How Notre Dame men's lacrosse let early lead slip away in national title game

An exasperated Thomas Ricciardelli flicked the ball up with his stick, swiped at it with his glove and tossed it to the official as Princeton’s sideline went ballistic.

Notre Dame’s senior goalie had allowed his 11th goal of the first half, as well as the Tigers’ 11th consecutive strike, from point-blank range after his defender got beat. Ricciardelli made 19 saves, but he couldn’t stop Princeton’s onslaught in its 8-goal second quarter. No one could.

“It didn’t surprise me that he stood on his head the way he did today,” graduate student attackman Josh Yago said after the game. “It sucks that we couldn’t show up on the offensive end to help him out.”

From sophomore midfielder Matt Jeffery‘s goal with 10:11 remaining in the first quarter to graduate student midfielder Will Angrick‘s just over a minute into the third, the Irish were held scoreless. During that time, the Tigers scored 11 times and the second half became a fruitless game of catch-up. Notre Dame took a 3-0 lead after Jeffery’s lightning-fast dodge, and it looked like the Irish would bring home their third title in four years.

Instead, they let it slip away, falling 16-9 and finishing as the national runners-up. And while it doesn’t take away from the tremendous season Notre Dame had, it will be something the players live with for a long time.

“We’re going to be accountable for all the good things that happened to us this year, which was a lot,” Irish head coach Kevin Corrigan said. “And then we’re going to be accountable to each other for the things that didn’t go well, like today, and learn from that and get better from it.”

What went wrong? Let’s start on the offensive end, where Princeton’s zone defense held Notre Dame at bay by switching to a zone defense and making the Irish score from the outside. Corrigan said the zone itself was nothing new, but the Irish just didn’t handle it well.

“Their goalie made some saves,” Corrigan said. “We got some good shots that didn’t go in.”

Notre Dame finished more shots early in the second half and made Princeton return to man defense, but by then, it was too little, too late.

“Yeah, I mean, I don’t know,” Corrigan said. “If I had the answer, we wouldn’t have had problems with it, I guess.”

Where Corrigan was much more incensed was the disparity in ground balls between the Irish and Tigers. Princeton won the ground ball battle 29-11 in the first half, including 18-3 in the first quarter. Beyond its troubles putting the ball in the back of the net, Notre Dame just didn’t have enough opportunities to do so.

That, in Corrigan’s mind, is how the game got away from the Irish.

“We just got crushed on the ground balls,” Corrigan said. “I wish I had an answer for you. I’m watching with probably not as good a view as you had. We just didn’t seem to be able to make plays.

“Early in the game, I thought we were getting out-worked. And then after that I felt like we just weren’t getting — I mean, cheese and crackers, there were more balls that popped out of sticks that ended up in their [possession] — it happens some days, and that’s why you gotta work so hard.

“I give them a lot of credit for it, though. They played really hard and really well off the ground, and their face-off guy did a great job and their wing guys. It was just a tough day for us in that area of the game.”

Defensively, Notre Dame struggled to defend Princeton’s dodges and work around its picks, opening up wide-open shooting lanes. Some fortuitous bounces didn’t help, either, like a shot that rang off the post and into the mesh of Princeton junior attackman Nate Kabiri. And on that final goal of the first half, the one that frustrated Ricciardelli, Tigers senior midfielder Chad Palumbo muscled his way to the front of the net for an open look.

Six of Princeton’s 8 goals in the second quarter were unassisted, which had to hurt a Notre Dame defense that takes pride in protecting Ricciardelli.

“Yeah, it sucked,” Ricciardelli said. “They were shooting the ball really well. And I could have done more to get myself in front of them and stop the ball, but can’t go back.”