What back-to-back Notre Dame national titles mean to the Kavanagh brothers

Chris Kavanagh cried Monday. Happy tears? Absolutely. Why wouldn’t he after scoring 5 goals — as many as Maryland’s entire team — in a 15-5 Notre Dame Fighting Irish thrashing of the Terrapins in the men’s lacrosse national championship game, ND’s second to win in as many years.

He cried sad ones, though, too. For neatly half an hour, he said.

“I was coming on the bus and I was looking at pictures of me and Pat [Kavanagh] when I was a freshman and sophomore and kind of crying for 25 minutes knowing it was my last game with 51, one of the best players if not the best player to ever play here alongside Liam [Entenmann],” Chris said. “It was a pretty emotional day, but we put in the work for a while. And this was the last one we had to get. And we dug down deep and got it.”

The 2023 national title brought pure elation. It was the first in Notre Dame men’s lacrosse history, but most of the players on the roster knew it didn’t have to be the last. The Kavanagh brothers were coming back and so was Entenmann, now a two-time National Goalie of the Year. Those three set out to do exactly what they did in 2023 in 2024, and sure enough — as Chris said — they got it.

They got it because Chris paced the team with 81 points and his older brother Pat, the catalyst for everything the Irish accomplish offensively, was only one behind with 80. They got it because Entenmann was the best at what he does in the country, again, proving it one final time in blue and gold with 16 saves against the Terps.

They got it because brotherhood is the ultimate bond, unbreakable and undeniable.

“He’s been my best friend my entire life,” Pat said of Chris. “And to do this the past three years with him, to win back-to-back national championships with my little brother and best friend since he was born, it’s incredible.”

This isn’t just a story of two brothers fulfilling a dream. It’s about that duo doing what another Kavanagh, Matt, could not as an All-American at Notre Dame a decade ago. Before Pat was a Tewaaraton Award finalist, Matt was. An All-American. All-Conference. All-Everything.

Matt never won a national championship at Notre Dame. Nobody did until Chris and Pat and Liam and everyone else on the last two Fighting Irish rosters finished the job. That’s what makes the two titles even sweeter. Pat, Chris and company didn’t win them on their own. Matt and his teammates laid a foundation by making Final Four appearances the norm in the mid 2010s.

His little brothers, with help from so many, made national titles the norm in the mid 2020s.

“That whole family, the competitive drive that they have is really unique,” Notre Dame head coach Kevin Corrigan said. “And it’s not just on game days. It’s competitive drive to get better. So they’re working on their skills. They’re working on all the things that you need to do to be a great player.

“It’s the competitive drive that knowing that in a game like this you’re not going to be able to do it by yourself so you better bring everybody along with you and they do that on an everyday basis.”

For all those reasons, it’s bittersweet to see another Kavanagh depart from the program after an incredible career. Pat scored more points, 301, than anyone else in Notre Dame history, breaking Matt’s previous record. He might be named the best player in men’s lacrosse on Wednesday, which would be a fitting end to his career.

A fitting end to Chris’ career? A three-peat.

“The target’s still on our back going into next year, but that’s how we want it,” Entenmann said. “We don’t want to be anything other than the best. We showed that today. And I’m sure Coach, Chris and the rest of the team, we’ll celebrate this for a bit and then it’s back to square one, back to the bottom of the mountain and now they’re chasing the repeat.”

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