It’s that time. Another year, another matchup with the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame. This, however, there’s the added juice of Notre Dame being defending national champions. The boys from South Bend had a stumble against Georgetown, but are coming to Columbus fresh off a smackdown of Maryland.
That game saw Notre Dame put on a complete performance from start to finish, with the Kavanaghs taking center stage. This is a good one to skip, if you don’t like brutal games. It’s probably going to get ugly.
Notre Dame, obviously, is led by Pat (#51) and Chris (#50) Kavanagh on offense. Pat is acting as the primary facilitator for Notre Dame this year, racking up 14 assists in 4 games. Chris has been the goalscorer, notching 10 tallies in 4 games, and 5 assists to go with them.
Adding to the threat of Notre Dame’s offense is Jake Taylor (#13), who leads Notre Dame with 15 goals. Jordan Faison (#14), a highly rated lacrosse recruit who has broken out a little with the Notre Dame football team, presents an additional midfield dodging threat that the Buckeyes are going to struggle to stop with an SSDM.
The fact that Notre Dame is loaded on offense becomes scarier knowing that Bobby van Buren, Ohio State’s best close defender, went down hard against Cornell and is likely out this week.
The defense has become unsettled the past few weeks, with multiple long poles rotating into the game. That’s certainly not ideal. Continuity goes a long way on defense, and this mishmash in personnel is not going to help things.
Defensively, Notre Dame lost some of their stalwart defenders from last year, but remain as stingy as ever on that side of the ball. In fact, they’ve only allowed more than 10 goals once, and it took OT for Georgetown to get there.
The Fighting Irish are averaging 7.75 goals against per game, stifling teams with a .258 shooting percentage allowed, and outscoring opponents by 9.75 goals per game. Ohio State is in really big trouble against this team. The Buckeyes only score based on volume, and the Irish just don’t give up that many shots.
Opponents are only getting 30 shots per game to score, which is miniscule in this era of college lacrosse. With how poor the offense has been, the Buckeyes will have to take a giant leap to stay in this game. I just don’t see it happening.
At goalie, Liam Entenmann (#44) remains one of the best goalkeepers in college lacrosse. He’s sporting an above average save percentage of .545 this season, and is allowing just 8.08 goals against.
As good as Caleb Fyock is, Big Tasty isn’t to that level. It’s going to be a challenge to score, even if Ohio State can manage to get off some shots. Brace yourselves.
On faceoffs, Ohio State has struggled more than the personnel would have suggested. Tommy Burke hasn’t been able to keep up his production against the upper tier of FOGOs, and his task will be pretty tough this week.
Will Lynch (#22) comes into the game winning 67% of his faceoffs, for a team that traditionally has used wing play to grind out faceoff wins. If Notre Dame is going to get to 55-60% on the day tomorrow, Ohio State will be lucky to just avoid getting embarrassed.
The only bright spot for Ohio State in this matchup is on Man Down. Notre Dame has been subpar this season, allowing opponents to score on 4 of 8 chances with the extra man.
On Man Up, however, Notre Dame is scoring over 70% of the time. That’s not only ludicrously high, it’s indicative of how good this Fighting Irish team is from top to bottom. The Kavanaghs alone are cheat codes, to have that kind of offensive cohesion is just not fair.
The Buckeyes will need to be very, very disciplined to avoid getting into even worse trouble. If it wasn’t clear from the previous paragraphs, I don’t like Ohio State’s chances at all tomorrow. Notre Dame used the OT loss to Georgetown to refocus, waylaid Maryland, and is coming to Columbus looking to go on a tear.
The Buckeyes' shock inclusion in the 2022 national tournament set the stage for Notre Dame’s 2023 title run, and most of the team from 2022 is still around. Ohio State’s going to have to figure out the offense a lot more to have a prayer at the upset, and I haven’t seen any improvement in execution that would make me think it is realistic.
Final prediction: Notre Dame 17, Ohio State 10.
Game is at noon, on BTN+.
Go Bucks!
