Rockville Centre's Chris Kavanagh propels Notre Dame past Georgetown in NCAA men's lacrosse quarterfinals

There aren’t many accolades or accomplishments that the Kavanagh family of Rockville Centre haven’t tallied for Notre Dame during the past decade or so. From scoring records to a national championship, they’ve been the impetus for the program’s rise in men’s lacrosse.

But none of them had ever done what youngest brother Chris Kavanagh managed on Saturday.

The junior attack tallied eight points, a school record for an NCAA Tournament game, in a 16-11 win over Georgetown in front of 9,086 at Hofstra’s Shuart Stadium. His five goals and three assists, along with his older brother Pat’s three goals and one assist, sent the defending champs and top seed in this season’s tournament back to the Final Four in Philadelphia next weekend.

So what does having that new mark mean to Chris Kavanagh?

“Not much,” he said.

There is more to do. More of an impact to make on program history.

What clearly did mean a ton to him, though, was where this standout performance occurred. Kavanagh remembered being a 10-year-old in the stands at Hofstra 10 years ago when his oldest brother Matt scored the winning goal in overtime for Notre Dame in an epic 14-13 quarterfinal win over Albany, one of the most thrilling games in the sport’s recent history.

“Going onto the field [Friday for practice], I had some pretty high nerves,” Kavanagh said. “It was pretty crazy, honestly, knowing I was a little kid watching my brother, and now having a chance to play with Pat, it’s everything I could’ve dreamed of.”

Those nerves gave way to jubilation, particularly when Kavanagh scored his prettiest goal of the game, one that pretty much cemented the victory.

With 55 seconds left in the third quarter, he spun inside against defender Ty Banks, dived and shoveled in a backhanded shot for an 11-5 lead. Kavanaugh came up from his acrobatics with a double fist pump after capping a three-goal run in the final 3:57 of the quarter.

But the Kavanaghs weren’t the only Long Islanders who made an impact for Notre Dame. Goalie Liam Entenmann (Point Lookout/Chaminade) made eight saves and notched a rare assist in the fourth quarter when he innocently passed the ball to defender Marco Napolitano on a clear. Napolitano then fired a shot into the cage from behind the midfield line.

“I can’t take any credit for that,” Entenmann said, laughing. “It was a routine pass to Marco and Marco canned it from 70 yards.”

Junior Will Lynch (Rockville Centre/Chaminade) won 21 of his 26 faceoffs and scored for the Fighting Irish. Georgetown’s top faceoff man, James Ball, also from Chaminade, was unavailable to play for most of the game with a leg injury.

Notre Dame (14-1) avenged its only regular-season loss, which came on Feb. 25 against Georgetown (13-4).

“It was so early in the year we didn’t know whether we didn’t play well or if we just weren’t any good,” Notre Dame coach Kevin Corrigan said. “Luckily, we’ve had 10 weeks since then to figure out we can play better.”

Notre Dame’s status as the top contender right now — with its bevy of Long Islanders leading the way — has pretty much been cemented.

“That is a very good team we just played,” Georgetown coach Kevin Warne said. “They’ve been on a tear since our first game . . . I would not be surprised if they are holding the trophy again [next weekend] after watching them live [Saturday].”

By Tom Rock

tom.rock@newsday.com@TomRock_Newsday

Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.