Leadership Leads The Way As BC Enters Home Stretch

College lacrosse was once parochially concentrated to its powerhouses. Its most successful programs centered themselves in traditional strongholds at Northwestern and Maryland while the Ivy League provided traditional depth to both the men's and women's game, and the more localized secondary programs emerged after other universities emerged from its most fertile proving grounds. No new teams ever claimed their own slice of the pie to compete for a national championship, let alone unseat the elitist banners belonging to the bluest of blooded teams.

The glass ceiling grew even more impenetrable and impregnable after North Carolina gained its first entry to the NCAA Tournament's final game in 2009. Nobody, especially not a team from the coldwater Northeast, broke through until Boston College advanced to the 2017 championship game hosted in its Gillette Stadium, but the years following the Eagles' first few runs completely shifted the power brokers to newer brands.

BC remained at the forefront by building championship contenders on an annual basis, and last year's national championship - the team's second banner - came in its seventh consecutive trip to the NCAA Tournament's final round. The college landscape changed significantly over that time period, but the Eagles stayed constant because of their willingness to adapt to the times.

Even this year, no national championship hangover existed. The lone loss to the Tar Heels was, by then, a product of the way two teams attacked one matchup during this season, and the residual win on a snow-swept Senior Day left little doubt for No. 2 BC's overall intention. Led by its latest group of seniors, the 2025 team now ends its regular season with a game against a heated rival before entering a postseason teeming with possibility and promise.

"I think we always learn a lot from both wins and losses," said head coach Acacia Walker-Weinstein ahead of last week's win over the Cavaliers. "We just fix and control what we can control, and we try to get a little better [every dah], which I believe is based on the way that the girls practice. [After UNC], we came to practice and got better. [Virginia] is not a cupcake game, so they [were] a good team for us to see what we're made of."

The traditional view of a college sport's senior class watches individual players develop over a four-year period. They enter college with a wide-eyed lack of awareness towards the expectations awaiting them on a daily basis, and they spend most of that first year learning new terminology and geography. In some cases, they transition into new roles entirely while adapting to the speed of a game while other players are expected to jump right into a roster's starting lineup. The rest of their time is based on how they adapt to physical and emotional growth before they pass the torch to the next group of freshmen who later develop into their upper class mentors.

The transfer portal naturally changed that entire process, but BC embraced the challenge by blending its older seniors with newer players drawn to the successful brand established by Walker-Weinstein. The seven-year itch created by the team's annual runs to the national championship game allowed her to sell success to incoming players while mandating that the culture not shift away from the hungry underdog mentality that began when she started building the foundational blocks of the mid-2010s.

"Now that people view BC as a lacrosse school, that was a hurdle that we tried to jump," admitted Walker-Weinstein. "We tried to convince Sam Apuzzo, Mikaela Rix and all of those players to come to BC over a Maryland, a UNC or a Virginia, and five or six years ago, people started to see BC as a lacrosse school, which was pretty awesome. They learned about our championship culture, and that's so cool because that's what we set out, 12 years ago, to do, and we did it. It's hard to do what you say you're going to do, and with all the parity and all of these other schools and the incredible coaches, what we've done is more special because we've been able to have players come into our program while consistently remaining near or at the top [of the sport]."

The 2025 Eagles are perhaps the greatest indicator of that vision because their leaders blended the homegrown traditionalism with a new-school talent influx. Beyond the likes of Charlotte North, who is arguably the greatest lacrosse player in the world, or Rachel Hall were Rachel Clark and Emma LoPinto. Maria Themelis and Morgan Smith each joined the program from Penn's Ivy League-based tournament team, and Mia Mascone transferred from Brown.

They joined upperclasswomen like Mckenna Davis and Elizabeth Kirk while Shea Baker remained one of the team's most trusted draw control specialists. She joined Mallory Hasselbeck atop the captaincy because of their homegrown leadership qualities and a familiarity that made it easier for newcomers and young players to blend their skills for a new look and new take on traditional core values instilled by years of successful runs through the ACC and national levels.

"It's gold to be able to learn from a player like Maria," said Walker-Weinstein. "The wins, the losses, the practice plans, the routines, the habits - all of that stuff is golden. And we're infusing it with a player like Mallory Hasselbeck and other players like Emma LoPinto or Rachel Clark, who all have different BC experiences. Rounding that out is very rare because they're all willing to teach each other something. They're all willing to listen, and that's very unique. It's something I love about the team."

Mining that quality improved the team after both the wins and the one loss to UNC, and BC's bounceback performance against Virginia illustrated the chemistry associated with the team's overall system. What's now far from a one-person showcase features a deepening of the team throughout each of its fields even as the Eagles remained No. 1 or No. 2 in overall offensive and defensive numbers.

Junior Abbey Herod, a homegrown recruit from New York, earned 13 draw controls while Baker registered seven and Smith caused three turnovers. Clark and LoPinto each earned nine points while Mckenna Davis scored nine assists and Shea Dolce saved five shots

Mascone joined Themelis on the score sheet with a goal apiece, and even Hasselbeck scored on her only shot on goal. A 4-0 first quarter lead extended to 6-1 before Virginia scored twice ahead of the break, and BC rallied from watching the Wahoos claw back to within a goal before rattling seven consecutive goals around the end of the second and start of the third periods. Scoring seven of the game's last eight goals broke the scoreboard into double digits, which in turn left the Eagles with a 13-goal victory ahead of their season finale against Syracuse.

"All of these girls that have come to BC have been so thirsty and hungry to learn about the BC way," said Walker-Weinstein. "There's a humility to all of them that's been the common denominator. They're all hungry to win, and they're all humble. They've let their guards down to teach them everything that we've learned, and as we've grown more comfortable, they've taught us what they know. It's endless. There's a lot of exchanges between leadership and their own individual expertise. That's one of the superpowers of this team."

BC concludes its regular season on Thursday with a game against No. 14 Syracuse. The opening draw is set for 7 p.m. with television coverage slotted for the ACC Network Extra. Following the game, the Eagles will begin preparation for next week's ACC Women's Lacrosse Championship, which begins on Wednesday and continues through Friday and Sunday from Charlotte's American Legion Memorial Stadium.

Leadership Leads The Way As BC Enters Home Stretch

Players Mentioned

Shea Baker

Rachel Clark

Mckenna Davis

Shea Dolce

Mallory Hasselbeck

Abbey Herod

Elizabeth Kirk

Emma LoPinto

Mia Mascone

Morgan Smith

Maria Themelis

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