How to watch Notre Dame men's lacrosse in national championship game vs. Princeton

Memorial Day Monday. Championship Monday. They’ve become synonymous for Notre Dame men’s lacrosse.

The No. 2 Fighting Irish (13-2) go for their third national championship in the last four years this afternoon. They face No. 1 overall seed Princeton (16-2) at 1 p.m. ET at Scott Stadium in Charlottesville, Va., the same venue where both teams won their semifinal matchups on Saturday.

Today’s national title game will be televised on ESPN.

Notre Dame vs. Princeton: NCAA men’s lacrosse national championship game information, via FightingIrish.com

GAME DETAILS
Location: Charlottesville, Virginia | Scott Stadium
Schedule: May 25 — 1 p.m. ET
Tickets: Click Here
TV: ESPN
Live Stats: StatBroadcast
For a more in-depth look at the matchup – Game Notes

There were certainly teams capable of having their best day and taking down Notre Dame or Princeton to get the championship match, but it does feel fitting the squads that earned the top two seeds in the 16-team NCAA Tournament are the ones playing for it all. They’ve each only lost a pair of games, Princeton last losing to Cornell on March 21 and Notre Dame having only lost an ACC Tournament game that didn’t mean much for tournament seeding purposes since the start of April.

To get here, Notre Dame beat Jacksonville, Johns Hopkins and Syracuse in the tournament so far. The Irish’s average margin of victory has been 9 goals. Princeton, meanwhile, took care of Marist, Penn State and Duke by an average spread of 6.7 goals per win in its three tournament wins.

The Irish won their first national championship in program history in 2023, starting a postseason run that’s been nothing short of remarkable. Since the beginning of the ’23 tournament, Notre Dame is 12-1 in tourney games with nine of the wins coming by five or more goals.

Princeton is looking for its seventh NCAA Tournament title but first since 2001. The Tigers made it to the Final Four in 2002, 2004 and 2022 without being able to hoist the trophy. This year, though, they’ve been as formidable as any team in the nation, owning the No. 3 scoring offense and No. 15 scoring offense in the country. That makes good for the No. 5 scoring margin. Notre Dame’s scoring margin ranks No. 6.

Princeton has six players with 20 or more goals Notre Dame needs to watch out for. The Tigers are led by Nate Kabiri (38 goals, 45 assists) and Chad Palumbo (44 goals, 30 assists) on offense. Goalie Ryan Croddick is up there with Notre Dame’s Thomas Ricciardelli as one of the best netminders in the nation. Croddick ranks No. 5 nationally in save percentage while Ricciardelli ranks No. 4.

As for the Irish’s offense, they don’t have any 70-plus point guys like Princeton. Josh Yago leads the team with 54 on 32 goals and 22 assists. And yet, Notre Dame still has the No. 10 scoring offense in the country. It’s an attack that’s certainly capable of keeping up with that of Princeton, which should make for an excellent championship game.

Notre Dame head coach Kevin Corrigan doesn’t care if it’s Yago or anyone else who’s doing the damage, so long as the Irish end up with at least one more goal on the scoreboard at the end of the day.

“At this point in the year, I’m not sure who’s going to show up, what area of the game is going to show up for us,” Corrigan said. “But 15 games in now, or 14 games in, we know somebody is going to show up. Our guys keep showing up, and it’s different guys, different games, different units.”