Notre Dame Shows Championship Mettle, Ousts Ohio State

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Notre Dame didn’t enter this year’s NCAA Tournament with a seed next to its name, or a double-digit win total. It wasn’t hosting a first-round matchup, either.

But the Fighting Irish are still the reigning back-to-back national champions.

And they still have Chris Kavanagh.

Kavanagh slid to the second round of the PLL Draft earlier this week, however, Sunday against No. 4 Ohio State, the Tewaaraton finalist looked every bit of the show-stopping talent he’s proved to be during his illustrious four-year Notre Dame career.

“It's just his competitiveness that kind of bleeds through everything, right?” Notre Dame head coach Kevin Corrigan said postgame. “I mean, whether you're talking about riding ground balls, him attacking the defense, him looking for ways to play off ball to make it hard for the defense to play, he's just focused all the time on competing and getting the best for our team that he can.

“That's a contagious mentality, that's for sure.”

Kavanagh, last year’s NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player, fueled a six-goal, second quarter run that swung the momentum in a sold out Ohio State Lacrosse Stadium, turning a 3-1 deficit into a 7-3 lead.

Ohio State, which struggled at the faceoff X all day and finished with just 28 shots, never got closer than two goals of the Irish the rest of the way. With two additional scoring runs, Notre Dame cruised to a 15-6 victory, bringing a magical Ohio State season to a premature end.

The Buckeyes won their first-ever Big Ten regular season and tournament titles, only to be met by an NCAA Tournament-opening draw against a Notre Dame squad with championship pedigree that glistened as much as their gold helmets in the Columbus sun.

When the teams first met this season on March 8, Ohio State found itself trailing 3-1 before erasing that deficit to create a thrilling back-and-forth affair, which the Buckeyes ultimately seized with a Shane O’Leary game-winner in the final seconds.

The rematch started similarly, except this time Notre Dame was the one to dig itself a 3-1 hole. Ohio State head coach Nick Myers admitted that, going into the second quarter, it felt like the Buckeyes had control of the game.

Everything changed in the next 15 minutes of play – less than that, actually.

“We went into half, and I looked at time possession in the second quarter,” Myers recalled postgame. “[Notre Dame] had the ball 11 and a half minutes in the quarter. I think that really took a lot out of our defense in that period. That was a combination of failed clears, faceoffs, stops – a lot of things.”

Myers continued: “Offense got out of a rhythm, defense obviously had to play a bit more, and credit Notre Dame, they made some plays in that moment to ultimately do that. But really from the 10-minute marker on in the second quarter, that's where you felt like the game really kind of shifted.”

Senior Will Lynch had a big say in that, and he was determined to after going a mere 9-for-20 on faceoffs against the Buckeyes in South Bend two months earlier. Lynch, who won 17 of the 23 faceoffs he took Sunday, conceded afterward that he didn’t prepare as he should have for the teams’ first meeting of the season.

“This week, we really went through that film and dissected what went wrong in that matchup and certain technique standpoints – so like my weight and my stance, and [me] really not getting myself spread out,” he told reporters postgame.

“When I kept my weight balanced, it opened up exits. The wing guys did a phenomenal job of riding their poles upfield and opening pockets for me. So, really, all credit to them.”

With Lynch starring at the dot in the second quarter, the scoring gates soon opened for an Irish offense that has often been hot and cold in 2025 but wound up packing its biggest punch since a 19-goal effort versus Michigan on March 15.

Kavanagh piled up four of his team-high five points in the second frame. Ohio State senior defenseman Bobby Van Buren held him in check for chunks of the game, but the Notre Dame senior attackman still manufactured his moments, the first featuring an assist that set up Taft School teammate Jeffery Ricciardelli for a man-up goal.

Then, midway through the frame, Kavanagh spun and cut back topside before rocketing a lead-claiming shot past Buckeyes goalie Caleb Fyock, who recorded 15 saves and 13 goals allowed on the day.

Maybe most impressive, though, Kavanagh caused a trio of turnovers, two of which led to goals. The first arrived in Ohio State’s fateful second quarter. Kavanagh’s ride jarred the ball loose from the stick of Buckeyes junior defenseman Cullen Brown, and Notre Dame graduate middie Devon McLane cashed in with a twister to make it 5-3.

Kavanagh fittingly capped the six-goal blitz, and he did so with a goal late in the shot clock. McLane delivered a perfect feed from behind the cage, made possible by Kavanagh creeping behind the back of Van Buren.

It wasn’t until the final seconds of the half that Ohio State stopped the bleeding. A flamethrower from senior attackman Alex Marinier, one of his game-high four goals, gave the Buckeyes a boost prior to intermission.

He delivered another out of the break, going bottom left with a bouncer from behind the restraining box.

But, from that point forward, it was all Notre Dame. The Irish scored eight of the game’s final nine goals, including five in 12:11 of game time.

Graduate attackman Jake Taylor contorted his wrists with a stunning backhand twister, reminiscent of his remarkable game-tying goal against Virginia in the 2023 NCAA Tournament semifinals. Kavanagh turned over Fyock and goosed a ground ball to senior midfielder Will Angrick, who then scored on an open net. Eventually, junior middie Will Donovan located freshman Chris Reinhardt on the run for his first career goal.

It felt like every Notre Dame player was getting involved on offense, and defensively the Irish quieted Ohio State. Junior goalie Thomas Ricciardelli stopped 15 of the 21 shots he saw, logging an impressive .714 save percentage.

Luckily for Ohio State, an end to a breakthrough season might just be the start of a new era. The Buckeyes are littered with up-and-comers – namely a top-flight goalie in Fyock – and just shocked the country after coming off a 6-9 campaign in 2024.

“There's a new standard now,” said Van Buren, who intends to return for one final season in 2026.

“That 14-3 season that we just had, we're expecting nothing less. We're expecting more, honestly, next season. We accomplished all our goals, except for the national title, and that's what we'll be going for next year: those same goals we accomplished and a national title.”

Notre Dame, meanwhile, is still in play for that kind of hardware this year. To notch the sport’s first three-peat since Princeton in the late ’90s, the Irish will have to keep playing a complete 60 minutes.

“We were a lot closer to doing that today without question,” Corrigan said. “We played with a looseness. And, whether you want to admit it or not, I think there were times during the year where we felt like we were letting ourselves down or letting down our teammates and former teammates and stuff like that – just putting pressure on ourselves that we didn't need.

“Today, we didn't play with that. We played with great unity, and guys really had great spirit, and I think that's the magic ticket because it's all about this group, and all about what they are bringing every day.”