SOUTH BEND — With rain in the forecast all Championship Weekend at the University of Virginia, Notre Dame lacrosse coach Kevin Corrigan isn’t about to be caught off guard.
“You’ve got to have extra cleats, but we need to have rain gear for guys, we need to have extra food in case we’re delayed,” Corrigan said this week ahead of his eighth Final Four trip. “It’s all those things. You’re trying to look around every corner right now to make sure you’re as well prepared as you could be.”
Scott Stadium’s natural grass surface will need to hold up for five games in a span of three days, including a pair of title games on Sunday at the Division II (Tampa vs. Adelphi) and Division III (Tufts vs. RIT) levels.
Saturday’s semifinal matching the second-seeded Irish against sixth-seeded Syracuse is set for 2:30 p.m., but it will follow a noon matchup between top-seeded Princeton and resurgent Duke. In the carefully calibrated process of helping a 53-man roster peak during a precise two-hour game window, nothing is too small to consider.
“And then you’ve got the possibility of thunderstorms,” Corrigan said after practice on Wednesday. “I was just talking with our trainer and our nutritionist about what do we do if we’re in rain delays? We’re the second game. That game could go to overtime. You could already be off by half an hour.
“And then you get a rain delay in their game or our game, now you could be off by an hour and a half or two hours because every time there’s a lightning strike, it’s 30 more minutes. It’s easy for a game to get delayed for an hour or two even. We were talking about, all right, what do we have to have in the locker room?”
Klockner Stadium has been Virginia’s lacrosse home since 1992. The Irish have played on its prescription athletic turf many times, including an 11-9 loss on March 28, but Scott Stadium, the Cavaliers’ football home, uses Latitude 36 Bermudagrass.
“With the volume of games that we’re playing, that could be an issue,” Corrigan said on a national Zoom call this week. “That remains to be seen. We’ll see what kind of an issue it is.”
Early reviews on Final Four playing surface at Virginia
Virginia played Utah this season at Scott Stadium in preparation for a possible Final Four appearance. Former coach Lars Tiffany, dismissed this week after 10 seasons and two national titles, gave the Scott Stadium surface passing marks in a Sunday conversation with Corrigan.
“He said it was a good surface and he didn’t expect it would be a problem,” Corrigan said.
Notre Dame plays on field turf at Arlotta Stadium and managed to navigate the slippery new rug at Hofstra’s Shuart Stadium in a 15-9 quarterfinal win over Johns Hopkins.
The Irish, national champions in 2023 and 2024, weren’t planning to hold a full practice on grass this week, but their Thursday and Friday light work, both at home and in Charlottesville, VA, will be on grass.
“We’ll do a few groundballs and drills and stuff,” Corrigan said. “We’re kind of done with our work for the week. I just told the guys we want to be prepared to play two games in three days. Rest is just as important as anything else.”
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 preps for all contingencies at eighth Final Four