Long Island's Pat Kavanagh wins Tewaaraton Award after leading Notre Dame to NCAA men's lacrosse championship
Notre Dame attack Pat Kavanagh (51) gets around Georgetown defender/midfielder Will Godine (10) in the first quarter during the NCAA Division I men's lacrosse quarterfinals on Saturday May 18, 2024. Credit: Bob Sorensen
For nearly five full years, Notre Dame men’s lacrosse coach Kevin Corrigan raved about the unselfish nature of his superstar attackman, how he never put himself ahead of any team goals and how he refused to accept personal accolades.
But days after helping Notre Dame win a second straight national title, Pat Kavanagh happily received the sport’s biggest individual award.
The Notre Dame grad student from Rockville Centre and Chaminade High School won the 2024 Tewaaraton Award, presented annually to the top player in the country, at a ceremony in Washington on Thursday night. Kavanagh scored 31 goals with 49 assists in 17 games this season, including six assists in the championship game win over Maryland on Monday in Philadelphia. Twenty of his 80 points this season came in the four NCAA Tournament games in which Notre Dame played.
Also named the 2024 ACC Offensive Player of the Year, Kavanagh set the all-time career Notre Dame points (301) and assists (184) records during his tenure in South Bend. Kavanagh also holds the top four spots on the program’s record list for assists in a season as well as two of the top three spots for points in a season.
This was the third year Kavanagh was named a finalist for the award, having also been up for it in 2021 and 2023. He is the first Notre Dame player to win it — the school has had a total of seven finalists, including Kavanagh’s older brother Matt in 2015 — and became just the third player in the history of the award to win it along with at least two national titles.
Other finalists for the men’s award included Notre Dame’s goalie Liam Entenmann (Point Lookout/Chaminade); Duke’s Brennan O’Neill (Bay Shore/St. Anthony’s) who won the award last year; Matt Brandau of Yale; and Connor Shellenberger of Virginia.
Izzy Scane of Northwestern won the women’s award for the second straight year. Scane led Division I with 88 goals and added 21 assists for a Wildcats team that lost in the national championship game to Boston College. Madison Taylor, her teammate at Northwestern and a product of Wantagh, was also a finalist for the award. Stony Brook’s Ellie Masera (Eastport-South Manor) was a finalist as well.
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.
