Kevin Corrigan National Championship Notebook
Notre Dame lacrosse head coach Kevin Corrigan spoke following Monday's National Title game.
On getting Maryland’s defense to slide the entire game after Virginia struggled to do the same:
"It's something we were curious about. After watching that game Saturday, we felt like we could dodge their short sticks and make them slide. But we kind of left that game going, hmm. They played really, really well on Saturday and defended really well individually.
So 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. That makes picks harder. That makes everything a little bit harder and gets our shooters a little space. So that was the big part of the game, I thought.”
On the lack of panic after going down 2-0 early in the first quarter:
”I would say some part of that is sort of like a duck. You look calm on the top, but underneath you're paddling like hell.
But we weren't worried at 2-0. First of all, you come off that rain delay and you're not sure what's going to happen. You're just hoping your guys are there. I felt emotionally our guys stayed pretty into it the whole time.
But, no, it's been a long season. I don't think anybody plays a harder schedule than us. I don't care what the strength of schedule stuff says and everything else. We open up the season with two games against local teams and then we play top 10 teams every single week from that point on.
So we're not prone to panic in the first quarter because we know it's going to be a 60-minute game and given what the kind of body of work of the season, we're confident that we're going to have a chance to make some plays and do that.
It's always nice when that first goal goes in, though. You see everybody kind of relax and take a deep breath after that first goal goes in and at 2-0 that was definitely true.”
On midfield depth:
”Starting the year, two guys on our third were on our second midfield the first time we played Maryland.
Bryce Walker and Jalen Seymour were on our second midfield the first time we played them. I think the development of the guys of the other three midfielders that gave us a second and third midfielder of the quality and the depth we had was a big part of our development as a team.
And so you're always trying to figure out as you go through the year, when you feel like you have that depth -- early in the year it's cold out. You know, if you play three midfields, you've got guys standing on the sideline too long and they can't get into the game.
So trying to figure out how and when to use that depth was a thing for us. But certainly the last six games of the year, that was a big factor for us. And from that moment, two things about that: One is you see the difference it makes on the field and the course of the game on the other team, but the difference it makes in your locker room, too, there's that many more guys for everybody to cheer for.
I don't know if you saw our guys go crazy when Fisher Finley scored today. There's nothing greater than that than seeing guys celebrating each other and cheering for each other like that and that dynamic is huge, it was all year for our team. So that was another kind of bonus of that depth.”
On Will Donovan’s big game and the Irish defense:
”I'm glad you recognized that. There's a lot of the guys that get attention as defensive midfielders are offensive players who play some defense. But what they really do is they're transition plays. Not that that doesn't make them great players and very valuable, but that's what they do. They don't play that well defensively, but they're great in transition or whatever.
The thing about Will Donovan is he's a great ground ball guy. He's great getting the ball out and helping us get some transition and that stuff, but he's a great defender. He's a great one-on-one defender and team defender. He's terrific in our team defense.
So we feel that gives us a real leg up because we have four long poles out there that are really good when he's on the field. So that's a huge part of our game.
And then we told our short stick D middies yesterday, we said, look, this game could come down to the short stick D middies on both sides of the ball. That's what I think both teams were going to look to generate off of.
I thought our guys, for the most part, did a really good job. When they didn't cover well, they played really, really well team in the team scheme and that allowed us to kind of get away with not covering well and we could slide and recover and they knew right what they were doing and played really smart.
So Will's a huge part of that but so are our short stick D middies. To have the depth to play five of those guys really helps over the course of not just today but two games in three days.”
On Maryland’s Luke Wierman dominating faceoffs:
”Two things: We said Wierman can only really hurt us if we give up transition goals. We almost did, and not kind of overjoyed with some of our wing play in terms of cutting him off in some things. But Will (Lynch) battled back and got back into the game; and then, one, when we made our run, I think he was getting us some possessions there, and he's terrific. I think him and our wing guys really kind of on a day like this, where their guy's very good and having a good day, they kind of keep us from really suffering in that area of the game.”
