Here's Everything You Need To Know Heading Into The College Lacrosse National Championship Game
Who: #1 Maryland (17-0) vs #7 Cornell (14-4)
What: 2022 NCAA Men's DI Lacrosse National Championship Game
When: 1pm
Where: Hartford, CT // ESPN
Why: Because it's the greatest day of the year to go out and win a lacrosse game.
The first NCAA lacrosse championship tournament was in 1971. Cornell won that national championship game 12-6 over Maryland. They were led by Richie Moran who was a midfielder at Maryland in the 50's before becoming the head coach at Cornell. Now 52 years after the first tournament ever, we have another matchup between the Big Red and the Terps in the national championship game. The only difference this time around is...well...
Maryland is an absolute wagon and on the cusp of being crowned one of the greatest teams in college lacrosse history. An undefeated season. They looked like they played a brutal game by Maryland standards in the semifinals and still beat Princeton by 5. A 5-goal win was the closest margin of victory for this Maryland team since March 5th when they escaped South Bend with a 2-goal win. But yeah. Ever since then they haven't won by fewer than 5 goals the rest of the way.
They have Logan Wisnauskas leading the way. He was the #1 pick in the PLL Draft. He'll be named the Tewaaraton Award winner. He's the best player on the best team we've seen in over a decade. They get scoring from all over. They are loaded with All-Americans on defense. And oh yeah, their goalie Logan McNaney is fresh off of a 19-save performance against Princeton. So Cornell may have won that first ever national championship game, but it's going to take a perfect game and a miracle for Cornell to pull this one off against THIS Maryland team.
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I mean it's not impossible for Cornell to make this game interesting. They have the firepower to keep it interesting. John Piatelli can shoot the piss out of the ball. Gavin Adler is just as good as any defenseman on the Maryland roster. CJ Kirst plays with zero fear. And Princeton gave them a pretty solid game plan on how to knock this Maryland team out of their groove. All they have to do is be physical as shit on defense. You need to make it a 50/50 battle at the faceoff stripe. And you need to get a ton of help from the refs. You also have to hope that Maryland comes out making the same little mistakes they were making all game against Princeton. But there's just no way this Maryland team doesn't come out as dialed as humanly possible.
They lost in the National Championship game last year. It was their only loss of the season. This team knows how much is on the line in this game. They win this one and they avenge that national championship loss from last year. They win this one and they're right there with '90 Syracuse and '06 Virginia. We're talking as historic of a team as they come. My guess is we see another 5-goal win for the Terps to close out this season.
See everybody at 1pm.
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