The Notre Dame men’s lacrosse team defeated No. 1 Duke 13-9 at the Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia to win their first NCAA national championship in the history of the program.
The Irish withstood the Blue Devils’ ferocious second-half scoring assault after leading 6-1 at the break.
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Quinn McMahon, Jake Taylor, Eric Dobson, Chris Kavanagh, Jeffery Ricciardelli, and Brian Tevlin all scored twice for an Irish balanced attack.
In a thrilling last-second comeback on Saturday, the Irish defeated Virginia for the first time in three tries in 2023 and qualified for the title game on Monday.
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The Irish played in the national championship game for the third time in the history of the program on Monday, interestingly enough, each time losing to Duke.
After a 6-1 run by the Blue Devils to tie the score at seven, Duke came out swinging in the second half. After taking that blow, Notre Dame retaliated by scoring four goals in a row to retake the lead.
Then, Notre Dame managed to hold on for a 13-8 triumph to win the first national championship in the history of the program.
Fans on Twitter reacted to the historic victory, joining in for the celebration. One Twitter user wrote, “CHEER CHEER FOR OLD NOTRE DAME, WAKE UP THE ECHOS CHEERING HER NAME”
Another fan could not believe their eyes
A Twitter user wrote, summing it up the best, “Notre Dame was the most complete team in the country all year. Offense, defense, they put together faceoffs on Championship Weekend. The only questions were could they get over the QF hump after a long drought. Once that, could they beat UVA? Once that…they were the best team.
They had all the hallmarks of past great Notre Dame teams; the tremendous goalie, the rock solid, cohesive defense; athletic, deep midfield group; dynamic Kavanaghs. Corrigan pushing the right buttons. Past teams often had 3 or 4 of these but not all. This one had all of them.
Throw in, as we often talk about, the pain of falling short of your goal and being a product of the times where you didn’t quite get over the hump, and they used all of that to not be denied this time. A tremendous season and finally a national championship.”
