#10 Notre Dame Is Pretty Good At This Whole Lacrosse Thing

For about 10 minutes on Tuesday afternoon at Valley Fields, it looked like Marquette men’s lacrosse had a chance to if not beat #10 Notre Dame, then run with them. Notre Dame was a little sloppy with the ball in the early goings, which mitigated their advantage on face offs, and with 5:41 to go, with MU on a man advantage, Devon Cowan scored his second goal of the game to tie the thing up at 2-2.

Not too shabby, one-sixth of the way through the game.

And then ND face off man Will Lynch scooped up a ground ball, flipped it to Pat Kavanagh, and he threw it past Marquette netminder Michael Allieri. 3-2, Irish.

And then Lynch won another draw, this time scooped up by Ben Ramsey, and 31 seconds later, Quinn McCahon scored. 4-2, Irish.

And then Notre Dame won a face off on a violation, and 34 seconds later, Jake Taylor got right onto Allieri’s doorstep and flipped home a feed from Kavanagh. 5-2 Irish.

72 seconds off the clock, three Notre Dame goals, Marquette never even touched the ball.

They were the first three goals of a 6-0 run by Notre Dame that went from 5:40 left in the first to 12:30 left in the second. Chris Kavanagh’s second straight goal to open up the second quarter made it 8-2 Notre Dame, and that was pretty much that the rest of the way. It was 12-5 at the half, one goal worse than that 8-2 margin, and then 14-7 at the end of three as Marquette was unable to close the distance.

Let’s be honest, there wasn’t much of a chance of Marquette winning this game at this point, but whatever chances did remain were evacuated from the premises pretty quickly. Pat Kavanagh, Taylor, and Wheaton Jackoboice all tallied goals before the midway point of the quarter, and there was nothing left that anyone could do about anything.

18-8 is your final, and Marquette drops to 4-7 on the year with just three Big East games left to be played in the regular season.

The big story out of the game, ultimately? Given how this went and what’s left to go this year? Mason Woodward, Marquette’s All-American defenseman, wasn’t in the lineup here. Does Marquette have a better shot of beating the Irish with him on the field? Maybe, maybe not. That #10 is next to Notre Dame’s name for a reason. But given what’s next, and the week after that, and the week after that, potentially without Woodward? That’s worse, or at least potentially worse.

Up Next: #2 Georgetown, that’s what’s up. The Hoyas are 9-1 on the year and riding a five game winning streak where they’ve held their opponents to single digit goals three times. First draw in DC is at 11am Central time.