Happy Championship Weekend To All Who Observe. Here Is Everything You Need To Know Heading Into The College Lacrosse Final Four
Evan Bernstein. Getty Images.There are 52 weekends in the year. Sometimes you get holidays that blend into a weekend like Fourth of July and Halloween. You have the Super Bowl, you have golf majors, you have this that and the third. There are 52 weekends in the year, but the one that truly belongs to lacrosse is Memorial Day Weekend.
It doesn't matter if you've watched college lacrosse since the first day of the season on February 1st, or these are the first and only lacrosse games you're watching all year. Memorial Day Weekend belongs to lacrosse thanks to Championship Weekend.
We have 4 teams left playing men's division I lacrosse this weekend. Cornell, Maryland, Penn State, and Syracuse. You have a team like Maryland who has made the final four in 11 out of the past 14 seasons. You have a team like Cornell who has the best player in the country in CJ Kirst, who just became the NCAA's all-time leader in career goals. You have a team like Penn State who is looking to win their first ever national championship on their 3rd trip to the Final Four. And then you have a team like Syracuse, which is one of the most storied programs in the history of college lacrosse but hasn't been relevant for over a decade at this point, making their return to championship weekend.
4 teams still remaining, and 4 great storylines to come out of this one no matter who ends up winning a National Championship. Either Maryland cements their legacy as the most dominant program over the last 20 years, CJ Kirst ends a storybook season, Penn State gets their first ever national title, or Syracuse is officially back. All 4 of those outcomes rule, but the dream dies for 2 of these teams tomorrow in the semifinals.
Saturday, 12pm // Semifinal #1: Penn State vs Cornell // ESPN2
Cornell has been the best team in college lacrosse this season. They only have one loss on the season, and it just so happens to be against Penn State in overtime back in March. It took a massive comeback for Penn State to pull off, and they also had to do it without 2 of their best players in Matt Traynor and Kyle Lehman. They were down by 4 goals multiple times in the 4th quarter. But as we saw against Notre Dame in the quarterfinals, this Penn State team has the ability to go on runs and they also have the ability to completely shut down opposing offenses at the same time.
The defense was able to hold CJ Kirst to just 2 goals on the game. You might be thinking that 2 goals is still pretty good, but you have to keep in mind that 2 goals is the lowest amount he's scored in a game this year. He's been held to 2 goals just 4 times this season. For context, he's scored at least 5 or more goals in 9 games this year.
Alex Ross for Penn State clearly has some sort of idea on how to defend against CJ Kirst, and Penn State gets to play this rematch game with Matt Traynor and Kyle Lehman in the lineup. You have to imagine CJ Kirst is going to explode at some point during this game and go on a run where he completely takes over. But it's supposed to be a little chilly and rainy up in Foxborough tomorrow. That always makes it a little tougher on the offensive side of the ball to really click. As much as I'd love to see the storybook ending for Kirst, I'm feeling like it might just be the Nittany Lions. Which would be pretty poetic for Jeff Tambroni to take down his former team that he led to the Final Four 3 times in 4 years back from 2007-10.
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Saturday, 2:30pm // Semifinal #2: Syracuse vs Maryland // ESPN2
There was a 22-year stretch from 1983 to 2004 where Syracuse made it to every Final Four. If you want to stretch it out a little further, they made 25 out of 27 Final Fours from 1983-2009. In that stretch, they played in the National Championship game 17 times and won 11 of them. Their final two titles came in 2008 and 2009.
But Syracuse hasn't won a National Championship since then. They haven't been back to the Final Four since 2013. When you're Syracuse lacrosse, the only standard for being "back" is to win a title. So it's been over a decade since they've even had a chance.
On the other side of the field, you have Maryland. They're in the middle of a run that's pretty similar to the 80s, 90s and early 2000s Syracuse. They don't have as many titles to show for it, but this is their 11th trip to the Final Four in the last 14 seasons. Since 2011, they've played in the National Championship game 8 times, but have only won 2 of them. They are consistently dominant, but just don't have the hardware to show for it like those couple decades for Syracuse.
So here they are meeting up in the semifinal. Either Maryland gets a chance to chip away at that lead Syracuse has over them historically, or Cuse is as close to being back as they've been in 10+ years. Like the first game on Saturday, this game is also a rematch from earlier in the season. Syracuse travelled down to College Park back in the middle of February, and ended up getting dominated by the Terps 11-7.
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Maryland's strength is definitely goaltending and defense. Syracuse's strength is definitely their offense and faceoffs. So Syracuse is going to get the ball on offense a ton, which means we'll get to see a lot of strength vs strength in this matchup. The fact that there's only going to be a high of 60 degrees tomorrow in Foxborough and it might be a little wet is going to give a slight edge to Maryland's defense. And then you add in how comfortable Maryland is on this stage, which Syracuse hasn't been in this moment for over 10 years. It feels like a classic, methodical Maryland to win to me. But the x-factor in this game is always going to be just how well Joey Spallina is able to match the moment in this game.
He wasn't named a Tewaaraton Award finalist. He wasn't named a first-team All American. Joey Spallina is going to come into this game on Saturday with a massive chip on his shoulder. If that fuels him to a 4-5 goal performance while everyone else around him like Hiltz and Leo and Rhoa have solid days shooting? Then Cuse is playing on Memorial Day for the first time since 2013. But I'm still leaning Maryland here.
3 more games left on the season. It's going to be a glorious weekend to be a lacrosse fan. Soak it all in.
P.S. -- As much as I hated them when I was playing, I'll be rooting my dick off for Dickinson in the DIII National Championship game on Sunday. I suffered plenty of brutal losses to the Red Devils over the span of 4 years, but Centennial Conference over everything.