SOUTH BEND, Ind. – The No. 3 Notre Dame Fighting Irish posted an emphatic win over Utah in the first round of the NCAA Championships on Saturday afternoon, winning 20-7 in front of a packed Arlotta Stadium.
The Irish will face the winner of Sunday’s first round matchup between No. 6 Johns Hopkins and Bryant in the NCAA Championship quarterfinals in Annapolis, Maryland. The quarterfinal matchup will be played on Sunday, May 21. Buy tickets here.
The attack was led by senior Jake Taylor who scored a season-high five goals, including a first quarter hat trick. Taylor’s five goals tie the program record for goals in an NCAA Tournament game. Tewaaraton finalist Pat Kavanagh turned in another monster performance, totaling seven points off three goals and four assists. The seven points and four assists both match ND records for points and assists in an NCAA Tournament game. Reilly Gray also added a hat trick with three goals in the win.
Liam Entenmann was masterful in the cage for Notre Dame, making 13 saves while allowing just six goals.
The other area Notre Dame dominated was the faceoff dot, as the Irish won 22-of-31 faceoffs on the afternoon. Will Lynch finished 15-of-19, scooping up 13 ground balls which matched his career high. Colin Hagstrom went 7-for-12 at the dot with three ground balls.
HOW IT HAPPENED
The Irish exploded out of the gates, scoring eight straight goals over the opening 13 minutes of play to take an 8-0 lead into the second quarter. Taylor recorded a first quarter hat trick to spur the attack and Gray added two of his own to open the big lead.
The Utes scored the first three goals of the second stanza to trim the lead to five but Notre Dame finished the half emphatically, scoring four goals in the final four minutes to take a 12-3 lead into the half.
Notre Dame carried its momentum out of the intermission into the third quarter, scoring four goals in just under four minutes to open the period to push the lead to 12 at 16-4, its largest of the game.
The Utes answered by scoring the next three goals to cut it to a 16-5 game but the Irish closed out the game by tallying four of the last five scores to come away with the impressive 20-7 victory.
ND STAT OF THE GAME
Notre Dame’s 13-goal win was the largest margin of victory in an NCAA Tournament game in program history. The 20 goals scored also set a program record for most goals scored in an NCAA tourney matchup.
ND NOTES
- Notre Dame improves to 22-25 in NCAA Championships history, including a record of 17-11 over the last 12 tournament appearances.
- The Irish have now advanced to the quarterfinal round in 11 of their last 12 appearances.
- The Irish are 1-0 against Utah in the all-time series, as Saturday’s matchup was the first ever meeting between the two programs.
- With seven points, Pat Kavanagh moved third place for points in a season in the Notre Dame record book, as he has 72, which moves him past Randy Colley.
- Pat Kavanagh extended his own record for assists in a season, as he now has 49 on the year.
- Pat Kavanagh finished with seven points and has now recorded at least three points in all 13 games this season and has posted five or more points in seven outings.
- Entenmann became just the fourth player in program history to reach the 500-save milestone for his career, as he now has 508 career saves.
- With 13 saves, Liam Entenmann extends his double-digit save streak to 11 games.
- Chris Kavanagh has a career-high 54 points on the season and the Kavanagh brothers each have over 50 points on the season.
- Jake Taylor finished with a five-goal hat trick and now has eight straight multi-goal games.
- With three goals, Reilly Gray posted his third hat trick of the season. Reilly’s three goals came on just three shots.
- With a goal, junior Ross Burgmaster has now scored pole goals in two straight games after not scoring a goal in his career prior to the last two games.
- SSDM Ben Ramsey has scored in four of the last five games and has six goals on the season.
UP NEXT
The Irish will face the winner of Sunday’s first round matchup between No. 6 Johns Hopkins and Bryant in the NCAA Championship quarterfinals in Annapolis, Maryland. The quarterfinal matchup will be played on Sunday, May 21.
— ND —