Just three undefeated D1 lacrosse teams survived the weekend—Maryland, Fairfield, and Army have yet to taste defeat, while Hampton, Loyola, and Wagner are still hunting for joy.
Penn State, Syracuse, and Ohio State were the big winners this week.
20) Jacksonville
Dolphins are (5-2) with wins over Marist, St. John’s, Hampton, Iona, and High Point. That’s not impressive. Losses to Syracuse and Duke can be excused. Slotting Duval into the last spot for the moment because they play in Chapel Hill on Sunday, March 16.
19) Dartmouth
Welcome to the show, Big Green. Dartmouth is (5-1), having lost to UMass but picking up wins over Bucknell, Holy Cross, Vermont, Siena, and Utah. Second-year coach Sean Kirwan is flipping the script in New Hampshire. Goalie Mason Morel sits at 57%, and opponents are clearing at just 80% against Dartmouth. The EMO is clicking at 47% with Thomas Power and Colin McGill leading the way.
18) UMass
The Minutemen dropped their opener to Army but have reeled off five straight wins over Quinnipiac, Dartmouth, NJIT, Albany, and Vermont. Trace Hogan and Robbie Granara are leading the Gorillas, while goalie Owen Salanger is (4-0) with a stellar 64% save percentage.
17) Penn
The Quakers scored on a 90-yard shot into an empty net during a Villanova 10-man ride. I find this annoying. As a goalie, you have a responsibility to protect the goal and split the attackman—half each—so if a shot is taken, you’re in position to catch the long-range bomb. I don’t understand how goalies are vacating the crease without any care for incoming long-range missiles. If the goal responsibility gets passed off to the nearest defender, he too has to give defending the goal more respect. These empty-net goals are troublesome, quite honestly awful, and show me that goalies have no feel for balancing their role in a 10-man ride. And teams that deploy a 10-man ride without ball pressure will get what they deserve.
Penn (3-3) beat Villanova 11-8. Their losses are to Georgetown, Duke, and UNC. Brown comes to Franklin Field on Saturday.
16) Fairfield
The Stags (7-0) scored the first 14 goals in a clash with UMass Lowell, cruising to a 19-5 victory. The (7-0) start matches the best in program history and ties the longest overall winning streak. Fairfield has limited six of its seven opponents to eight goals or fewer.
FOGO Daniel Davis is one of the nation’s best. The Stags travel to Hampton (0-6) on March 15, with key games against Stony Brook, Delaware, and Towson still on the schedule.
15) Richmond
The Spiders (5-2) handled UMBC this week as Max Marklinger put up six points in a 14-8 win. Losses to Maryland and Cornell are high quality, and the win over Virginia keeps an at-large bid within reach as they still get to play Georgetown and Duke.
Lucas Littlejohn and Aidan O’Neil are both playing well, while goalie Zach Vigue has been rock solid between the pipes in 2025. Richmond takes on the Blue Devils this weekend.
14) Harvard
A home win over Michigan further validates Harvard. The 14-11 victory was secured in the fourth quarter as Sam King exploded for six goals.
The Crimson (4-1) host rival Yale on Saturday. Harvard is shooting well, averaging 15.2 goals per game while giving up 14. Sam King continues to rack up points, but their negative ground ball ratio and 34% faceoff win rate are ticking time bombs. The loss to Colgate remains an anchor on their résumé.
13) Colgate
The Raiders trailed 12-8 in the third quarter before going on an 11-2 run, including scoring the final eight goals of the game, to secure a 19-14 victory at Lafayette. Jack Turner had seven points, Rory Connor added six, and Liam Connor continues stockpiling assists.
Colgate (5-2) lost to Penn State and Virginia to begin 2025 but has collected wins over Albany, Harvard, Villanova, Loyola, and Lafayette. The Patriot League regular season and tournament should be captivating.
Bucknell will be in Hamilton, NY, for Colgate’s first home game of 2025. How crazy is that?
