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SOUTH BEND — Before Notre Dame lacrosse limited the top three seniors of Syracuse to a combined 2-for-26 shooting in the national semifinals, passable doppelgangers for Joey Spallina, Michael Leo and Luke Rhoa made daily cameos at Irish practice sessions.
They wore pullover pinnies with corresponding numbers scrawled in magic marker. With the precision of a Hollywood stunt double, these down-roster contributors for Notre Dame sought to move, act, pass and shoot just like their better-known counterparts from that week’s opponent.
A similar dynamic held forth ahead of earlier wins over Johns Hopkins, Duke, Maryland, Ohio State, Michigan and a pair of teams ranked No. 1 at the time, North Carolina and Richmond.
Such is the value of Notre Dame’s scout team, a group that hardly goes unnoticed within the walls of coach Kevin Corrigan’s late-blooming dynasty.
“Like we tell our scout guys, our success is due to them because they prepare us every game,” Notre Dame defenseman Shawn Lyght said. “They give us great looks, getting us prepared for these games. When we step in, it’s just like another practice.”
Coming off a shutdown performance against Spallina, the nation’s top attackman, Lyght spent Sunday, May 24 in Charlottesville, VA prepping for another Tewaaraton Award finalist in Princeton attackman Nate Kabiri.
When the Irish take the opening faceoff against the top-seeded Tigers on Memorial Day at 1 p.m. ET at Scott Stadium, they will have more than a passing familiarity with Kabiri’s various moves in his No. 2 jersey, not to mention sidekick Colin Burns (No. 0) and every other key contributor for the high-powered favorites.
“The roles that people take, just being able to play certain people on the defensive side and the offensive side, is just enormous,” Notre Dame senior goalie Thomas Ricciardelli said. “It’s certainly a lot of work that goes unnoticed and unpraised. I’m just so grateful for them, and I know everyone (else) is that’s in a starting role.”
Added the ACC goalie of the year: “It’s kind of the biggest piece and the backbone of this team.”
Down goes Syracuse: Notre Dame lacrosse rolls past Syracuse into Monday's NCAA title game
Winners of 12 of their past 13 NCAA Tournament games since missing the postseason altogether in 2022, Notre Dame now stands one win away from a third national title in four seasons.
No team in the sport has won as many as three titles in such a short span since Princeton pulled off the threepeat from 1996-98.
That the Irish could clinch that achievement on the campus of the University of Virginia, where Corrigan learned the sport as a ballboy and later as a player for his late father, Gene, had the coaching lifer in a reflective mood recently.
On a national conference call, Corrigan told a story about a former Virginia player named Barry Robertson who had to fight his way off the scout team and into the starting lineup.
Gene Corrigan, then Virginia’s athletic director, diplomatically asked the Cavaliers’ coach at the time why Robertson wasn’t playing much. The answer came back that the young attackman carried his stick too low on his dodge attempts and would likely have the ball taken away should he be inserted into games.
“And my dad’s like, ‘You have two of the three best defensemen in the country, and they guard him every single day and they can’t take the ball from him. Who’s out there that you’re worried about?’ “ Kevin Corrigan said of the future Notre Dame AD, ACC commissioner and NCAA president.
The player known as “Robo” entered the Virginia lineup soon thereafter. In 1974 he was named an All-American.
“I think about that kind of thing when I think about watching a guy develop,” Corrigan said. “You’re saying, ‘Man, that guy is making our defense look bad. He’s doing a lot of good things. If he can do that to our group, he can do it to any group, you know?’ We try to respond to that when we see it.”
Such is the proving-grounds nature of Irish practices that anyone on the 53-man roster can scratch and claw his way into a rotational spot if he beats the starters often enough.
That’s how sophomore attackman Luke Miller went from lightly used freshman in 2025 to Notre Dame’s leading goal scorer this year.
“He’s one of those guys that we just kept saying, ‘He keeps getting better.’ “ Corrigan said. “When a guy is playing on our scout team and he’s consistently playing really well offensively, that means he can play really well against anybody in the country.”
In the meantime, there are plentiful and vital opportunities to impersonate some of the most skilled and efficient opponents in the land.
Third-string faceoff man Christian Gallaher, a senior stuck behind the primary faceoff duo of freshman Aiden Diaz-Matos and Washington & Lee transfer Tyler Spano, is another prime example of that.
“Christian is that guy,” Corrigan said. “He’s cutting up film for the faceoff guys. Even if he’s not part of the rotation going into a game, it doesn’t change the way he prepares himself. It doesn’t change the way he prepares his teammates.”
Matt Jeffery 'Ridiculous athlete' excels in two sports for Notre Dame
Before Ricciardelli could succeed two-time national champion Liam Entenmann in goal, he had to learn how to simulate the habits of opposing goalies set to face the Irish. For two years, the highly rated recruit from New Canaan, CT bided his time and fully embraced his scout team duties.
