The Terps hosted unbeaten Notre Dame at 1 PM on Saturday, 3/4/2023 for what is widely considered the best game in Division 1 lacrosse so far this season. Maryland's stadium is huge by lacrosse standards. Even with a good crowd, which there was (6000+), a stadium like that can just swallow up the fans and energy. But this game was so good, the crowd was raging. It was Youth Lacrosse Day, so lots of kids were there with their respective teams rocking their uniforms. It was a great scene for lacrosse.

I started shooting photos in addition to vids for the past few games and still trying to figure out if it makes sense and how to manage it. For this game, I shot stills in the first half and video for the second half and OT periods. I'm thinking this may be the formula. That way, if it's a good game, I'm getting the video down the stretch when the energy is the highest. This game certainly fit that bill.

When I post "extended clips," they are generally pretty long. But this sets the record so far. There's a about six minutes of post-game footage, but most of the vid is pure game. Once the OTs hit, I kept most of the usable footage in there. It was so tense and dramatic, I thought it was worth keeping it all.

The winning goal and celly to follow has been all over IG and the web in general. But there were a LOT of great plays from both teams leading up to that point. Maryland held a 2-goal lead with just over a minute to play, but the Irish figured out a way to knot it up and force OT. The Kavanagh brothers, especially Pat with the grand finale, were a big part of the story of this game.

But the goalies for both teams were instrumental, making huge saves throughout and at critical times it the OTs. ND senior, Liam Entenmann, showed that senior leadership while making 14 saves in the win. MD freshman, Brian Ruppel, made 12 saves and showed he's more than up to the task of playing big-time ball in his second start in as many games.

It was one of those games where it was a shame that either team had to take a loss. As I've been following Maryland this year and have a connection with a few of the players/families, along with Coach Tillman, so I especially felt for the Terps. They showed their class and how strong their culture is with how they handled the loss. They were gracious in defeat, kept their heads held high as they did their customary visit with family and friends, and then autographed posters for a seemingly endless line of youth lacrosse players who were excited to meet and greet some of their role models.

It was an honor and a pleasure to watch these teams go at it.

Notes:

- Please check out www.proudlacrosse.com to see more vids and photos. The photos from this game will be uploaded in the coming days.

- Most of the video was shot with a Sony FX3 and Sony FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM OSS lens. The stills and some smaller video clips were shot with a Sony A7iv with both the above lens and also the Sony FE 24-105mm f/4 G OSS lens.

Thanks for watching and reading!

Joe