12) Georgetown
The Swamp Dogs handled Albany on Wednesday 12-7 and were off this weekend. The Hoyas (4-2) own wins over Loyola, Penn, Brown, and Albany, while their losses have come against Notre Dame and Johns Hopkins.
The extra-man offense is just 3-for-16, and the team is averaging only 10 goals per game. Goalie Anderson Moore, from Birmingham, Alabama, is at 56%. Graduate transfer attackman Fulton Bayman (11,8) has been impactful, but the offense lacks balance, missing true lefties.
Hoyas host High Point next.
11) Notre Dame
A 10-9 loss at home to Ohio State exposed some shortcomings of the two-time defending champs. ND isn’t generating goals outside of settled 6v6 play. The ride lacks teeth. The once-lethal extra-man unit isn’t as dominant. They’re not scoring off face-offs or in transition.
When Chris Kavanagh is neutralized, they don’t have a true QB2. The passing isn’t consistently top-tier, and the third attack spot isn’t producing. The pieces are there—they’re just not fitting together properly yet. Running last year’s offense with new personnel may have to be re-evaluated.
The close defense was excellent, and goalie Thomas Ricciardelli (20 saves) had a great game. But the SSDM group, apparently playing without Tyler Buchner and Christian Alacqua, seemed to drag late in the contest. ND didn’t play badly, they just didn’t play well enough to win. The race to improve is ongoing.
The Irish travel to Michigan next.
10) Duke
With a close loss to Princeton and wins over Bellarmine, Jacksonville, St. Joe’s, Michigan, Penn, and Air Force, I still can’t get a feel for where Duke belongs. We’ll find out more in March and April.
They are shooting 37% but clearing at just 84%, and a team save percentage of 52% against a relatively weak schedule is cause for concern.
Duke faces Providence on March 12 and Richmond on the road this week.
9) Ohio State
The first road trip of the year to Notre Dame resulted in a seventh consecutive win for OSU. A Shane O’Leary goal from Garrett Haas on a sneaky question mark set play off a timeout made it 10-9 Buckeyes with less than 15 seconds to go. This game was never more than a two-goal spread. D-man Bobby Van Buren did outstanding work covering Chris Kavanagh, while defenders Kyle Foster and Cullen Brown limited Jake Taylor’s shots. The Ohio State rope unit (Langermeier, Allen, Eiland, Liedel, Shaw, Cool) is more than solid, and goalie Caleb Fyock didn’t let in any soft goals.
The Buckeyes have a defense of national merit. After stubbing their toe against Utah on February 1, they’ve fully bought into a gritty, defense-first identity. Ohio State played hard. They competed for 60 minutes and didn’t sabotage themselves on the road. They earned my respect.
The offense isn’t electric but effective, with Haas running the show from X. Haas, who spent two years on a mission in South Africa before recalibrating in 2024, is a worker and a classic two-handed X threat. Marinier is the righty wing shooter, and Ryan Donnery hovers on the left side. Fairfield transfer Jack McKenna (6-6) was productive. Freshman Liam White can run and scored a critical late goal. The entire first midfield is made up of transfers. OSU doesn’t have anybody from NY, NJ, or PA in its two-deep—I’ve never seen that.
Alex Marinier had a hat trick and was my guest on the podcast. The goal scorer from Burlington, Ontario, came to Columbus as a defenseman and has scored over 50 goals after a position switch. The Buckeyes now have wins over UVA and ND and fly west to Denver. Navigate the rat traps.
8) Johns Hopkins
Jays in the Dome on Sunday for a standalone ESPNU game.
Hopkins took a 3-2 lead in the first quarter when Matt Collison fired from distance on an extra-man opportunity against a flopping SU goalie. Whatever happened to stepping to the ball? Hunter Chauvette made it four straight. The game slowed down in the second quarter, tied 4-4, with JHU’s defense organized and making astute slide decisions while forcing weak-angle shots. A routine clear suddenly became transition offense, and Quintan Kilrain capitalized, giving Hopkins a 6-5 halftime lead.
