The first few weeks of the college lacrosse season have started and there are surprising teams ranked in the top 25. Teams like Hofstra (23), Fairfield (20), and Saint Joseph’s (15) are unexpectedly ranked high this year, despite not having much past success. On the other hand, teams like Duke (10), North Carolina (4), and Maryland (2) always hover around the top 10 every year.
No matter what the standings look like right now, they always change throughout the season, especially the top 25. There are so many Division 1 lacrosse teams that it’s almost impossible to count out any team in the nation. Each team has one main goal and that’s to win a national championship in May, or in other words, to beat Notre Dame in May, as they’ve won back to back championships.
Players like CJ Kirst of Cornell, Joey Spalinna of Syracuse, and Owen Duffy of North Carolina are among the top players in the nation for their respective schools. Kirst a senior, Spalinna a junior, and Duffy a sophomore are all crafty attackmen that lead their team’s offenses. Kirst and Spalinna both have 55 points throughout the first month of their season, while Duffy is right behind with 42. All three of these players will continue to dominate the rest of the season and for the rest of their careers as they’re borderline generational talents.
The variety of different teams make the conferences super competitive. The top conferences consist of the Big Ten, Ivy League, and Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). Though, If I were to pick between these conferences based off this year, I’d have to say the ACC, since they have some of the top teams in the country including North Carolina, Syracuse, Notre Dame, and Duke who are all in the top ten as of April 1.
An underrated team that can make a deep run in the tournament has to be the Fairfield Stags. They started off the season 9-1 and were the only undefeated team in the country before they were taken down 17-16 by Stony Brook. Despite the loss, they still have a very complete and talented roster, this team is the best it’s been in program history and they could sneakily upset some top teams.
If the season ended today, my prediction is that Cornell will be national champions. The Big Red were runners up in 2009 and 2022, but they haven’t won it since 1977, so they’ll be hungry for their first championship in 48 years. Cornell is ranked number one in the country right now and if anyone can carry a team to a championship, it’s CJ Kirst in his senior year campaign.
Overall, lacrosse is one of my favorite sports to play and watch and it’s growing rapidly around the world. College lacrosse has more teams than any other sport in any division, which helps young kids around the world play the sport they love at the school they desire. In addition, the Professional Lacrosse League (PLL) was just created in 2018, and I believe the sport and the league is only going to grow from here.