Brian Tevlin Sends Notre Dame to NCAA Championship Game

PHILADELPHIA — For a team that’s made no secret about its national title aspirations since the fall, a two-goal deficit wasn’t about to deter Notre Dame in Saturday’s NCAA tournament semifinals — and overtime certainly wasn’t either.

Brian Tevlin scored 29 seconds into the extra period, as the third-seeded Fighting Irish charged past second-seeded Virginia 13-12 before 32,017 at Lincoln Financial Field, capping the first semifinal round in tournament history to feature a pair of overtime games.

The Fighting Irish (13-2) scored four times in the final 3:07 of game action to earn their third trip to Memorial Day and their first since 2014.

“Not an easy situation to be in, but those are the situations you want to be in,” Tevlin said. “As a player, you dream about that. You don’t dream about 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 the national championship. I think we have a lot of guys on this team who have dreamt that and thought about it all year.”

Connor Shellenberger had three goals and three assists for the Cavaliers (13-4), who were attempting to win their third national title in the last five seasons. Virginia’s large class of fifth-year players was trying to bookend their careers with championships, and instead had their time in Charlottesville end abruptly against a team it already defeated twice this season.

“We didn’t win the national championship, and that’s just the standard we’ve created,” said attackman Xander Dickson, who set a single-season school record with 61 goals this year. “We’re not trying to be arrogant about that, but that’s what we want. This is Virginia lacrosse. This is the best of the best, the bluebloods. We want national titles, and in that essence, yes, we didn’t reach our goals. But it’s definitely not a failure. We had so much fun along the way, and it was such a crazy ride.”

Notre Dame will face the team that foiled its two previous title game appearances — in 2010 and 2014 — in Monday’s final. Top-seeded Duke (16-2) advanced earlier in the day with a 16-15 defeat of fifth-seeded Penn State thanks to Garrett Leadmon’s winner despite the midfielder being in the crease on video replays.

There was no such controversy in the nightcap, just ruthless work from the Irish coming out of timeouts late in the game to overcome a stellar game from Virginia goalie Matthew Nunes (17 saves). Three of the Irish’s last four goals came after one of their timeouts, and Notre Dame needed a combined 33 seconds to score after those stoppages.

“I didn’t do my job at the end as a defensive coach because giving up goals that quickly, it’s on me,” Virginia coach Lars Tiffany said.

The Irish closed within 11-10 when Chris Kavanagh took a crisp pinpoint pass on the crease from Eric Dobson (four goals, one assist) just 14 seconds after a timeout. Will Lynch — who was 13 of 22 on faceoffs against Virginia fifth-year Petey LaSalla — won the next faceoff, and Dobson chugged through three defenders before beating Nunes for the tying goal with 2:07 remaining.

Virginia wasn’t finished. For much of the day, it seemed Shellenberger would carry the Cavaliers much as he did in the final four two years ago. This time, he set up behind the cage and found midfielder Thomas McConvey to put Virginia up 12-11 with 52.5 seconds left.

Ten seconds later, Notre Dame called timeout after another Lynch faceoff win. Ten seconds after that, it was Jake Taylor celebrating after canning an open 10-yard shot off a Tevlin feed to tie it again.

“When two of the best teams in the country are competing at a high level, you can’t ever take your foot off the gas,” Nunes said. “They kept their foot on the gas, and if that was 10 seconds or 60 seconds into a possession, you always felt their pressure.”

Lynch came up huge once more to start overtime, and then Tevlin — a man with Final Four experience at Yale before choosing to spend a graduate season at Notre Dame — did as well. He figured he would look to Dobson when he took the ball off the restart, but his fellow midfielder was shut off.

Instead, that helped open a lane for him to get inside of Virginia’s Grayson Sallade and secure a clear look a couple yards from the crease for the winner.

“We preach dodging to the cage,” Tevlin said. “You don’t create offense if you’re dodging looking to pass. You create offense if you’re dodging for your own and then making a read off of that. We have a lot of trust in our guys, and we have a lot of trust in a lot of different guys.”

It closed out a riveting day that featured the first pair of semifinals to result in one-goal games since 2017, and it left this year’s tournament with two teams that were left smarting from unexpected postseason exclusions a year ago.

On this afternoon, Duke played from ahead nearly all day, then won on the only shot in overtime. Notre Dame never led by more than one and trailed for much of the fourth quarter, only to generate a late flurry.

Like the Blue Devils, they took the only shot of overtime to earn one last game.

“The second half, honestly, it’s kind of a dream still,” Dobson said. “I think I’m going to watch it and figure out a lot things I didn’t know actually happened.”

What he does know is Notre Dame will play on the final day of the season. That’s no secret, just like the Irish’s aims all season.