Hopkins looks battle-tested and has dialed back its overzealous sliding. The game was tied 6-6 halfway through the third quarter before Dylan Bauer scored off a crease feed. Eric Chick then took a shorty left-handed, and the SU goalie jumped at the shot, somehow letting it in from a tough angle. JHU led 8-6 with 19 minutes to play.
The game turned on a gimmick play. Joey Spallina and Sam English pulled off the hidden ball trick to make it 9-8 Cuse. No excuse to ever give up a goal like that. Communicate. Collison tied it at 9-9, but a bad upfield slide opened up interior passing lanes, leading to a 10-9 Syracuse lead with 8:13 left. Charlie Iler tied it again at 10-10, and I would expect him to be in the lineup moving forward.
Then it unraveled. 10-10 suddenly became a 12-10 deficit with under six minutes to play. Goal 13 for SU was a classic example of bad slides creating offense for the opponent. Four different d-men committed to English, and a wide-open wing shot found twine. Over-sliding against quality opposition is a losing strategy.
Hopkins has a good team in 2025, no doubt. But can they be great? Can they get over the hump and win a quarterfinal round game?
Hopkins (5-2) plays at Navy on Saturday night at 7 p.m., which is always a spectacle in Annapolis.
7) Syracuse
An early lead in the Dome behind Dwan, Leo, and Hiltz dissipated into a 4-4 tie after one quarter. Hopkins committed a two-minute non-releasable penalty, but SU fouled immediately. Not smart. Syracuse doesn’t play championship-brand lacrosse when it comes to game management. They make all sorts of clock and score mistakes and have to deal with self-inflicted wounds. SU would benefit from executing the fundamentals better.
The second midfield delivered as Wyatt Hottle drew the JHU slide, and Tyler Cordes finished to tie it 5-5. Spallina was being taken out by Scott Smith.
Down 6-5 in the third, #HHH couldn’t find the cage and had already hit three pipes. Luke Rhoa face-dodged and somehow squeaked one past Staudt to tie it 6-6. Down 8-6, shot selection and execution became an issue—too much sidearm. Off a restart from the end line, Cordes scored his second of the game off the dodge to make it 8-7. Michael Leo then dodged from the left GLE and buried an overhand finish to tie it 8-8.
Then came the momentum swing. Spallina and English executed the hidden ball trick to give Otto a 9-8 lead heading into the fourth. That should never happen. English seems to be playing the entire game.
A 9-9 tie after Trey Deere’s shot was stuffed by Staudt turned into a 10-9 Orange lead with eight minutes to play. When Rhoa stung the net, it was 10-10 again. But then Hiltz, with his fourth goal of the afternoon, gave SU a 12-10 lead after getting fouled on the shot.
Syracuse’s lack of discipline showed again when Trey Deere retaliated against Weishaar and got flagged. It didn’t cost them this time, but it could have.
Hopkins fouled, and SU was patient. Deere reset the shot clock at 3:35, and JHU didn’t press out despite being down two goals. Leo sealed it with a lefty rip after English drew slides from four different defenders. 13-10.
Jimmy McCool made a stop with 1:30 to play to secure the win.
Orange (5-2) play Manhattan and Colgate this week. The Raiders won’t back down.
6) North Carolina
The Heels handled Hofstra 18-7 and sit at (5-1) with wins over Michigan, Stony Brook, Penn, and Johns Hopkins. Owen Duffy has 25 points, and Dom Pietramala is (22,1).
Jacksonville comes to Chapel Hill on Sunday.
5) Cornell
Catastrophic collapse at home, losing to Penn State after building a four-goal lead with under three minutes to play. A handful of fans braved the 29-degree temps and wind on Saturday in Ithaca. Some left early and missed the drama.
Cornell’s FOGO committed an unreleasable penalty, and their 12-8 lead disappeared into a 12-12 tie in the last 2:27 of regulation. It’s bad enough to kill off a two-minute penalty late in the fourth quarter, but when your FOGO is in the box, it becomes make-it, take-it for the opponent. Big Red’s (4-1) penalty-killing unit didn’t get the job done.
