Win Over Orange Reemerges BC As National Contender
April 22, 2024 | Lacrosse, #ForBoston Files
The wolf remains on the chicken coop hunt.
It was time to find a final gear.
Neither Boston College nor Syracuse had been able to gain a foothold or significant advantage during their intense matchup on the Alumni Stadium lacrosse field. More than 4,000 people rocked the lower bowl of the stadium normally reserved for the Eagles' football exploits, but the game had honed down to one save and one shot in an overtime period. Deadlocked at 10-10, Shea Dolce's number earned the first call when the second-ranked Orange offered the first exchange of a sudden victory situation, and her biggest save of a game in which she faced 26 shots and seven in the final period established a moment for BC to look within itself for a championship-level performance.
"It was time to play like champions," said head coach Acacia Walker-Weinstein. "We can't wait to feel like champions after a game. We have to play like champions. I told them to focus because we'd been having some focus issues and just draw their attention to little details that are going to matter."
One Cassidy Weeks shot later, BC reminded the college lacrosse landscape exactly which wolf still hunted the ACC's chicken coop. She buried a pass from Emma LoPinto to score her third goal of the game, and after Rachel Clark's three-goal fourth period tied the game with 90 seconds remaining, the five-tie, six-change scoreboard ended with its final tally.
Achievement unlocked, and down went the top-ranked Orange, 11-10.
"We've talked about resilience," Walker-Weinstein said after the win. "We have a dominant senior class that has been in those moments before, and they don't really lose their composure. They're really cool and calm, which I love."
Lacrosse's reemergence onto the forefront of BC's news cycle was a welcome change from the doldrums down week associated with the interim period after the end of winter's postseason. The Massachusetts school vacation week began on the previous Sunday, but a void existed after the Eagles' hockey trip to the Frozen Four ended in the team's first national championship game appearance in 12 years. The Boston Marathon offered a one-day respite from a possible hole in the rest of the week, and the basketball trip to the NIT felt increasingly in the rearview mirror after the program ended a six-year postseason absence.Â
Even the Jay McGillis Spring Game heralded the end of football activities under new head coach Bill O'Brien, and Pro Day's departure marked the final changeover between NFL-bound Eagles and their next levels of gridiron greatness. The diamond sports remained a factor, but even baseball's appearance on the media's NCAA Tournament bubble felt more like the continuation of a long, repetitious regular season.
The timing was more natural for lacrosse, but BC's emergence from the winter-based start of the season felt more anomalous compared to its undefeated or top-ranked recent history because of the team's losses to Notre Dame and Virginia. The Eagles remained part of their sport's top-ranked aristocracy by swamping North Carolina and Yale in consecutive games at the start of the month, but the uncharacteristic, one-goal loss to Virginia marked the program's first defeat to the Cavaliers since a 16-15 loss in Charlottesville in 2016.Â
Losing both that game and the earlier home game against Notre Dame guaranteed BC wouldn't enter a postseason unimpacted by COVID as the No. 1 seed for the first time since 2017, but possibilities remained strong for the Eagles to fall into a three-way tie for the No. 4 seed if they didn't defeat Syracuse. That likely could have caused the team to fall to fifth place on a tiebreaker scenario because of North Carolina's previous win over Virginia, which would have finished third due to its win over second place Notre Dame.
No one road is easier than any others, but finishing third also kept BC on a track to a national championship bid that increasingly wavered away from its home bid. A win over Duke and a significant run in the ACC Tournament might move the Eagles back to a bracket in either Chestnut Hill or Newton, but the latest projection for the 29-team tournament had the Eagles traveling to Philadelphia to play Penn State in a bracket hosted by eighth-seeded Penn, which would open its home region against UMass. A grouping rife with potential storylines, the Quakers would classify as one of four Ivy League bids from a league with better RPI performances than the ACC after BC's win over Syracuse knocked the Orange under third-ranked Yale and the fourth-ranked Penn team.
That conversation is nothing more than white noise ahead of the ACC Tournament, but the more pressing details are focusing on BC's overall track through Charlotte ahead of Wednesday night's 8 p.m. start time against Duke. Avoiding a potential rematch with Syracuse in the semifinal is one storyline, but finishing third avoids the titanic quarterfinal game that Virginia and UNC are now forced to play. The Eagles simultaneously gain a track to face second-seeded Notre Dame if they advance through the Blue Devils, who were blown out at home in an 18-3 loss one game after the Fighting Irish finished one-goal ahead of BC in the Red Bandanna Day game in mid-March.
"I think this just gives us a little bit more confidence to work a little bit harder," said Walker-Weinstein. "That's the plan. Confidence can do a lot, but I think, for us, the confidence gets to help them work a little bit harder. We're going to need it heading into the tournament."
BC and Duke begin their ACC Tournament journeys on Wednesday night at 8 p.m. from the American Legion Memorial Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina. The game can be seen on national television via the ACC Network with the winner advancing to play the 5 p.m. game against either Clemson or Notre Dame in the second semifinal matchup. The conference championship is scheduled for Sunday, April 28, at noon.
