What has Notre Dame men's lacrosse confident ahead of facing Johns Hopkins in NCAA Tournament quarterfinals

Kevin Corrigan was appropriately incessant in preparing his team in every way in advance of Notre Dame’s NCAA Tournament opener against Jacksonville, but he was fixated on two developments extra closely going into it — a bounce back from his goalie after allowing 15 goals in an ACC Tournament loss to Virginia a week prior and better defensive play in front of him to help trim that tally.

He got both.

Senior Thomas Ricciardelli was outstanding in making 16 saves, and the five goals Notre Dame allowed in an 18-5 victory at Arlotta Stadium on Sunday tied for the fewest the program has ever surrendered in an NCAA Tournament game. Both boxes more than adequately filled. Check and check.

Ricciardelli was tested early with Jacksonville owning time of possession off the opening face off, the Dolphins clearly trying to strike quickly and put pressure on the heavy-favorite home team from the start. He was up to the task, making seven of his saves in the first quarter.

Corrigan said Ricciardelli shutting the door “set the tone for everybody.” Ricciardelli spent the week reminding himself that he’s “good enough to be here.” Did he ever prove that and then some.

“It was just looking at what I was doing in the games where I was successful, trying to feel those same feelings, especially coming out in the first quarter here.”

“He’s a great goalie and great goalies have short memories,” Corrigan added. “He was terrific. He couldn’t have been a lot better. And he’ll have a short memory about that and get back to work this week.”

The Notre Dame offense woke up and gave the Irish a 5-1 lead after 15 minutes, and then the defense did its thing. Ricciardelli didn’t need to make more than five saves in any of the remaining frames for Notre Dame to hold on to a beyond comfortable advantage. That effort was expectedly led by Tewaraaton Award finalist Shawn Lyght, the best defenseman in the country.

It looked like Jacksonville’s attack men wanted nothing to do with getting anywhere near him.

“It’s a huge confidence boost when teams have multiple resets, long possessions, and you give them nothing,” Lyght said. “They’re not getting any great looks. It gives you a confidence boost that we can play our game and we’re going to be good. There’s nothing we haven’t seen yet that we can’t handle.”

Lyght was instrumental in shutting down Jacksonville’s man-up attack, which had a two-minute opportunity in the second quarter to cut into Notre Dame’s lead. The Dolphins were unable to score any goals on it. Though there was still over a half to play, the match was effectively over as soon as the Irish got back to even strength unscathed.

“If there was any one area that I really feel great about that we showed up, it’s that,” Corrigan said.

Johns Hopkins (10-5) is unseeded and a bit of an upstart underdog, just like Jacksonville. It’ll take a near-perfect effort from the Blue Jays to knock off the No. 2 Fighting Irish (11-2). That’s especially true if two things remain the way they were for Notre Dame against Jacksonville.

Ricciardelli being a brick wall and Lyght and his fellow defensemen not giving an inch. Everything else for Notre Dame falls right into place at that point, like not just the 18 goals which equated to the second-most the Irish have ever scored in an NCAA Tournament game but also 14 of those being assisted — which is the most helpers ND has ever had in a postseason match.

“When we’re playing great defense, we’re giving the shots that Thomas wants to see, and then when Thomas makes those clean saves, we’re going to break out and the shorties are going to do their thing in transition,” Lyght said. “We have an offense that is really hard to guard 6 v 6, let alone in transition.”