The usual suspects—CJ Kirst, Michael Long, and Ryan Goldstein—provided the points. Neither goalie found success, and Cornell didn’t get notable bench scoring. Big Red hosts Princeton on Saturday for Ivy supremacy. The winner likely secures home-field advantage for the Ivy Tournament.
4) Army
Sixty-one members of the roster played in a 17-4 win over Holy Cross—that’s two busloads. The Cadets led 17-2 after 45 minutes as Jackson Eicher took 16 shots and finished with nine points. Brady White and Bennett Ong saw minutes in the cage.
Army (6-0) now plays Lehigh in coal country. The Mountain Hawks knocked Navy off the list this week. LSM Christian Fournier gobbles up loose balls like stat man Russ Dlin eats hot dogs. The dilemma for Army is strength of schedule—it’s hard to improve when you’re playing non-Top 20 teams so frequently.
3) Penn State
Playing without Matt Traynor, on the road, with goalie Jack Fracyon making just four saves, the Lions trailed 12-8 with less than four minutes to play. No panic.
Kyle Aldridge cut it to 12-9 with 2:27 left. On the ensuing faceoff ground ball, Cornell’s Jack Cascadden was flagged for unnecessary roughness and given a two-minute non-releasable penalty with 2:20 remaining. Liam Matthews scored on the EMO to make it 12-10 with 1:52 left. Luke Walstrum struck on the power play to cut it to 12-11 with 1:18. Jack Aimone tied the score as the penalty was released—12-12 with 17 seconds left.
Three minutes into overtime, after a Big Red turnover, Ethan Long banged home the game-winner on an assist from Hunter Aquino. Crazy finish.
RoMo visits Happy Valley on Wednesday, March 12.
2) Princeton
The Tigers took care of Rutgers on Saturday night as goalie Ryan Croddick thrived under the lights. Princeton has quality wins at Penn State, at Duke, at North Carolina, and now over the Scarlet Knights.
Coulter Mackesy was my guest last week on the Quintessential Podcast.
Barbecue Burns is shooting at a high percentage for a squad looking to get back to Championship Weekend after losing in the 2022 semis. The Tigers square off with Cornell in Ithaca on Saturday in a monster matchup.
Princeton began playing men’s lacrosse in 1882 and had immediate success, winning a national championship in 1883. They captured nine pre-NCAA titles, the latest in 1951 and 1953. Under coach Bill Tierney, the Tigers won NCAA gold in 1992, 1994, 1996-98, and 2001.
1) Maryland
The Terps (6-0) suffocated Delaware 14-3, holding the Hens to just 17 shots through 45 minutes.
Maryland is so clean. They committed just eight turnovers and cleared 23-for-23. They don’t beat themselves and control tempo. Watch them sprint on the whistle to stop play. They are the restart kings.
Eric Spanos had four assists, while Zach Whittier (2,3) and Elijah Stobaugh (2,1) were effective. Bench scoring for Maryland remains a subplot in need of a weekly revision.
Maryland travels down Route 29 to play Virginia at 4 p.m. Saturday (ACCN). I’ll be on-site for the television call. Temps may hit 70 degrees.
Q-Tips
Navy lost its tenth straight game to Lehigh and was demoted from the Top 20 on Friday night. Denver and Michigan got tossed from the party.
Virginia, Yale, LIU, BU, VMI, Sacred Heart, Providence, St. Joe’s, and Stony Brook are on the radar. The Wahoos and Bulldogs are one more win away from inclusion.
Quint Kessenich covers lacrosse for the ESPN family of networks and writes for LaxAllstars. Check out his weekly podcast at laxallstars.com in the media section. Recent guests include current players Alex Marinier, Eric Spanos, Shawn Lyght, Coulter Mackesy, Billy Dwan III and Casey Wilson.
