2023 NCAA MEN'S LACROSSE CHAMPIONSHIP

May 29, 2023

Kevin Corrigan

Liam Entenemann

Pat Kavanagh

Lincoln Financial Field

Notre Dame Fighting Irish

Media Conference

Notre Dame 13, Duke 9

KEVIN CORRIGAN: Just after I don't know how many years of playing and coaching college lacrosse, 40 years, lost in a championship game when I was playing at Virginia, lost in overtime, losing in overtime as a player, losing as a coach in the championship game, you get so close.

I don't know how I'm supposed to feel right now, and I don't feel this crazy euphoria as much as just this contentment of being able to watch those guys celebrate on that field in this last game.

So we have a tradition at the end of our last games where we all stay in the locker room and our seniors talk, and they talk about the experience that they had playing for us and how much it meant to them, and they tell stories and they just share kind of great team moments where we talk together.

I've always wanted to have one where we just were -- all the stories were good; they didn't end in a loss and tears. The tears are all going to be from joy. Yeah, really, really so incredibly proud of those guys and so happy for all of our guys.

And not just these guys from this team, who obviously we are ones, but everybody that's played for the for the last 35 years that I know feels a part of this because we've all been hearing from them for the last month.

They felt like this was a special team that could do this, and I think that helped fuel us, as well. So pretty cool.

Q. What did you think was kind of the key defensively for you guys up front there, particularly in the first half, and then kind of regrouping after Duke made its run in the third quarter?

LIAM ENTENMANN: I think in the first half, I think we just saw -- I saw a lot of shots from the perimeter which are generally speaking shots I like to see, and obviously they have some great shooters like O'Neill and Leadmon and some other ones, but generally speaking the more time I have to react, the better, and that's what I think defense did a great job of in the first half.

And then obviously the beginning of the second half they had a really big run and we really got tested.

At the same time, I think what Coach said in the locker room at halftime was it's a game of runs, and they're a really good team, so they're going to go on a run at some point.

We almost like were braced for it. We knew it was going to happen at some point, and it just happened to happen right when we came out of the tunnel at the second half.

But we were ready for it and we knew we have to regroup as a unit and move forward and I thought we did a good job of that. I don't remember the exact numbers, but I think that they scored, what, nine goals, and I think six of them were in the third quarter.

Really proud of the guys that I'm lucky enough to have in front of me.

Q. First half you played very, very well; only gave up one goal. Second half they open the floodgates on you guys, tied you guys, and then in that fourth quarter you got back into a zone and shut everything down. Can you walk us through what that was like and how does it feel to be the MVP of the game?

LIAM ENTENMANN: For the first question, I just tried to react to the shots. Obviously it's kind of a no answer for an answer, but I just really try to see the ball into my stick and nothing more, nothing less.

One thing I like to say about the goalie is it's a hard position but it's pretty simple at the end of the day, and I think I did a good job of that today.

As far as the MVP stuff goes. It's obviously an honor. It's a nice recognition.

But one thing that we've been preaching all year is it's not about the guys that you always see on the field. It's about the guys in the locker room that don't really get a lot of credit or attention from the media and stuff like that, but those are the guys that tested me every day of every week of every preparation for every team, and I really -- I know it sounds cliche, but I really wouldn't be up here, we wouldn't be champions without the guys that are the unsung heroes of the team and do all the work behind the scenes.

Q. Pat, Quinn had that goal from his own half. Seemed like that was one of those opportunistic goals that you guys kind of like to score. How big of a boost was that goal for you, and then for you guys as a team? And then how do you kind of describe the opportunism that you seem to have on offense off the ground and loose balls and being able to turn that into goals?

PAT KAVANAGH: Yeah, that was a huge goal. They're in obviously 10 man riding, and Quinn just made a play like all our guys do in big moments, they just make plays.

Proud of Quinn for that. He stepped up in a big way today. Yeah, I don't know. Just saw the goal, open shot, and scored.

Q. Pat, you got to take quite the family photo after the game out there. How special is it for you to be playing on the field with Chris and also get to share it with Matt and Brendan and the rest of your family?

