Landis

Matt Landis, Matt Kavanagh Selected in Top Five of MLL Draft

Feb. 18, 2016

University of Notre Dame men’s lacrosse senior standouts Matt Landis and Matt Kavanagh, both first-team All-Americans in 2015, were selected among the top five players in the Major League Lacrosse Collegiate Draft held last month in Baltimore.

The Florida Launch made Landis, a defenseman, the third overall pick and the first defenseman selected. The Denver Outlaws followed by making Kavanagh, an attack, the fifth overall selection.


Landis

The Atlanta Blaze selected Duke midfielder Myles Jones first, while the Charlotte Hounds selected Syracuse attack Dylan Donahue second and Johns Hopkins attack Ryan Brown fourth.

Landis represents the highest selection for a Notre Dame player in the MLL Draft, and Landis and Kavanagh are easily the highest-drafted combination of Irish players. Previous Irish first-round picks were Mike Podgajny (seventh overall) in 2008, Zach Brenneman (fifth overall) in 2011 (he was the previous high pick from Notre Dame) and Jack Near (seventh overall) in 2015.

Both Landis and Kavanagh are 2016 preseason first-team All-Americans in the Inside Lacrosse Face-Off Yearbook, they also are first-team picks on the 2016 Preseason All-Atlantic Coast Conference squad and both won first-team United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association All-America honors in 2015.


Kavanagh

Kavanagh (Rockville Centre, New York/Chaminade/Hotchkiss), a two-time All-ACC selection, registered a team-high 52 points last season on 27 goals and 25 assists. Landis (Pelham, New York/Pelham Memorial), the 2015 ACC Defensive Player of the Year, anchored a Notre Dame defense that ranked ninth nationally in ground balls (33.07 per game), 12th in caused turnovers (7.80 per game) and 19th in scoring defense (9.33 goals allowed). Landis also is an honorary ACC postgraduate scholarship recipient for 2016.

Both Kavanagh and Landis are among the captains for the Irish in 2016.

As a unit, Notre Dame captured the ACC regular-season title in 2015 in just its second season as a conference member. Baumer Family head coach Kevin Corrigan and his Irish captured the title with a thrilling come-from-behind 15-14 win over then second-ranked North Carolina. Notre Dame concluded the season with an undefeated 4-0 conference standing.

The Fighting Irish appeared in the NCAA Championship for the 10th straight year in 2015 (as the number one overall seed) and advanced to Championship Weekend for the fourth time in the last six seasons and fifth time overall in program history. Notre Dame fell to Denver 11-10 in the national semifinal game at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia to finish with a 12-3 overall record.

Here’s a complete history of previous Notre Dame MLL Draft selections:

Year Player Round Team
2001 Steve Bishko 3rd Rochester
Tom Glatzel 4th Baltimore
David Ulrich 5th Baltimore
2002 Devin Ryan 4th Bridgeport
2005 Brian Giordano 4th Boston
2006 DJ Driscoll 2nd Los Angeles
Pat Walsh 4th Long Island
2007 Brian Hubschmann 5th Long Island
2008 Mike Podgajny 1st (7th) San Francisco
Joey Kemp 3rd Los Angeles
Sean Dougherty 4th Washington
Taylor Clagett 5th Los Angeles
2009 Ryan Hoff 3rd Chicago
Regis McDermott 3rd Long Island
2010 Scott Rodgers 2nd Toronto
Grant Krebs 8th Boston
2011 Zach Brenneman 1st (5th) Long Island
David Earl 3rd Hamilton
Kevin Ridgway 3rd Hamilton
Sam Barnes 5th Long Island
Andrew Irving 6th Denver
2012 Kevin Randall 7th Charlotte
2013 John Kemp 4th Rochester
Matt Miller 6th Rochester
Steve Murphy 7th New York
Quinn Cully 8th Boston
2014 Steve O’Hara 6th Ohio
2015 Jack Near 1st (7th) Rochester
Conor Doyle 6th Chesapeake
Nick Ossello 8th Denver
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University of Notre Dame Athletics Communications contact:
John Heisler
Senior Associate Athletics Director
112 Joyce Center
Notre Dame, IN 46556
574-631-7516 (office)
574-532-0293 (cell)
heisler.1@nd.edu

The University of Notre Dame men’s lacrosse team pursues excellence on and off the field through the three pillars in which the program is built: Character, Culture & Community. These three foundational values guide the promise of the program, which is to provide its student-athletes with the most compelling and enriching experience in all of college athletics. Through academics, competition, service and travel, the program aims to immerse its players in situations that enhance their student-athlete experience to help them become the people, students and teammates they aspire to be.

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