Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1503982
BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM AUGUST 2023 23 March 25, but he saw improvement in a 12-8 loss April 30. Notre Dame stayed in that game into the second half, but it slipped away at the end. Nineteen saves from UVA goalie Matthew Nunes didn't help the Irish cause. Notre Dame breezed through Utah 20-7 in the NCAA first round and mus- cled past Johns Hopkins 12-9 in the quarterfinals. On May 27, there they were again. The No. 2 Cavaliers, com- ing in at 13-3, were the Irish's national semifinal opponent. The day before the game, practice got off to a rough start, with many players more focused on taking in the stadium's atmosphere at Lincoln Financial Field, home of the NFL's Philadelphia Eagles, than preparing for the game. Tevlin — one of the Irish captains this season and a champion with Yale in 2018 — stopped practice and gathered the team together on the field. Tevlin called the team out. "He brought everyone up and just told us to look around, and that this was it," Chris Kavanagh said. "He said, 'We're here. We got all the way here, this is the big stage and you can't let the moment pass you by, by just looking around. You gotta take it.'" 'THE GREATEST GOAL I'VE EVER SEEN' Fifty-nine minutes and eight seconds into the semifinal, Virginia's Connor Shellenberger held the ball behind Notre Dame's net with the score tied at 11. He quickly fed it in front to Thomas Mc- Convey. All-American to All-American. Entenmann had no chance. The Irish found themselves trailing 12-11. Twenty seconds later, Tevlin found senior attackman Jake Taylor in the h i g h s l o t . Ta y l o r had missed the first month of the season rehabbing a torn ACL. "He basically put his social life on hold for seven months," Entenmann said. Taylor spun away from a body check and fired a twister shot past Nunes from 12 yards out, tying the game at a dozen goals apiece. ESPN2 immediately cut to Virginia head coach Lars Tiffany with his hands on the back of his head, surrender-cobra style. The next image was of Corrigan, who also looked like he couldn't believe it. "Jake Taylor scored the craziest goal I'll ever see in a lacrosse game, in that big of a moment," Kavanagh said. "It's probably the greatest goal I've ever seen," Entenmann said. "To have the skills and coordination to hit a shot like that, and the guts to do that in that big of a mo- ment. That's greatness, in my opinion." Twenty-nine seconds into overtime, Tevlin fought his way to the right side of the goalmouth. He snuck a shot past Nunes on the short side, sending Notre Dame to the national title game. Corrigan was shown hugging one of his assistants while the rest of the team sprinted onto the field. "You're kind of focused on what hap- pens if it doesn't go in, as he takes his shot," Corrigan said. "I'm kind of looking behind him to see if we have the field balanced, because there wasn't a lot of room where he stuck that ball in. … Pretty amazing." MORE THAN JUST ONE TEAM Pat Kavanagh, on an injured ham- string, did what he could in the title game against Duke. He didn't score, but Chris Kavanagh did, twice. Entenmann made a season-high 18 saves in goal, earning the tournament's most out- standing player award. After Duke tied it at 7-7 with a min- ute to go in the third quarter, the Irish scored six of the next seven goals. With as little as 30 seconds left, the situation hadn't hit Corrigan yet. "I wasn't very good about enjoying the moment until the game was over," Cor- rigan said. "My assistant coaches were kind of laughing at me, because I was still screaming at somebody and trying to get somebody's attention. They were like, 'We're up five with a minute to go. I think we're OK.'" The final horn marked Notre Dame's first-ever men's lacrosse national championship. It was Corrigan's first in 35 years with the Irish, which his players knew all too well. "It really meant everything to us," En- tenmann said. "Seeing his family, his wife, his daughter and his son in tears when we won." The joy in Philadelphia also marked the first championship for the Kavanagh family — Pat and Chris' older brother, Matt, was a four-time All-American for the Irish from 2013-16. The Kavanaghs' dad loved Notre Dame, and when Matt committed there, Pat and Chris — who were in elemen- tary school at the time — knew, on some level, that they would, too. "Me and Chris made it our dream to play together at Notre Dame," Pat Ka- vanagh said. Matt's team had lost the national championship to Duke, 11-9 in 2014, and were nipped by Denver in the 2015 semifinals in an overtime thriller. Chris and Pat thought about that while they celebrated. "Being a part of the Notre Dame cul- ture for 10 or 11 years now, since my brother was there," Chris Kavanagh said. "We needed it to happen. Not just us, for our family. Hoisting the trophy and taking it over to our fan section was probably one of the coolest moments of my life." ✦ The Fighting Irish, who came close as national runners-up in 2010 and 2014, finally broke through to claim the pro- gram's first-ever NCAA championship with a 13-9 win against Duke on Memorial Day in Philadelphia. PHOTO BY RACHEL PINCUS/NOTRE DAME ATHLETICS "We knew that we had all the pieces to win. We just thought that it was our year the entire year." SENIOR ALL-AMERICAN PAT KAVANAGH