The Terps were outscored by eight in the final three quarters.
PHILADELPHIA — After an unlikely run to the national championship game, No. 7-seed Maryland men’s lacrosse was dominated by No. 1-seed Notre Dame, 15-5, on Monday.
For all of 2024, Notre Dame looked nearly flawless. Without a clear weakness, the Fighting Irish rolled into the championship game with a 15-1 record.
The Terps, who had rebounded from a terrible end to their regular season, made a run as the tournament’s seventh seed, hoping to get one more win and slay the seemingly unbeatable dragon.
But sometimes things play out just the way they should on paper, and Monday’s game was a prime example. Notre Dame overpowered the Terps on both ends of the field en route to their second straight national championship.
“I wish we would have won,” Maryland head coach John Tillman said, “… but we would have had to play incredibly clean and really, really high-level to win this game. I watched enough film and I know what they’ve done over the course of the year.”
Before any of the lacrosse that more than 30,000 fans came to see began, the game entered a two-hour weather delay for thunderstorms directly after the pregame festivities.
When the Terps retook the field for their second warm-up of the day, their energy looked unaffected by the waiting period. Luke Wierman won the first faceoff of the day after a violation by Notre Dame’s Will Lynch, and Ryan Siracusa instantly took advantage nailing a shot down low.
Daniel Kelly followed him up a couple minutes later, putting the Terps up 2-0. The Fighting Irish won 13 straight games for reason, though, and after Maryland’s brief early run, they demonstrated why.
The ball began to zip through Maryland’s defense, which was coming off maybe its best performance of the year against Virginia. It became apparent that Pat Kavanagh was not going to win his matchup against Ajax Zappitello, so he became a facilitator, particularly looking for his brother Chris.
Chris Kavanagh went on a three-goal run by himself, which included a spectacular spinning back-hand shot. Maryland’s defensive midfielders also looked overmatched by all three of the Fighting Irish’s offensive groups, who were blowing by them on sweep dodges.
“I think a lot of our game is just very instinctual,” Pat Kavanagh said, “that stuff you see out there on game day, crazy backhands, behind-the-backs, around the worlds, me, Chris [Kavanagh] and also Jake Taylor, we practice that stuff.”
Offensively, Maryland came to a screeching halt after their hot start, struggling to get shots on goal and failing to beat Tewaaraton finalist goalie Liam Entenmann when they did.
These two factors, combined with Logan McNaney failing to record a first-half save, resulted in seven unanswered goals for Notre Dame over the course of the first two quarters.
An extra-man-opportunity goal from Eric Malever stopped the bleeding before halftime, but Maryland still headed to the locker room down 10-4.
The Terps needed a blistering start to the second half to get back in the game, but it did not come. The offense remained completely stagnant, failing to score until Kelly found the back of the net with 30 seconds remaining in the third quarter. Entenmann was an unmovable force in the cage, and finished the game with a .762 save percentage.
“He doesn’t have any weaknesses,” Kelly said of Entenmann. “Sometimes we thought we had a good look and then he’d close it down by the time you went to shoot.”
Meanwhile, Notre Dame poured it on by adding four goals in third quarter.
By the time the fourth quarter rolled around, the game was all but over. Notre Dame added one more goal to set the final score at 15-5.
Maryland’s five goals was the second-lowest output in any national championship game ever, beaten only by its own three-goal performance against Loyola (Maryland) in 2012.
“If you’re going to lose a game, this is the one you want to lose,” Tillman said, “because you’ve maximized your time with our kids.”
After the conclusion of the game, Chris Kavanagh was named the tournament’s most outstanding player. Kelly, Zappitello and Wierman made the all-tournament team for the Terps.
Three things to know
1. Wierman’s dominance didn’t matter. Wierman did as much as Tillman could ask for, winning 17 of 24 faceoffs, but the Terps were unable to do anything with the extra possessions.
2. The Terps’ defense was forced to rotate. Virginia head coach Lars Tiffany praised Maryland’s defensive unit after their semifinal loss to the Terps, saying the Cavaliers just couldn’t draw slides against them. Meanwhile, Notre Dame’s offense forced rotations the entire first half when they went on their run.
“I thought a huge part of the game was us being able to get leverage on their short sticks and cause them to slide around a little bit,” Notre Dame head coach Kevin Corrigan. “That makes picks harder, that makes everything harder.”
3. Offensive playmakers were absent. When the Terps struggled early in the year, much of the focus was on their lack of a true offensive star. These concerns were pushed aside when their offense thrived in the first three NCAA Tournament games, but the Terps inability to turn to a true star when they needed a goal became apparent against Notre Dame.