PAT KAVANAGH: Yeah, it started with Matt getting recruited by Coach Corrigan in like 2010 or 2011, making the trip to Long Island and Chaminade and our house a few times to watch him play.

It's been over a decade in the making. Me and Chris were this big when Matt was a freshman at Notre Dame. Making the trip out to South Bend every single weekend to watch him play, just so many memories. The best memories of my childhood were watching Matt play at Notre Dame.

Winning it and then seeing my family is just so surreal. I don't think it's hit yet. I owe everything to them and for Coach Corrigan, as well, for taking a chance on me.

Q. Liam, just the meaning of being able to be the ones to put that first banner up at Notre Dame for you guys.

LIAM ENTENMANN: It's an incredible feeling. I've been a Notre Dame fan my entire life. I'm not just saying that because I'm on Notre Dame now. I've truly been a Notre Dame fan my entire life. I remember seeing Coach before I committed here at some club tournaments and stuff and I was star struck because that's the guy I always wanted to play for.

And with being a Notre Dame fan came a lot of heartbreak in 2010, 2014, 2015. To be able to do it, to be the team to do it is incredible. It's an honor.

Just looking up into the stands today and seeing Matt Kavanagh, seeing so many guys that helped build this program up to what it is and just shy of winning it all, and just to see them with tears in their eyes and huge smiles on their faces was -- it's truly one of the best moments of my life to be honest with you.

Q. How much were you aware of your coach's history? Did he talk much about that? What did he say in terms of being so close so often?

PAT KAVANAGH: Yeah, he hasn't talked much about it. Like Liam said, he grew up a Notre Dame fan. My brother played here, so me and Liam are both very familiar with the history of Notre Dame and lacrosse and how close they've been to a National Championship.

We just dedicated so much time and effort to ultimately winning this National Championship, and we really wanted to get it done for the alumni, like Liam said, and especially for Coach Corrigan. For it to actually come to fruition, it's special. It's surreal.

Q. This is the first National Championship win for Notre Dame. What does it mean to you individually and as a team to take this one home?

PAT KAVANAGH: Yeah, like I said, it's surreal. I don't think it's hit yet. Been dreaming about a moment like this my whole life. For me personally to get it done with my little brother who's been my best friend since I was born, every step of the way we've been through everything together, so it's special to do that with him.

And then all 57 guys who made a commitment to being their best and being held accountable by the leaders on this team all year, everyone bought in top to bottom, and it was just such a special group. The most tight knit locker room I've ever been a part of.

Our culture is pretty special, but this year was just different from when we stepped on campus in August.

Yeah, to get it done with this group is just really special.

Q. Pat, six different multigoal scorers today. Seems like a pretty appropriate way for you to be able to finish up the season. How would you size that up, that you guys got contributions from so many different places today?

PAT KAVANAGH: Yeah, to win a National Championship, to be successful in that, you need secondary guys to step up, and that's exactly what happened.

We have so much depth and so much confidence in everyone on our team. Guys just making plays, guys just stepping up in big moments when we needed them. Yeah, was so happy for everyone for stepping up, and it was huge.

Q. What have you thought overall of the weekend and location and venue, and what was it like specifically with Quinn McCahon having a weekend like this in front of his hometown?

KEVIN CORRIGAN: Yeah, I mean, first of all, the whole thing has been first class. We've had a great time since we got here. Really our guys kind of took it as that.

We got some good advice along the way from different people, and some of the best that we got, John Gordon spoke to our team. He happened to be in South Bend before we were leaving and came over and spoke to our team, and he said, hey, when you're feeling nervous and you're feeling fear and trepidation and all that, just remember the thing that drives that out best is love.

Just love what you're doing. Love the fact that you're here. Love that you got these guys that you love and that are with you. If you concentrate on that, the fear and the uncertainty goes away.

That kind of was a wonderful message for us to have, just coming into the whole weekend, and to really enjoy being here in Philly, two great days of crowds. Obviously fantastic lacrosse from beginning to end, and for our guys, just an unbelievable experience. Wonderful time.

