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Brian Tevlin Sends Notre Dame to the NCAA Championship Game
Sat 27 May 2023 | Patrick Stevens | Campus
Notre Dame Men’s College
Brian Tevlin scored the OT winner to beat Virginia on Saturday.
PHILADELPHIA For a team that has made no secret of its national title aspirations since the fall, a two-goal deficit won’t deter Notre Dame in Saturday’s NCAA tournament semifinals and neither will overtime.
Brian Tevlin scored 29 seconds into extra time, as third seed Against Ireland beat second seed Virginia 13-12 for 32.017 at Lincoln Financial Field, capping the first semifinal in tournament history to feature a pair of overtime plays.
The Fighting Irish (13-2) scored four goals in the last 3:07 of match action to earn their third trip to Memorial Day and their first since 2014.
Not an easy situation, but it’s one you want to be in, Tevlin said. As a player, you dream about it. You don’t dream of counting down 3-2-1 and then hitting one to go up 12. You dream about 3-2-1 and hitting one to send your team to a national championship. I think we have a lot of people in this team who have been dreaming about it and thinking about it all year.
Connor Shellenberger has three goals and three assists for the Cavaliers (13-4), who are seeking to win their third national title in the last five seasons. Virginia’s fifth-year major class were trying to end their career with a championship, and instead their time in Charlottesville ended abruptly against a team it had beaten twice this season.
We didn’t win a national championship, and that’s just the standard we set, said forward Xander Dickson, who set a one-season school record with 61 goals this year. We’re not trying to be presumptuous about it, but it’s what we want. This is Virginia lacrosse. This is the best of the best, blue blood. We wanted a national title, and in essence, well, we didn’t achieve our goal. But it’s definitely not a failure. We had fun all the way through, and it was a crazy ride.
Notre Dame will face a team that failed their previous two title-winning appearances in 2010 and 2014 in Monday’s final. Top seed Duke (16-2) advanced the previous day in a 16-15 loss to fifth seed Penn State thanks to winner Garrett Leadmons even though the quarterback was in the crease on the video replay.
There was no such controversy at the drinks, only hard work from Ireland who came out of a late timeout to overcome a stellar play from Virginia keeper Matthew Nunes (17 saves). Three of Ireland’s last four goals have come after one of their timeouts, and it took Notre Dame a combined 33 seconds to score after the stoppage.
“I didn’t do my job in the end as a defensive coach to give up that quickly, it’s my responsibility,” said Virginia coach Lars Tiffany.
Ireland closed out at 11-10 when Chris Kavanagh took a sharp pass at the crease from Eric Dobson (four goals, one assist) just 14 seconds after time expired. Will Lynch was 13 of 22 players against Virginia fifth year Petey LaSalla won the next game, and Dobson got past three defenders before beating Nunes for the tie with 2:07 left.
Virginia isn’t done yet. For most of the day, it looked as though Shellenberger would carry the Cavaliers the way he did in the final four two years ago. This time, he set up at the back of the cage and found quarterback Thomas McConvey to put Virginia up 12-11 with 52.5 seconds left.
Ten seconds later, Notre Dame called for a timeout after another Lynch victory. Ten seconds after that, Jake Taylor celebrated after firing an open 10-yard shot from a Tevlin pass to tie it again.
When two of the best teams in the country compete at a high level, you can never let yourself go, says Nunes. They keep on the gas, and if it’s 10 seconds or 60 seconds to have the ball, you always feel their pressure.
Lynch appeared once again to start overtime, and then Tevlina’s man with Final Four experience at Yale before choosing to spend his grad season at Notre Dame did as well. He thought he would look to Dobson when he took the ball from the restart, but his fellow quarterback was turned off.
Instead, it helped pave the way for him to squeeze inside Virginia’s Grayson Sallade and secure a clear view yards from the crease for the winner.
We preach avoiding cages, Tevlin said. You don’t make a foul if you dodge and want to pass. You are making a mistake if you dodge it to yourself and then read it. We have a lot of trust in our people, and we have a lot of trust in a lot of different people.
It capped a stunning day that featured the first semifinal pair to produce a one-goal game since 2017, and left this year’s tournament with two teams pissed off by an unexpected postseason exclusion a year ago.
This afternoon, Duke played from the front most of the day, then won by the only hit in overtime. Notre Dame never led by more than one and trailed for most of the fourth quarter, only to produce a flurry of late.
Like the Blue Devils, they took their only overtime opportunity to get one last game.
The second half, to be honest, was still a dream, said Dobson. I thought I’d watch it and find out a lot of things I didn’t know were actually happening.
All he knew was that Notre Dame would play on the last day of the season. It’s no secret, as has been the goal of the Irish all season.
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