“The reps that we can get, both offensively and defensively, help us so much,” Ricciardelli said. “I experienced that my first two years, playing scout team goalie, just doing as much as I could to replicate what the goalie on the other team was doing.”
Along the way, a young player gets to test his own limits.
“Whether I’m playing high arc or low arc or the way I play in tight or the way I play outside, it’s really awesome,” Ricciardelli said. “All credit to (the scout team) when it comes to that.”
Josh Yago, the Air Force graduate transfer who is coming off back-to-back seven-point tournament games, credits teammates such as Declan Cooke, Kellen Gardner, Luke Stickler and Karter Williams for their weekly scout-team work.
“Shoutout to them,” Yago said. “They try to find specific clips of the person that’s most likely going to guard me in the game and they try to play like them, whether it’s picks, on-ball, off-ball, anything like that. From Monday to Friday, they just keep giving me good looks.”
Yago, who lost 13-5 to Maryland in the 2025 quarterfinals, missed the NCAA Tournament in his other two healthy seasons with the Falcons. Air Force went 29-20 the past three years with Yago in the lineup.
“I don’t think our scout team gets enough credit,” he said, “but they’ve deserved it all year long.”
When sophomore midfielder Matt Jeffery is asked about the Irish scout team, he breaks into a crooked smile. He cites a sophomore long-stick midfielder from Needham, MA who only makes him better.
“Every single day I go against Jimmy Kenney,” Jeffery said. “He’s a big lefty defender who loves having takeaway checks. A big part of my game is being able to beat someone knowing there’s always someone still on my hands. Jimmy does a very good job of being able to actually guard me up front and stop me from getting to where I want to go but then also having that unchoreographed move where he could go for a ‘can opener’ or he could go over my head and take the ball away.”
After being named ACC Freshman of the Year, Jeffery improved his game to the point where he was named a third-team All-American by the U.S. Intercollege Lacrosse Association. Just two other underclassmen joined him on the third team or better in 2026.
There again, he credits Kenney for “giving a good look that we’re going to play in all week.”
Time after time, Jeffery said, he will make a move or unleash a shot in a game setting that reminds him of something he’s already tested and tweaked in those intense sessions against the Irish scout team.
“There’s definitely times and scenarios where that happened in the game,” Jeffery said, “where I’m looking back: ‘Well, Jimmy definitely has been the one that made me realize I need to be tough with the stick here.’ “
Mike Berardino covers Notre Dame football for the South Bend Tribune and NDInsider.com. Follow him on social media @MikeBerardino.
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Notre Dame lacrosse leans heavily on its dedicated scout team
Continue reading...
They wore pullover pinnies with corresponding numbers scrawled in magic marker. With the precision of a Hollywood stunt double, these down-roster contributors for Notre Dame sought to move, act, pass and shoot just like their better-known counterparts from that week’s opponent.
A similar dynamic held forth ahead of earlier wins over Johns Hopkins, Duke, Maryland, Ohio State, Michigan and a pair of teams ranked No. 1 at the time, North Carolina and Richmond.
Such is the value of Notre Dame’s scout team, a group that hardly goes unnoticed within the walls of coach Kevin Corrigan’s late-blooming dynasty.
“Like we tell our scout guys, our success is due to them because they prepare us every game,” Notre Dame defenseman Shawn Lyght said. “They give us great looks, getting us prepared for these games. When we step in, it’s just like another practice.”
Coming off a shutdown performance against Spallina, the nation’s top attackman, Lyght spent Sunday, May 24 in Charlottesville, VA prepping for another Tewaaraton Award finalist in Princeton attackman Nate Kabiri.
When the Irish take the opening faceoff against the top-seeded Tigers on Memorial Day at 1 p.m. ET at Scott Stadium, they will have more than a passing familiarity with Kabiri’s various moves in his No. 2 jersey, not to mention sidekick Colin Burns (No. 0) and every other key contributor for the high-powered favorites.
“The roles that people take, just being able to play certain people on the defensive side and the offensive side, is just enormous,” Notre Dame senior goalie Thomas Ricciardelli said. “It’s certainly a lot of work that goes unnoticed and unpraised. I’m just so grateful for them, and I know everyone (else) is that’s in a starting role.”
Added the ACC goalie of the year: “It’s kind of the biggest piece and the backbone of this team.”
Down goes Syracuse: Notre Dame lacrosse rolls past Syracuse into Monday's NCAA title game
Scout team lessons were learned early for Kevin Corrigan
Winners of 12 of their past 13 NCAA Tournament games since missing the postseason altogether in 2022, Notre Dame now stands one win away from a third national title in four seasons.
No team in the sport has won as many as three titles in such a short span since Princeton pulled off the threepeat from 1996-98.
That the Irish could clinch that achievement on the campus of the University of Virginia, where Corrigan learned the sport as a ballboy and later as a player for his late father, Gene, had the coaching lifer in a reflective mood recently.
On a national conference call, Corrigan told a story about a former Virginia player named Barry Robertson who had to fight his way off the scout team and into the starting lineup.
