By Matthew De George
Phillylacrosse.com, Posted 5/29/23
PHILADELPHIA – Quinn McCahon was too far away from the goal to see, but not to shoot.
As the Notre Dame middie from Malvern Prep brought the ball upfield in the second quarter of Monday’s NCAA Division I Men’s Lacrosse final at Lincoln Financial Field, he heard the bench sound the 10-man ride alarm. With Duke goalie Will Helm out of the cage, McCahon unloaded a shot and hoped.
“It was a great read from our bench, screaming out ’10 man’ to say that the goal was open,” McCahon said. “I was seeing if the attackman was there for an outlet because he had the goalie, I saw the goal open. Coach always says, ‘aim for the top bar and if it goes over, we’ll chase it out.’ Luckily it went bar down. …
“I thought I missed it. I couldn’t see from that far away. But luckily it went in, and it was a crazy goal.”
Crazy yes, and the first time McCahon could recall scoring a goal like that. But also emblematic of Notre Dame’s opportunism on the offensive end in the national championship game. When things broke down in the attacking half, the Irish were almost at their best, scrambling to create goals off the ground, in traffic and after it looked like Duke had defused the danger.
That scrappiness led to a 13-9 win and a first national title for the Fightin’ Irish, in a national final at the Linc that matched up teams that missed last year’s NCAA tournament.
Notre Dame, the tournament’s third seed, got to the summit of the mountain the way it knew best: By battling. Game MVP Liam Entenmann was massive in goal with 18 saves. The combination of Colin Hagstrom and Will Lynch nullified the edge Duke’s faceoff man Jake Naso had, the Irish winning 14 of 24 draws.
And offensively, they turned to a committee of scorers. With leading scorer Pat Kavanagh dinged up after a first-quarter hit and his brother Chris Kavanagh also stomaching plenty of punishment, the Irish wore Duke down with six two-goal scorers, including McCahon and Chris Kavanagh.
The ability to turn garbage into goals was vital, from Chris Kavanagh’s first quarter goal off a groundball after Duke had killed a man-up to a Jake Taylor goal in the second quarter when he scooped a GB and reacted quicker to the open space from a defensive scramble.
“The group is just feisty,” McCahon said. “On groundballs, on ride-backs, we thrive in those situations and having the Kavanaghs and Jake Taylor able to clean up the mess and everyone fully bought into being opportunist, we honestly had some great goals off that. They’re a great defense, and sometimes our offense wasn’t flowing, but we were able to get those shots and ride-backs which led to goals.”
McCahon’s laser beam from midfield put the Irish up 6-1 with 5:27 left in the first half. They would take that edge into halftime on the heels of keeping Duke off the scoreboard for 31 minutes, 29 seconds.
“That was a huge goal,” Pat Kavanagh said of McCahon. “They’re obviously 10-man riding, and Quinn just made a play like all our guys do in big moments, they just make plays. Proud of Quinn for that.”
McCahon and fellow midfielders Brian Tevlin and Eric Dobson scored twice each. Jack Simmons added a goal and two assists. Taylor and Jeffery Ricciardelli supplied two goals each from the attack line.
The middies stepped to the fore in the fourth quarter. The 6-foot-5 Dobson buried a shot off the dodge to make it 10-7 with 10:50 to play. After Owen Caputo got Duke back within two, Simmons, a grad transfer from Virginia who was part of the 2019 national champions at this stadium, ran past his man to restore the three-goal bump. Forty-five seconds later, he fed Taylor to make it 12-8.
McCahon sealed the victory with 3:24 left, capitalizing on the aggression of Duke pressing out to swim through a double team and plant a shot left one-v-one with Helm.
“They were trying to double and get the ball loose,” McCahon said. “Just trusting and tried to split the double team, luckily got free from it, tucked it in, and it was a huge juice goal for us.”
It’s the first national title for Notre Dame and for head coach Kevin Corrigan. Hired in August 1988, he’s the longest-tenured men’s lacrosse coach in the nation.
Corrigan specifically addressed the long-time connection of Notre Dame lacrosse to Philly.
“Yeah, love that for Quinn and (Garnet Valley grad and freshman) Max Busenkell and the Philly guys on our team, but we’ve had guys for a long time from Philly and from a lot of different
places,” he said. “In fact, Will Gallagher (Radnor grad and freshman defender), his father, Bill, played for us, and his father played football at Notre Dame. Families like that from this area that we love, and obviously for them to be here in Philly doing it in front of their friends and family is awesome. Couldn’t be more excited.”
Players like McCahon, a fifth-year, know what this means to the long-time coach. They also know what it means to be part of the first team to bring a title to South Bend.
“It means so much,” McCahon said. “Coach has put so much effort, blood sweat and tears into this program. To have that support – you see it in the stand today, of the guys that have come before us – and it really is for him, it’s for those guys and obviously for us. It means the world to me, it means the world to the guys but to win one for coach is first.”