On building a dynasty and messaging to the team following the game:
”I'll remind you that I'm 2-34. So it's a lot more about those guys in that locker room than it is about me because they're the guys who have done this in the last two years.
Again, I'll go back to not just the outstanding play of these guys because clearly you see how good they are, but their leadership has been phenomenal. One of the COVID effects that all of us have had the last few years is really large rosters. And when you've got 60 guys on a roster and a game like this, the NCAA only allows you to play 32.
You've got just as many guys who go into that game knowing they're not going to play a second as you have guys who are going to play.
And that dynamic, it's not something the coach creates. It's something they create. It's something that they are accountable for and to.
When you have great kids and great leaders, you just kind of take your hands off the wheel on a lot of things; let those guys handle it. They know how to handle it. When they don't, they'll come ask. So we're really, really fortunate to have those kinds of guys, and I think that's why we've made this run that we've made the last two and a half years.”
On the performance of Max Busenkell and his future with the program:
”Max is great. He just has such a calm demeanor. I kind of got on him about something the other day and got in his face a little bit. He just kind of looks at you with this bemused look like, "I got this. It's okay, I know. I got this."
And it kind of tickles me because he just is unflappable. And he plays that way. He doesn't make a lot of mistakes. He doesn't get caught up in things.
And when he does make a mistake, he fixes it. He's also got the highest GPA on our team. He's an unbelievable student. He's a great kid. He's a guy who is ascending into the leadership of our team just because of who he is and the way he handles himself. And so I see great things ahead for Max as a player and as a leader on our team.”
On offensive execution and stopping Maryland from getting transition goals:
”Offensively, I'm a huge believer that really good offense -- and Chris Wojcik, our assistant coach, does a great job teaching and coaching our offense. But really good offense is a chicken-and-egg thing. It has to kind of build and when guys deliver the ball, when guys play with their head up and with great awareness, guys start to work harder off the ball to get open.
When guys work harder off the ball to get open, it creates more space for dodgers and more opportunities for feeders. And when feeders and dodgers are being effective, there's more lanes for people to cut and more movement of the defense for people to play in the margins and in the gaps and things that makes for great offense. So I think that's what's happened there.
Again, Pat Kavanagh, when you have a guy like that on the field every day, it just starts to roll and you see guys start to do things that maybe you didn't think were part of their game because they get rewarded.
It's a little bit like teams that love to run and push that ball up the field. You're like how come they can do that we can't do that we can't get those outlets. Their goalie is willing to take some risks and throw balls up there.
So those guys run like crazy to get up there and get the ball. They know they're going to get rewarded with the ball. I think that's what offense is like that as well. So I think that's a big part of that.
Again, our wing play, we were committed to shutting him down. If you noticed, we had our guy all the way in the hole. He was not going to -- we were not going to come up with -- we feel like could we get up there tighter to midfield and contest the ground balls a little bit more if we did that, yes, but then we become vulnerable to him popping one forward and scoring. We did not want to allow that to happen. We were like, hey, if he wins 60 percent and they don't score a goal in transition, that's a game we can win.
If he wins 60 percent and scores two goals like he did Saturday, then that becomes a much harder game to win. So we just wanted to limit the kind of damage he could do and I think our wing play gets a lot of credit, as does Will because he ties him up if he's not winning, he's not letting him pop it out.”
On the Kavanagh family:
“Well, I would include in that Matt, who, the last two times we went back-to-back final fours was when Matt was playing for us.
I think that whole family, the competitive drive that they have is really unique. And it's not just on game days. It's competitive drive to get better. So they're working on their skills. They're working on all the things that you need to do to be a great player.
It's the competitive drive that knows that in a game like this you're not going to be able to do it by yourself so you better bring everybody along with you and they do that on an everyday basis.
It would be hard to overstate the impact that the Kavanagh family has had on our program, in all honesty, and Pat and Chris, the past couple of years: We're sitting here, right?”
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'47 Notre Dame Fighting Irish 2024 NCAA Men's Lacrosse National Champions Hitch Adjustable Hat