Gene Corrigan, then Virginia’s athletic director, diplomatically asked the Cavaliers’ coach at the time why Robertson wasn’t playing much. The answer came back that the young attackman carried his stick too low on his dodge attempts and would likely have the ball taken away should he be inserted into games.
“And my dad’s like, ‘You have two of the three best defensemen in the country, and they guard him every single day and they can’t take the ball from him. Who’s out there that you’re worried about?’ “ Kevin Corrigan said of the future Notre Dame AD, ACC commissioner and NCAA president.
The player known as “Robo” entered the Virginia lineup soon thereafter. In 1974 he was named an All-American.
“I think about that kind of thing when I think about watching a guy develop,” Corrigan said. “You’re saying, ‘Man, that guy is making our defense look bad. He’s doing a lot of good things. If he can do that to our group, he can do it to any group, you know?’ We try to respond to that when we see it.”
Such is the proving-grounds nature of Irish practices that anyone on the 53-man roster can scratch and claw his way into a rotational spot if he beats the starters often enough.
That’s how sophomore attackman Luke Miller went from lightly used freshman in 2025 to Notre Dame’s leading goal scorer this year.
“He’s one of those guys that we just kept saying, ‘He keeps getting better.’ “ Corrigan said. “When a guy is playing on our scout team and he’s consistently playing really well offensively, that means he can play really well against anybody in the country.”
In the meantime, there are plentiful and vital opportunities to impersonate some of the most skilled and efficient opponents in the land.
Third-string faceoff man Christian Gallaher, a senior stuck behind the primary faceoff duo of freshman Aiden Diaz-Matos and Washington & Lee transfer Tyler Spano, is another prime example of that.
“Christian is that guy,” Corrigan said. “He’s cutting up film for the faceoff guys. Even if he’s not part of the rotation going into a game, it doesn’t change the way he prepares himself. It doesn’t change the way he prepares his teammates.”
Matt Jeffery 'Ridiculous athlete' excels in two sports for Notre Dame
Notre Dame scout team gives the perfect look
Before Ricciardelli could succeed two-time national champion Liam Entenmann in goal, he had to learn how to simulate the habits of opposing goalies set to face the Irish. For two years, the highly rated recruit from New Canaan, CT bided his time and fully embraced his scout team duties.
“The reps that we can get, both offensively and defensively, help us so much,” Ricciardelli said. “I experienced that my first two years, playing scout team goalie, just doing as much as I could to replicate what the goalie on the other team was doing.”
Along the way, a young player gets to test his own limits.
“Whether I’m playing high arc or low arc or the way I play in tight or the way I play outside, it’s really awesome,” Ricciardelli said. “All credit to (the scout team) when it comes to that.”
Josh Yago, the Air Force graduate transfer who is coming off back-to-back seven-point tournament games, credits teammates such as Declan Cooke, Kellen Gardner, Luke Stickler and Karter Williams for their weekly scout-team work.
“Shoutout to them,” Yago said. “They try to find specific clips of the person that’s most likely going to guard me in the game and they try to play like them, whether it’s picks, on-ball, off-ball, anything like that. From Monday to Friday, they just keep giving me good looks.”
Yago, who lost 13-5 to Maryland in the 2025 quarterfinals, missed the NCAA Tournament in his other two healthy seasons with the Falcons. Air Force went 29-20 the past three years with Yago in the lineup.
“I don’t think our scout team gets enough credit,” he said, “but they’ve deserved it all year long.”
When sophomore midfielder Matt Jeffery is asked about the Irish scout team, he breaks into a crooked smile. He cites a sophomore long-stick midfielder from Needham, MA who only makes him better.
“Every single day I go against Jimmy Kenney,” Jeffery said. “He’s a big lefty defender who loves having takeaway checks. A big part of my game is being able to beat someone knowing there’s always someone still on my hands. Jimmy does a very good job of being able to actually guard me up front and stop me from getting to where I want to go but then also having that unchoreographed move where he could go for a ‘can opener’ or he could go over my head and take the ball away.”
After being named ACC Freshman of the Year, Jeffery improved his game to the point where he was named a third-team All-American by the U.S. Intercollege Lacrosse Association. Just two other underclassmen joined him on the third team or better in 2026.
There again, he credits Kenney for “giving a good look that we’re going to play in all week.”
Time after time, Jeffery said, he will make a move or unleash a shot in a game setting that reminds him of something he’s already tested and tweaked in those intense sessions against the Irish scout team.
“There’s definitely times and scenarios where that happened in the game,” Jeffery said, “where I’m looking back: ‘Well, Jimmy definitely has been the one that made me realize I need to be tough with the stick here.’ “
Mike Berardino covers Notre Dame football for the South Bend Tribune and NDInsider.com. Follow him on social media @MikeBerardino.
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Notre Dame lacrosse leans heavily on its dedicated scout team
Continue reading...
