PHILADELPHIA, PA. – Memorial Day weekend is a big weekend across the country, especially if you follow lacrosse. For lacrosse players and fans alike, today starts the biggest weekend for the sport, the Division One Final Four and the college national championships.
To kick off the weekend, the 14-1 Notre Dame Fighting Irish took on the 13-3 University of Denver Pioneers.
Denver’s involvement in the tournament this year was heavily debated and discuessed because they lost in the Big East tournament to Villanova, however with major ranked wins over Georgetown, Cornell, and John’s Hopkins their resume was not questioned by the committee. After tearing through Michigan and Syracuse, Denver found themselves back in the Semifinals for the first time since 2017. This all happened for them this year under a brand new head coach Matt Brown.
Notre Dame on the other hand is no stranger to the tournament as they won the National Championship last year and have appeared in every tournament since 2006. They were the clearcut favorite to win the championship.
This game was incredibly close as the biggest lead of the game came in midway through the third quarter, when Notre Dame took an 8-5 lead, which then grew to a 13-6 lead in the fourth.
The offensive performance for Notre Dame was headlined by a dominant performance from Will Lynch who went 18/23 on the face-off. Scoring was headlined by the Kavanagh brothers, Chris who had three goals and Pat who will be making his professional debut for the Boston Cannons next weekend also had three goals. South Florida native and Pine Crest alumni, Jordan Faison also had one goal, his 21st for the year.
Notre Dame seeks to be the next program to go back to back in the NCAA National Championship, the last team to do that was Virginia in 2021.
Moving on our second game of the day was between the 10-5 Maryland Terrapins and the 12-5 Virginia Cavaliers.
Maryland’s inclusion in the tournament this year was heavily debated and the decision was met with major controversy. After finishing the regular season with an 8-5 overall record and losing to Penn State in the Big Ten tournament it was a near unanimous agreement amongst the lacrosse fanbase that Maryland would not be apart of the trip to Philadelphia for Memorial Day weekend. However, the committee said otherwise.
In a stunning move the selection committee put Maryland in the tournament, snubbing heavy favorites to get in such as Cornell, Army, Penn and Yale. Leading to big reactions and backlash on social media.
Driven by this, Maryland went on to knock Princeton and championship favorite Duke out of the tournament.
Virginia had a difficult season but in that adversity found great success, being led by second overall pick in the PLL Draft Connor Shellenberger and the number one freshman in the entire country McCabe Millon.
Virginia dismantled St. Joseph’s and stunned John’s Hopkins in double overtime to get to this game.
Shellenberger put Virginia up early with a goal in the first minute of the game, however, Maryland responded by going on a 4-0 run for the rest of the quarter and went into halftime with a 7-3 lead.
The second half didn’t look any better for Virginia as Maryland extended their lead up to 12-6. As Maryland made a statement win today for their return to the championship. The last time they appeared was in 2022 where they beat Cornell to cap off a perfect regular season.
The stage is now set for Memorial Day, the defending champion Notre Dame Fighting Irish will be taking on the underdog Maryland Terrapins.
COVER PHOTO CREDIT; TJ Denney (@tjfps) – Shot for Inside Lacrosse
