With a sublime defensive performance and while overcoming injuries, Notre Dame prevailed over Duke, 7-6, in the ACC Championship semifinal.  The Irish face North Carolina in the finals, Sunday, 12:00, ESPNU.

The Irish held the Blue Devils scoreless for the first 35 minutes of the game.  So good was the defense that Duke didn’t even sniff a goal during this period.  Of the Duke scores, 2  were in the man-down set, and 1 was a lucky ricochet of a Duke player’s booty.  Gerry Byrne’s defense was supremely dialed in for this Duke team.

Freshman Bryan Costabile led Irish scorers with 3 goals.  Mikey Wynne had 2, and Drew Schantz and Ryder Costabile added 1 each.  Brendan Collins and Garnsey added 2 assists each.  Special recognition must go to Garnsey and Perkovic for playing tough through injuries.  Ryder played with an ankle fully immobilized with tape, and Sergio played the game basically one-handed.

It was exciting to watch the Irish win a primetime game, but we do have to note some issues.  First, the Irish played very sloppily on offense and in clearing the ball.  18 turnovers  on a day when defensive play was exquisite and the faceoff unit had an advantage.  Not good.  More importantly, it is clear that the injuries to Garnsey and Perkovic are significant.  With a game on Sunday and another against Army next week, there will be no time to heal properly before the NCAAs.

Our Duke pregame questions:

  1. Garnsey:  He was significantly hobbled with injury and looked like he had 20 rolls of tape on that ankle.  They did not elaborate on the nature of the injury.  Still, an injured Garnsey is still pretty good, and his goals and 2 assists came at critical times.
  2. Shooting:  Shooting choices were largely good, even if the ball handling was otherwise suspect.  The Duke defense had an exceptional game, too, but the Irish stayed patient and didn’t take many unwise shots.  Very nice.
  3. Defensive balance:  A+++++.  Holy cow did they come prepared to play.  Special thanks to the ESPN crew for intentionally staying silent so the viewers could hear the ND defense communicate.  For the unfamiliar, listening to the Irish defense is pure lacrosse coach porn.  There is so much going on with such elaborate precision that one can’t help but be mesmerized by it. OK, we’ll snap out of it and move on. 🙂

Up next:  The ACC Finals!

The Irish will take on last week’s foe, the North Carolina Tar Heels, for the ACC title.  We will condense our preview and comments to a few short lines:

  1. Stay healthy and keep your eyes on the prize:  An ACC title would be awesome, but we here at Team ND-Atl are 100% focused on the big kahuna:  the Memorial Day weekend #BigBBQ, the national championship.  We trust the coaching and medical staff to make wise decision regarding the play of Garnsey and Perkovic so that they are not out for the season.
  2. Use the whole roster:  There are a lot of guys on the sidelines, many of whom contributed well yesterday.  We hope they get a chance to play in the big game and take pressure off their injured teammates.
  3. Play a clean game:  Avoiding penalties and errant passes increase Notre Dame’s chances for victory exponentially.  Friday was a bit of a mess in this regard.  We are confident Coach Corrigan will demand improvement.

One never knows what to expect from UNC.  They are hungry and their season will end with a loss. The Irish will have their hands full.  We expect a much higher scoring affair than against Duke.

Tidbits:

-Kudos to the ND lacrosse managers for the dark shirt/white shorts combo.  Very stylish.  Notre Dame has been very fancy free with the uniform choices this year, we like it!

-We got some stick from our friends at Duke for our criticism of their Koskinen Stadium field.  We apologized for the slight, and our friends were proper to remind us again:

So again, we apologize for criticizing your field.  You did a good job preparing it.  In fact, if you fool with the color settings on your TV long enough, those gigantic patches of discolored grass are not that noticeable.  Again, we thank you for preparing a good surface, and we trust that the Irish will treat it well on Sunday.  We hope you come to watch.