Notre Dame Fighting Irish lacrosse (#6/#7, 5-2, 1-0 ACC) visit the Syracuse Orangemen (#9/#10. 4-3, 2-0 ACC) at the Carrier Dome for an ACC matchup, Saturday, March 31, 5:00 pm, ESPNU.  At a minimum, we hope you will all tune in to watch the Irish for a while before the Final Four games start.

The Orange prevailed last year at Arlotta, 10-11, but the Irish thumped Syracuse in the Carrier Dome in 2016, 17-7.  The prior three years were all one-goal classics, including a 3-OT win by the Irish over then-#1 Syracuse in 2015.

The Opponent

Syracuse enters the weekend with momentum from their win in Durham over top-5 Duke. The win got the Orange back on track after a very mixed bag of results that included to horrible losses at home to Albany and Johns Hopkins, an uninspired loss to Rutgers two weeks ago, and squeaking out one-goal wins against Virginia and Army (3OT).  To be fair to Syracuse, their early season schedule was exceedingly difficult, and beating Duke, Virginia and Army is an enviable set of wins.

We like watching Nick Mellen and Austin Fusco on defense, and Brett Kennedy is having a great freshman year. Tyson Bomberry has had some injury issues the season but seems to have recovered.  This group is pretty good defending on-ball, so dodging may not be the best idea. The Irish will need to catch them when their communication is not in sync.

On offense, the Orange have a lot of weapons with different skill sets that are exceedingly difficult to defend.  They don’t necessarily have a go-to guy, but they have at least one weapon for every situation.  Brendan Bomberry, Jamie Tromboli, Stephen Reyfuss and Atlanta’s Nate Solomon are the known threats, but freshman Tucker Dordevic is having a good season as well.

Goalie Dom Madonna is a great player to watch.  Do not let his save percentage fool you, he makes critical saves, and more importantly, he is an excellent outlet threat initiating the fast break.  The Irish ride will be to be fast and disciplined if he has the ball in his crosse.  At faceoff, Syracuse uses multiple players.  Travisano should expect to see a lot of different looks.

What to look for

There are a few key issues we’ll be focused on Saturday evening:

  1. Can Travisano and Schmidt keep their momentum?  There was a huge turnaround at faceoff X and in the crease in Columbus.  Travisano was magnificent and Schmidt was confident.  If they continue on this trajectory, the Irish will be hard to beat.
  2. Wynne and Willets on the crease.  Syracuse defense has played well on-ball, but has shown a bit of vulnerability off-ball.  Will Wynne and Willets exploit this opening and can the other players get them the ball for dunks on the crease?  In 2016, Kavanagh fed Wynne (4g) and Garnsey (5g) at will with 6 assists.
  3. Can D-Midfield push transition?  In the last two meetings, the Irish were able to generate transition pressure against the Orangemen.  While the set offense struggled in the 2017 meeting, Crance, Schantz, Phillips and Sexton were able to generate points.  We expect to see this group make an impact again, perhaps also with impact from Gaiss, Cassidy and Kielty.

Both teams really need this win, and the Irish will need to step off the bus ready to go to be successful.  The winner will have tremendous momentum into the critical month of April.

Odds and Ends

  • Previews from the Syracuse viewpoint.
  • Notre Dame game notes.
  • Syracuse is looking for their 900th program win on Saturday, and their Hall of Fame former coach Roy Simmons, Jr. is expected to be present for the occasion.   Not on our watch, gentlemen!!  Do not be a footnote!
  • Notre Dame -2, o/u 20.5, for those interested in this sort of thing

***UPDATE***  We have received news of a significant injury to a key Irish player.  We don’t know who it is for sure at the moment, but we will update here and on twitter @ND_Atl

 

#GoIrish