When asked if there was anything her team would need to do to beat No. 1 North Carolina on Sunday, as BC’s only loss of the season came against the Tar Heels a few weeks prior, BC head coach Acacia Walker-Weinstein kept it simple.
“No,” Walker-Weinstein said. “We just need to play BC lacrosse and be us.”
Following a 16–9 win over No. 3-seed Stanford (14–5, 7–2 Atlantic Coast), No. 2-seed BC lacrosse (17–1, 8–1) will try to do just that against the Tar Heels on Sunday in the ACC Championship. After taking home the title the past two years, the Eagles find themselves on a quest for a three-peat.
“We have worked a lot since that loss against UNC,” Emma LoPinto said. “I think [Sunday] is another opportunity, and not everyone gets to compete in the ACC, and I think to have a chance for a championship is really special. We get another day to hang out with each other and love each other even more, and I think we will take advantage of that for sure.”
Stanford did not go down without a battle on Friday night as the Cardinal tried to hold off a loss that would kick it out of the tournament in its first year in the conference.
BC’s primary offensive weapon Rachel Clark put the first points on the board for the Eagles a little under four minutes into the matchup. Off an Avery Hudson assist, Clark rattled a shot through the legs of Stanford’s Lucy Pearson.
It didn’t take long for the Cardinal to respond, though. Off a draw control win by Aliya Polisky, Ava Arceri took the ball to net and faded past her defender as Shea Dolce was unable to come up with the save, tying the game.
Arceri went on to have four of Stanford’s goals within the matchup.
“We knew it was going to be a fight, and Stanford showed that within the first few quarters,” Morgan Smith said. “One thing we focused on was playing our game. Our game is being at the top of every single stat: ground balls, goals, everything. That really showed at the end and that’s how we played away.”
But BC fired back just one play later off a Kylee Colbert draw control turned assist to McKenna Davis, giving the Eagles a 2–1 edge.
With a little over five minutes left in the first frame, Polisky secured a goal of her own—her 54th of the season—knotting the game 2–2.
Less than three minutes later, Arceri came up with another big play for Stanford as she netted her second goal of the game, giving the Cardinal a 3–2 lead.
This lead was short-lived, however, as this was both the first and last time that Stanford would hold the lead.
With just six seconds left until the second quarter, Mia Mascone did exactly what Walker-Weinstein mentioned: played BC lacrosse. Off a ground ball pickup, Mascone winded up her shot and took the ball to the cage, tying the game 3–3.
From this point on, BC’s first-quarter sloppiness disintegrated.
While before, Stanford managed to stay within a three-goal deficit of the Eagles, that changed in the last 13 seconds of the second quarter.
Within a 13-seconds time frame, LoPinto tallied two goals to give BC a 9–4 lead, with the second one resembling an ESPN Top 10 Play.
https://x.com/theACC/status/1915935665558114587
In the second half of the matchup, BC’s lead only grew, as the Eagles’ defense held Stanford to minimal shots on net.
“We really emphasize unit defense,” Smith said. “We are saying if all eight, all in. I want to give a shout-out to Lydia Colasante, she is one of our star defenders that is out right now, and I think our unit has really rallied around playing for her and making her feel like she is still part of the unit. That has been a huge part of our success in the tournament having her as a backbone on the sideline.”
Ultimately, BC took the matchup 16–9, ending Stanford’s bid at its first ACC Championship tournament.
Walker-Weinstein praised Stanford’s performance in its first tournament appearance.
“People come to the ACC to play the most elite lacrosse that there is,” Walker-Weinstein said. “Anytime that we can add a good lacrosse team, all it does is strengthen everybody else and make all these talented players on all these talented teams a little bit better. I think the mentality of an ACC player is, ‘If you are good, come on, let’s make everyone better and make this conference even stronger.’”
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