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To reach Championship Weekend, Gary Gait had to defeat an Atlantic Coast Conference foe — North Carolina — he lost to in the regular season. History must repeat itself if he wants to lead Syracuse to its first national championship game since 2013.

This time, it’s against Notre Dame, and Kevin Corrigan certainly won’t make it easy for SU. The longtime head coach has led the Fighting Irish in all 24 of their historical matchups against the Orange, and he’s steered his teams to a dead-even 12-12 split. After falling to SU twice during its disappointing 2025 season, Corrigan’s Notre Dame squad is back at the sport’s pinnacle.

Its regular season finale — a 16-11 home victory over Syracuse — proved that. After defeating UNC last Saturday, Gait said his team made changes from its first two losses to the Tar Heels, and those adjustments paid dividends in the NCAA Tournament. He can only hope to have similar tricks up his sleeve in Championship Weekend.

Here’s what Gait and Corrigan said during Tuesday’s coaches call ahead of Saturday’s Final Four matchup between Syracuse (13-5, 2-2 ACC) and Notre Dame (12-2, 3-1 ACC):

Familiar foes

Unsurprisingly, both coaches were asked about their regular-season meeting. Not even two minutes into his allotted time, Corrigan was quick to point out that this Syracuse squad isn’t the same team that walked into ND’s Arlotta Stadium a few weeks ago.

“You can’t count on anything that happened in the first game to necessarily develop in the same way,” Corrigan said.

He mentioned Syracuse’s defense has been playing strong lately and that Pat March’s offense always seems to get its players in the right spots to make plays. He also said taking on John Mullen is going to be a challenge for his faceoff unit, especially as the specialist has continued to prove himself as “one of the best guys around.”

But Corrigan didn’t subscribe to the idea that his program’s familiarity with SU would pose a challenge. In his eyes, there’s only one way to prepare for any given game.

“What we’re looking at is, ‘All right, what is the very best that they can play in every aspect of the game? And how do we overcome that anyway?’” Corrigan said.

Gait, on the other hand, argued his team can reap the rewards of that increased familiarity. Teams that win the first matchup often face an internal battle, he said, over whether to change anything or to stick with what worked.

Syracuse doesn’t have that burden. Its decision is easy.

“I think the advantage goes to the team on adjustments, that loses. Because you know what you did the first time didn’t work, so you’re more willing to make changes,” Gait said. “And if you make the right ones, you can have success, like we did against North Carolina.”

Unsung heroes

Joey Spallina gets all the plaudits for Syracuse. Shawn Lyght does the same for Notre Dame.

But Tuesday, both coaches praised some of the overlooked stars on their respective rosters. Corrigan was asked about a variety of names — leading scorer Luke Miller, short-stick defensive midfielder Christian Alacqua and faceoff specialist Tyler Spano — and he was effusive with praise for all of them.

Regarding Miller, he invoked an old story from when Glenn Thiel was Virginia’s head coach. Corrigan’s father, Gene Corrigan, was the athletic director at the time. Gene would go to practices, where he saw a young freshman standout named Barry Robertson on the scout team. He asked Thiel why he wasn’t playing, to which the coach said he was afraid Robertson would turn the ball over.

“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,” Corrigan recalled Gene saying. “Who are you worried about?”

That’s how he felt about Miller, back when the sophomore was on ND’s scout team. As Corrigan continued to watch him during practices, he quickly realized Miller had what it took to receive meaningful playing time.

“We, again, kind of just had the faith that he’s doing it every day in our practices, which means he can play at a high level,” Corrigan said.

Gait’s leading scorer, similarly to Miller, is someone who flies under the radar: Finn Thomson. The Canadian enters the Final Four riding hot with three consecutive hat tricks in postseason play. He’s Syracuse’s only 40-goal scorer this season, and the senior’s 54 points are a career-high.

Yet, Thomson was the only one of SU’s three starting attacks not to earn All-American recognition this season, and he was the only one not to be selected in the 2026 Premier Lacrosse League Draft. He might not get the recognition his peers do, but after dealing with the lasting effects of a broken arm last year, Gait’s happy to have Thomson healthy and clicking in his attack.

“He’s really key to our game, because he allows Joey to keep his head up,” Gait said. “A lot of teams will play him with a short stick. And if you try doing that, he’s going to get open off ball, and he’s going to score a bunch of goals.”

Mullen turning a corner

As previously mentioned, Corrigan pointed out Syracuse’s faceoff unit when mentioning what the Orange have done particularly well. That’s because Mullen’s two best performances of the year have come in the last two games.

He won a season-high 21 faceoffs against Yale in the NCAA Tournament First Round, then held North Carolina’s Brady Wambach to a sub-50% faceoff win rate in the Quarterfinals. In that latter performance, he was spotted leaving his stick in a cooler between clashes.

Gait was asked about it after SU’s win over UNC, to which he described it as “old-school stuff.” He was asked about it — and Mullen’s return to form — again on Tuesday.

“The type of stick, it’s an outdated model. And it’s one that, when it gets hot, it gets really soft,” Gait said of Mullen’s stick. “So, the idea is, you put it in a bucket of ice, it hardens up the plastic and makes it stiffer for the faceoff.”

That’s just one of the many things working for the specialist recently. All season, Gait said Mullen’s been focused on visualization and mental training, positioning himself to play lacrosse without having to think about it. He’s also put in tons of work studying opponents’ tendencies at the faceoff X, learning each of their counter moves.

The results are finally starting to reflect that effort.

“He’s just in a really good place right now mentally,” Gait said of Mullen. “Everything’s working for him.”

Learning experience

That’s how Gait chose to describe last year’s Final Four matchup against Maryland. Spallina laid it out plain and bare Saturday: Syracuse “laid an egg” in its 14-8 loss.

Gait is determined to ensure his team doesn’t do so again. He packed his schedule with matchups to prepare SU for May. There are four teams still alive in Division I lacrosse, and Syracuse is the only one to have faced all of them. Gait wanted the Orange to be battle-tested entering the postseason, and it’s led them to a second consecutive Final Four.

“I’m hoping it all translates and all comes about,” Gait said. “Our schedule, (we) made it one of the toughest in the country. We’ve never traveled eight away games before.”

He also emphasized that being in the Final Four before gives his team confidence, knowing they can play their best lacrosse on the biggest stages. He said his team has worked on mentally preparing for the pressures of big games.

It gives him hope that, come Saturday, the Orange won’t disappear on the sport’s biggest stage.

“I know that we’ve shown some pretty good lacrosse for large portions of a game, but we haven’t pulled a full 60 (minutes) yet,” Gait said. “So, I think that makes it easy to believe that it’s in front of us.”

Published on May 19, 2026 at 6:25 pm
Contact Mauricio: mjpalmar@syr.edu | @mpalmarDO