Q. (On McCahon).

KEVIN CORRIGAN: Yeah, love that for Quinn and Max Busenkell and the Philly guys on our team, but we've had guys for a long time from Philly and from a lot of different places.

In fact Will Gallagher, his father, Bill, played for us, and his father played football at Notre Dame. Families like that from this area that we love, and obviously for them to be here in Philly doing it in front of their friends and family is awesome. Couldn't be more excited.

Q. Considering the history you were talking about, all these close calls, you see a 6-1 disappear, now you're tied late in the third. What's going through your head?

KEVIN CORRIGAN: I told the guys, look, they're going to come back. We're not going to hold them to one. They're going to make some plays and we're going to have to weather that emotionally and everything else.

I didn't think they were going to score six that way and get back in the game that way, that quickly. But lacrosse is a momentum game. It always has been. You see swings like that. I didn't want our guys to be freaked out by that.

That's a proud program that I knew had a lot of lacrosse left in them, so it wasn't a shock.

At the same time, we felt like we kind of contributed a little bit by not making some simple plays and almost trying to make better plays than we needed to make, so we said, hey, let's just go back to making this simple play. You don't have to make the next-level play.

If everybody makes a good, simple play, that is next level, and that's what we tried to concentrate on.

Q. (Indiscernible).

KEVIN CORRIGAN: Huge, huge, right? You're just taking blow after blow all through the quarter, and then to come back and get two and stretch it back out a little bit at the end of the quarter was absolutely huge. No question about that.

Q. The very first conversations about the NCAA Tournament were in June 1970 at Washington and Lee as part of the north-south game as a breakout. You father was part of that. May I ask -- you were a kid at that game, I seem to recall.

KEVIN CORRIGAN: I was. I was a manager. My brother, David, and I were the managers for the North and the South, right, and Peter Kohn was our boss.

Listen, I obviously -- when I was born, my dad was the lacrosse coach at UVA and there were days I got dropped off on the school bus at his practice, right? So I've been around this for a long time and have loved it all these years.

Yeah, it's pretty cool. It's pretty special. I wish my dad was here to share it with us.

But he lived and died with our games. My brothers -- I'm one of seven kids, and my brothers and sisters always say, on game days you're the favorite; there's no doubt about that. Just because that's the way it is.

But no, it's great to have seen the whole thing kind of flourish, to see where lacrosse was in the '60s when I was backing up the cage at UVA, right? And I think me and my friends and brothers were the only kids in town with lacrosse sticks. There was no lacrosse in any of the schools there at that time.

Yeah, so it's kinds of fun to see the whole thing, what's happened to our game and continuing to happen.

Q. You got some special performances, not just today, but this weekend from Brian Tevlin, from Chris Fake. When you think about those guys that joined the team this year and the contributions that they've made, what really stands out most about them?

KEVIN CORRIGAN: First of all, they're great people, and secondly, I don't think it happens without our locker room being in the right place and being the accepting place that it was.

For those guys to come in and there's no discontent, there's no bitterness, our guys -- and if you ask them they'll tell you the exact thing. They were accepted from day one but our guys, and I think that says an awful lot about the kids on our team.

Hey, if you can help us and you're going to come in and buy into what we do and what we care about and all that, then welcome, and glad to have you.

I think that's a phenomenal thing when there could be a lot of other reactions, and then the fact that they're such great kids, that they both came in very humbly, didn't come in waving their All-American banners or any of that.

They came in saying, how can I help? What can I do to make this team better? So it was a wonderful kind of meshing of the cultures of what they brought from Yale and from their previous experiences and what we had going on.

Q. It seems like Duke was getting physical with you guys defensively in that first half. It seems like didn't intimidate your game plan as well. Two, can you tell me what it was like, they left a lot of their middle wide open for you guys to get a lot of your offensive points. Is it something you saw on tape or something like that that you can walk us through.

KEVIN CORRIGAN: We felt like middle of the field, that was one thing that we had seen that we felt like we could do that. In terms of their physicality, listen, nobody is going to give you away the National Championship trophy, so we knew it was going to be a tough, physical game.

