACC Tournament semifinal on May 2.
This marks the first time since 2010 that Notre Dame has opened the NCAA Tournament away from home.
“It’s nice sometimes to be the underdog,” Ricciardelli said. “We’ve had a target on our back the whole year, and that’s a good thing. You obviously want that sometimes. But sometimes, I guess for us this year, the pressure has been a little much.”
While the Irish are the fourth team since 2000 to claim back-to-back NCAA titles, including Virginia’s COVID wraparound in 2019 and 2021, no program has won three in a row since Princeton in 1996-98.
The only other three-peats belong to Syracuse (1988-90) and Johns Hopkins (1978-80), but the Orange’s 1990 title was later voided due to star Paul Gait’s ineligibility ruling.
Keeping the first-timer’s mentality
As he did last year, Corrigan is reminding his players they aren’t trying to repeat so much as they are simply trying to win for the first time in this configuration.
“Every team exists for nine months,” he said. “That’s all you get. This is this team’s shot. We’ve had the same mentality all year.”
If not the same cast of characters from week to week.
“It’s been an interesting path,” Corrigan said. “We haven’t had the same lineup through a week of practice since we started this year. Nothing tragic, nothing permanent, but just a series of things that have kept us a little bit off balance.”
Less explosive on offense than in the past two years, Notre Dame has converted just 31.6% of its man-up opportunities. Opponents, meanwhile, have scored on 42.4% of their extra-man chances.
Aside from talented freshman midfielder Matt Jeffery, who remains out with an upper-body injury suffered on April 26 against North Carolina, the Irish should have the rest of their team at the ready in Columbus.
“It’s been a bit of a journey that way,” Corrigan said. “At this point, we’re as healthy as we are, about as healthy as we could be. We just have to know what we have and play with a good sense of ourselves. We’ve kind of been in every situation you can be in.”
Senior attacker Chris Kavanagh leads the team with 56 points, nearly twice the output of runner-up Jake Taylor with 30, but that’s a far cry from the program-record 81 points Kavanagh managed in 17 games last year.
Maintaining possession and using more of the 80-second shot clock is a definite point of emphasis as the postseason begins.
“It’s a team effort in every regard,” Ricciardelli said. “I can’t just go out there and be a one-man defense, and Chris can’t go out there and be a one-man offense. It’s about the chemistry among us. We have it. We just haven’t executed well enough.”
A looser Irish bunch, however, could be extremely dangerous this time of year.
“I’ll admit for me, at least, as a first-year starter, it’s been tough,” Ricciardelli said. “But yeah, it’s definitely nice to be the underdog. We’re climbing uphill, but we like that. We have a lot of guys in that locker room that want to do that and can do it.”
Mike Berardino covers Notre Dame football for the South Bend Tribune and NDInsider.com. Follow him on social media @MikeBerardino.
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Finding the reset button key for Notre Dame lacrosse in NCAA opener at Ohio State
Reporting by Mike Berardino, South Bend Tribune / South Bend Tribune
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
