Long Islanders Liam Entenmann, Pat Kavanagh to matchup in Premier Lacrosse League title game
Liam Entenmann, left, and Pat Kavanagh helped the Notre Dame men's lacrosse team win NCAA championships in 2023 and 2024. Credit: Bob Sorensen
Liam Entenmann and Pat Kavanagh have been friends since they were eight years old. They met playing youth hockey, and went to high school together at Chaminade, then to college together at Notre Dame. They won the Under-21 World Lacrosse Championship together playing for Team USA in 2022, and won two NCAA titles together (in 2023 and ’24) at Notre Dame.
“He’s my best friend,’’ Entenmann said of Kavanagh.
On Sunday, the two will face each other at Sports Illustrated Stadium (formerly Red Bull Arena) in Harrison, New Jersey, not just for bragging rights, but for the championship of the Premier Lacrosse League. Entenmann, from Point Lookout, is the starting goalie for the New York Atlas, while Kavanagh, from Rockville Centre, is an attackman for the Denver Outlaws.
“We went through a lot together in college, and grew up together, and have known each other for a while, back to our mite hockey days,’’ Kavanagh said Friday at the league’s pre-championship media day in Jersey City, N.J. “So it's definitely just a really cool, full circle moment that we're meeting in the championship at the pro level.’’
But this isn’t just a cute story about lifelong pals squaring off in front of family and friends and more than 10,000 fans. Both are second-year pros, each trying to help his team capture its first PLL title. And they happen to play for the two best teams in the league.
The Atlas and Outlaws were both 7-3 in the regular season, with the Atlas being the top seed in the Eastern Conference and the Outlaws the top seed in the West.
“We expected to be here’’ in the finals, said Atlas defenseman Gavin Adler, a Hewlett native.
Both teams’ rosters are loaded. The Atlas’ Connor Shellenberger, the league’s top scorer with 46 points (23 goals, 23 assists), was named both MVP and Attackman of the Year on Friday, while Kavanagh (21 goals, 16 assists) and teammate Brennan O’Neill (23 goals, including three 2-pointers) of Bayshore were both finalists for both awards. Adler was named Defensive Player of the Year (Denver’s J.T. Giles-Harris was a finalist) and Outlaws rookie Logan McNaney (58.3% save percentage) was Goalie of the Year, while Entenmann (57.1%) was a finalist.
Denver’s Tim Soudan was named the league’s Coach of the Year. New York’s Mike Pressler was a finalist.
Entenmann said he and Kavanagh haven’t gone out of their way to avoid talking to each other leading up to Sunday’s game.
“It's really not like an awkward thing, or, you know, 'You're going down this weekend,' or anything like that,’’ he said. “It's just more so, like, we're going to be best friends up until game day, and we’ve got to put that on hold for a few hours.’’
Entenmann kept Kavanagh off the board in the Outlaws’ 13-12 OT win in Denver in the teams’ regular season meeting (“I shot 0-for-11, so I owe him a few this weekend,’’ Kavanagh said), but the goalie knows he’s got a lot more to worry about Sunday than just Kavanagh.
The Atlas are going to have to have a plan for the 6-3, 240-pound O’Neill, who was also on the U.S. Under-21 team, and followed that up by being the only college player on the U.S. Men’s World Championship team in 2023 — and being named MVP of that tournament. He’ll be a handful, too.
Colin Stephenson covers the Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
