The 2015 NCAA Men’s Lacrosse season concluded on Memorial Day Monday with Denver defeating Maryland 10-5 for the Division I National Championship. It set history for the sport, as it was the 10th different team to win an NCAA title in the sport, and the first team west of the Mississippi to take on the title.
But there were nearly four months of college lacrosse that helped culminate to Monday’s National Championship matchup.
FEBRUARY:
The season began on February 1st (!) with host High Point defeating Delaware 15-10. One thing that was missing from this game was the cold, snowy winter conditions that hit the entire east coast that affected many games for one or more reasons. On the first Saturday of the lacrosse season, Boston U defeated Mercer on the campus of Harvard (which started at 9:30 P.M.) due to Boston’s Nickerson Field being unplayable due to a winter storm in the area. Also, Colgate played Bryant in snowy conditions, Detroit took the season’s first upset against Ohio State indoors, Marquette defeated Lehigh in snowy conditions, Virginia edged Loyola in the season’s first game in cold conditions, and plenty of other games that had to be moved indoors later on in the month as well as in early March due to winter conditions. Which brought up the annual question of pushing the start of the season back to either late February or even early March. And if winters get worse than this year, that question will become more important as time passes, which would probably mean pushing Championship Weekend as few weeks later as well.
MARCH:
After getting through a harsh opening month, the games finally started to become interesting, as we entered conference play. Some big non-conference games were played, including the first Notre Dame-Denver showdown in Denver, where Zach Miller gave the Pios an 11-10 OT win, before losing to Ohio State the next week 13-11 in one of the biggest upsets of the year. Notre Dame defeated Syracuse 13-12 in 2OT in another exciting March game, and Johns Hopkins was about to be 4-6 after an Easter Sunday loss to Ohio State. Would the Blue Jays bounce back? Would Brown be able to use their explosive offense to win the Ivy League Tournament in April? Any surprise teams that would make an at-large bid into the NCAA Tournament, such as Georgetown and Marquette? Those questions would be answered in April.
APRIL:
Games really started to matter and bubble began to break or solidify. Conference games mattered whether or not teams would play in their respective conference tournaments. The Patriot League was the craziest of them all. Eight of the nine teams (Lafayette had no chance) had opportunities to move on to the Patriot League Tournament all in the last day of conference play. While Navy watched the day’s action as the lone Patriot League team on a bye week, Bucknell and Loyola could have clinched the top seed with wins, but failed to do so. Army was already in the Patriot League Tournament, but the final spot up for grabs was the sixth and final seed. Holy Cross played Boston, while Lehigh faced off against archrival Lafayette. Holy Cross defeated Boston 12-10 to eliminate the Terriers, but needed Lafayette to defeat Lehigh in order for the Crusaders to advance. However, Lehigh edged out the Leopards by a goal to get into the league tourney after a very slow start to league play. As for league tournaments, High Point entered the NCAA Tournament for the first time after defeating Richmond 9-8 in 2OT, Hopkins continued their comeback with a Big Ten Championship win over Ohio State, and Towson defeated UMass on a crazy goal in the CAA Championship.
MAY:
No major upsets in the NCAA Tournament for the most part, as eighteen teams made the big dance. Johns Hopkins continued their renaissance with wins against Virginia and Syracuse, Maryland squeezed their way through Yale with a controversial no-goal call against the Bulldogs late in their first round game, Denver got past a slow start against Ohio State to move to Championship Weekend, and Notre Dame ended Lyle Thompson’s career with a 4th quarter comeback against Albany.
Both semifinal games were classics, as Notre Dame, led by Sergio Perkovic and his five 4th quarter goals, forced Denver into OT before bowing down after Wesley Berg scored the game winner. Then Maryland got past archrival Johns Hopkins in a rematch of their first meeting in mid-April, with a great save by Kyle Bernlohr’s butt-end of his stick. Finally, Denver defeated Maryland 10-5 to bring the National Championship to the west.
I’ll be having more NCAA review posts later, such as top plays, and top players. So be on the lookout for more next week!
