Maryland men’s lacrosse went up against some of the best teams in the country for the first four games of the season, and they have been up for the challenge every time. Saturday’s matchup against Notre Dame at South Bend, Indiana will be a similar opportunity.

The Terps are still undefeated and at the top of the national rankings, toppling three consecutive ranked opponents in the last three weeks. And Maryland will look to make it four straight as they face No. 7 Notre Dame.

The Fighting Irish, although they lost to No. 3 Georgetown, still put up an impressive showing in their last contest. The offense was firing, as they outshot the Hoyas 52-38. And it took Georgetown goalie, Owen McElroy, to corral 24 saves to pull off the, 16-11, win. The quality of the shots were enough to impress head coach John Tillman.

“As an opponent, you kind of look and go, ‘well if they’re generating those types of shots on a really athletic and well organized group like Georgetown, that’s concerning for sure,’” Tillman said. “Especially when Georgetown was winning a decent amount of those faceoffs, they were still generating 52 shots.”

This game will be a rematch of the NCAA Tournament quarterfinals — the closest win of Maryland’s entire 2021 playoff run. The Fighting Irish possessed a three point lead with almost 10 minutes left before Maryland crawled back. The game went into overtime and Anthony DeMaio and Logan Wisnauskas ended the afternoon in seconds, executing a give-and-go to perfection, resulting in a DeMaio goal and a Maryland victory.

With many players back for both teams, defender Brett Makar expects a lot of emotion for Saturday’s game.

“Both teams are really going to be excited to get another shot at each other,” Makar said. “I know for them, just naturally, the way the game was last year, they’re going to be super excited to see us.”

Tough top-25 competition has been a weekly occurrence for the Terps, but as the top-ranked team in the country, the squad is not deterred and is using this time to prepare, as they expect to face similar competition when it is time for the tournament.

“Playing Notre Dame, they’re good everywhere. They’re talented. They’re dynamic. We’re going to have to play really well,” Tillman said. “What areas can we improve upon? You hope that if we’ve done that every week, that’s going to get us better for that next part of the season.”