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Neither Boston College nor Syracuse had been able to gain a foothold or significant advantage during their intense matchup on the Alumni Stadium lacrosse field. More than 4,000 people rocked the lower bowl of the stadium normally reserved for the Eagles' football exploits, but the game had honed down to one save and one shot in an overtime period. Deadlocked at 10-10, Shea Dolce's number earned the first call when the second-ranked Orange offered the first exchange of a sudden victory situation, and her biggest save of a game in which she faced 26 shots and seven in the final period established a moment for BC to look within itself for a championship-level performance.
"It was time to play like champions," said head coach Acacia Walker-Weinstein. "We can't wait to feel like champions after a game. We have to play like champions. I told them to focus because we'd been having some focus issues and just draw their attention to little details that are going to matter."
One Cassidy Weeks shot later, BC reminded the college lacrosse landscape exactly which wolf still hunted the ACC's chicken coop. She buried a pass from Emma LoPinto to score her third goal of the game, and after Rachel Clark's three-goal fourth period tied the game with 90 seconds remaining, the five-tie, six-change scoreboard ended with its final tally.
Achievement unlocked, and down went the top-ranked Orange, 11-10.
"We've talked about resilience," Walker-Weinstein said after the win. "We have a dominant senior class that has been in those moments before, and they don't really lose their composure. They're really cool and calm, which I love."
Lacrosse's reemergence onto the forefront of BC's news cycle was a welcome change from the doldrums down week associated with the interim period after the end of winter's postseason. The Massachusetts school vacation week began on the previous Sunday, but a void existed after the Eagles' hockey trip to the Frozen Four ended in the team's first national championship game appearance in 12 years. The Boston Marathon offered a one-day respite from a possible hole in the rest of the week, and the basketball trip to the NIT felt increasingly in the rearview mirror after the program ended a six-year postseason absence.Â
Even the Jay McGillis Spring Game heralded the end of football activities under new head coach Bill O'Brien, and Pro Day's departure marked the final changeover between NFL-bound Eagles and their next levels of gridiron greatness. The diamond sports remained a factor, but even baseball's appearance on the media's NCAA Tournament bubble felt more like the continuation of a long, repetitious regular season.
The timing was more natural for lacrosse, but BC's emergence from the winter-based start of the season felt more anomalous compared to its undefeated or top-ranked recent history because of the team's losses to Notre Dame and Virginia. The Eagles remained part of their sport's top-ranked aristocracy by swamping North Carolina and Yale in consecutive games at the start of the month, but the uncharacteristic, one-goal loss to Virginia marked the program's first defeat to the Cavaliers since a 16-15 loss in Charlottesville in 2016.Â
Losing both that game and the earlier home game against Notre Dame guaranteed BC wouldn't enter a postseason unimpacted by COVID as the No. 1 seed for the first time since 2017, but possibilities remained strong for the Eagles to fall into a three-way tie for the No. 4 seed if they didn't defeat Syracuse. That likely could have caused the team to fall to fifth place on a tiebreaker scenario because of North Carolina's previous win over Virginia, which would have finished third due to its win over second place Notre Dame.
No one road is easier than any others, but finishing third also kept BC on a track to a national championship bid that increasingly wavered away from its home bid. A win over Duke and a significant run in the ACC Tournament might move the Eagles back to a bracket in either Chestnut Hill or Newton, but the latest projection for the 29-team tournament had the Eagles traveling to Philadelphia to play Penn State in a bracket hosted by eighth-seeded Penn, which would open its home region against UMass. A grouping rife with potential storylines, the Quakers would classify as one of four Ivy League bids from a league with better RPI performances than the ACC after BC's win over Syracuse knocked the Orange under third-ranked Yale and the fourth-ranked Penn team.
That conversation is nothing more than white noise ahead of the ACC Tournament, but the more pressing details are focusing on BC's overall track through Charlotte ahead of Wednesday night's 8 p.m. start time against Duke. Avoiding a potential rematch with Syracuse in the semifinal is one storyline, but finishing third avoids the titanic quarterfinal game that Virginia and UNC are now forced to play. The Eagles simultaneously gain a track to face second-seeded Notre Dame if they advance through the Blue Devils, who were blown out at home in an 18-3 loss one game after the Fighting Irish finished one-goal ahead of BC in the Red Bandanna Day game in mid-March.
"I think this just gives us a little bit more confidence to work a little bit harder," said Walker-Weinstein. "That's the plan. Confidence can do a lot, but I think, for us, the confidence gets to help them work a little bit harder. We're going to need it heading into the tournament."
BC and Duke begin their ACC Tournament journeys on Wednesday night at 8 p.m. from the American Legion Memorial Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina. The game can be seen on national television via the ACC Network with the winner advancing to play the 5 p.m. game against either Clemson or Notre Dame in the second semifinal matchup. The conference championship is scheduled for Sunday, April 28, at noon.
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