When hoisting the trophy after defeating No. 1 Northwestern in the 2024 National Championship, just one season after the Wildcats trampled BC 18–6 for the 2023 title, it seemed like Boston College lacrosse had achieved just about everything they wanted.
But the Eagles haven’t.
In fact, they are hungry for something that BC lacrosse has never had before: back-to-back national championship wins.
“I think the hunger is there, maybe even more so than other years,” BC head coach Acacia Walker-Weinstein said. “I think the hunger is there because the storyline for us and for the team is we are always trying to do more for the program, and we’ve never won back-to-back ever.”
Mallory Hasselbeck kept it simple when reiterating this goal.
“Once you get a taste of a national championship, you just want to keep getting better, and we’re trying to do something that BC lacrosse has never done before, go back-to-back,” Hasselbeck said. “You may be able to say, ‘Oh yeah like they’ve won before, okay, your career—you can say you’re good.’ But I say, ‘Let’s do something that has never been done before and make history and go back-to-back.’”
BC finished the 2024 season 20–3, capturing its second consecutive ACC Championship after downing Syracuse 15–8. The national title that followed marked Weinstein and co.’s second win through seven straight national championship appearances.
After losing 13 players to graduation, including powerhouses Belle Smith, Sydney Scales, and Kayla Martello, BC’s roster looks vastly different this season. With the Eagles welcoming nine dominant freshmen and three transfers, though, the expectations remain the same—if not greater.
“We challenge [the seniors] by letting them know that they don’t have the crutch of this very senior-led team that they’ve had for the last few years—that now the previous seniors left, it’s on you, and it’s your team,” Walker-Weinstein said. “Now this is your team. What are you going to do with it? And they love that.”
The incoming freshman class features one attacker, six midfielders, and two defenders. The first years are a star-studded group, to say the least.
According to ILWomen.com, BC has the third-ranked recruiting class with four players in the top 50, most notably being No. 4 Devon Russell, No. 5 Giulia Colarusso, No. 24 Hanna Davis, and No. 36 Kelly Blake.
Each of BC’s three transfers came from an Ivy League school, including two Pennsylvania transfers in Maria Themelis and Morgan Smith and Mia Mascone from Brown.
During her undergraduate years at Brown, Mascone’s career-high 62 goals and 98 points set a Bears single-season program record in 2024. Earning Ivy League Attacker of the Year and All-American Honorable Mention, Mascone led the country with 6.53 points per game, and her 4.13 goals per game were good for third nationally.
Another key addition for the Eagles is Smith, another graduate Ivy League transfer.
Coming from Penn, Smith aided the Quakers in going 29–10 during the past two seasons, leading them to the Ivy League title in 2023 and two NCAA Tournament appearances. Smith’s roots trace back to BC, as her father played lacrosse for BC, and her sister, Ryan Smith, led the Eagles to two national championships during her tenure.
Themelis, the other Penn transfer, finished her career with the Quakers with 67 goals, 14 assists, and 81 points.
An intricate part of BC’s playmaking success is its ability to capitalize off the transfer portal. This year proves no different.
The team may boast fresh faces, but Walker-Weinstein believes her team’s confidence and drive to reach an eighth-straight national championship is still apparent.
“We have not pulled back at all,” Walker-Weinstein said. “If anything, I would say we’re asking for more. They have really answered the bell, to be honest.”
The captains for the 2025 season are Shea Baker and Hasselbeck. The junior and senior duo have experience winning at BC, as both players were members of the two consecutive ACC Championship title teams and the 2024 national title team.
“We come in as freshmen, and it’s like it’s the expectation at BC that you go to the Final Four and then the national championship, but I don’t think it really set in until we were on the field for that first national championship, which we lost by one goal to UNC,” Hasselbeck said. “I was like, ‘Oh wow, it actually takes a lot of hard work to get here.’ That same drive hasn’t left the program, hasn’t left the locker room, and it hasn’t left Acacia.”
Hasselbeck expanded on what she and Baker are trying to achieve in the coming season.
“Something that Acacia has really instilled in us is that you don’t need to be Belle Smith or Sydney Scales or Ryan Smith, but you need to be Shea Baker or Mallory Hasselbeck,” Hasselbeck said. “I think that’s kind of how we are going about this. It’s going to take all of us to win it.”
The trio of Emma LoPinto, Rachel Clark, and Mckenna Davis will also be players to watch this season. Transfer-turned-BC stars LoPinto and Clark have 273 and 252 points, respectively—that’s good for first and third among juniors nationally. BC’s Davis rounds things off with 214 points going into this year.
On Feb. 7, the Eagles open the season versus No. 8 Loyola Maryland in Fish Field House.
The Greyhounds are coming off an impressive 18–3 season, racking up wins against No. 10 Florida, No. 12 John Hopkins, No. 25 Penn State, No. 18 Navy, and No. 17 Princeton.
The Greyhounds advanced to the second round of the NCAA tournament after defeating Duke 16–11, but ultimately fell to Penn 12–9.
Despite being the reigning champion, Walker-Weinstein says her team’s preparation has not changed.
“No lead is safe, we’ve learned that being on both sides of it,” Walker-Weinstein said. “I think these girls are humble, and I don’t think we have to remind them that everybody’s gunning for us.”
Clark echoed that.
“Knowing that the target is on our backs every single game,” Clark said. “It’s like a different type of motivation for us, for sure.”
Maybe the most highly anticipated regular season game of BC’s season will be on Feb. 15 when No. 1 BC takes on No. 2 Northwestern. The real question is whether the Wildcats will get their vengeance against the reigning champions after losing lacrosse royalty Dylan Amonte and Izzy Scane.
Another notable matchup for the Eagles is their game against Syracuse on April 17, which is a rematch of the ACC championship game from last year and will likely be a tense battle.
Coming off a national championship win and being ranked No. 1 in the preseason polls, the Eagles still go into every matchup considering themselves the underdogs, according to Lydia Colasante.
“I think Belle Smith said something last year that really stuck with me,” Colasante said. “She said, ‘No matter how many national championships this program wins, we will always be the underdogs.’ I think we always attack every opponent like we are the underdogs, and we take our preparation very seriously, and I think that’s something that really sets us apart, so we are just carrying this mentality into the season.”
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