That doesn't surprise me. In any way. I don't think it was anything over the top. I just think it was good, hard, physical lacrosse.

Q. In particular Tevlin and Simmons and Dobson, that midfield grouping got you two goals in the fourth quarter on Saturday and then again in overtime. Today you seemed to go to them and they delivered almost every single time. Take me through what you saw in that mix.

KEVIN CORRIGAN: Honestly, at some point you get down to short minutes in your team's life and you say, who are the best guys that we can put on the field right now?

Forget about the midfield lines. We try to balance them and we try to make sure that we have a little of this and a little of that so that you can over the course of the game and the season you can do that, but when you get down to those short minutes and the end of the year and the end of the game, you've got to put the guys out there who are playing the best and are making plays, and that was that group. They were terrific doing it.

Q. When Duke opened the game 25 seconds in, you guys responded with six unanswered. What was the message you told the guys after Duke scored 1-0 early on?

KEVIN CORRIGAN: We didn't say anything. It's lacrosse. We didn't think it was going to be a shutout. Didn't think we'd give one up in 25 seconds, but we didn't think we were going to pitch a shutout, so just didn't really react very much other than to say a lot of plays are going to be made out here today.

Q. Notre Dame's last three title games have all been played against Duke. 2010, 2014 obviously didn't go y'all's way and today did. Is there something that feels kind of poetic about getting the first National Championship against a team that beat you twice before?

KEVIN CORRIGAN: I don't know. Honestly, not something I've thought much about. But glad -- I wasn't disappointed that Duke was the last one standing with us. We were -- that was a matchup we felt familiar with, and in a lot of ways, you're preparing in less than 48 hours -- we had 43 hours from the time we finished here until the start of this game today, so we were like, hey, good, somebody we don't have to -- we watched a few games just to make sure what changes had they made, but they hadn't done a lot.

We hadn't either, for that matter. We kind of were who we were, and we've played each other six times now in the last three years. So it's kind of nice to have that familiarity.

As for the poetry of the whole thing, I'll leave that to you.

Q. Coach, after the way the season ended last year, there was a feeling that this season was going to be a bit of a revenge tour. Was there any spark in being excluded last year when the season ended like it did? And if there was, what did it mean to you guys to come out this year and really play with that fire, that feeling that last year we should have been in there and this year we're going to prove why?

KEVIN CORRIGAN: Did last year motivate us and really kind of galvanize this team? Absolutely. Revenge is not the right word, though. It was not about revenge. From the moment we didn't get into the tournament last year we said, hey, two things. One, we think this is unfair, but life is not fair. And two, the only reason this happened is we left ourselves vulnerable to this happening, and that's on us.

We're not going to bitch and moan. We're not going to call people names. We're not going to blame other people and everything else. We're going to say from this moment forward, let's do what we can do to make sure this doesn't happen to us again next year.

I don't think that's revenge. I think that's kind of accountability and owning up to what you had control of, and that's what our guys did. That's why I'm so proud of them. I don't think you've ever heard one of our guys complain in any public way about last year, and I think that's awesome, for young men, as disappointed as they were, to not whine and complain about it. I think that's awesome.

And then for them also to say, here's what we do about it. We don't just cry about it, we get on with it and take care of -- I think that says an awful lot about the character of the kids in our program.

Q. How do you celebrate?

KEVIN CORRIGAN: How do I celebrate? I got a big ol' family here that are all over the place, and I've got 58 guys that are leaving on Wednesday for Germany for 10 days. We're taking our team on our seventh foreign tour. Tomorrow night we're going to do a clinic out in the suburbs here that we set up as a way to thank the Philadelphia lacrosse community for supporting the Final Four, for youth and middle school kids tomorrow. Then we leave on Wednesday for Germany.

We've got plenty of time to celebrate this, and I can't wait.

Q. You don't go back --

KEVIN CORRIGAN: We don't go back to South Bend. We're still in our hotel for the next two days and then flying to Germany. Pretty great way to go out. Would have been a whole different experience had we lost today, but now I'm glad it all worked out well.