Boston College Athletics
Photo by: Nick Green
Out On Their Shield
May 12, 2026 | Lacrosse, #ForBoston Files
BC went down swinging by displaying the raw emotion of an undaunted team.
The frenetic end to Boston College's 10-9 loss to No. 5 Stony Brook in the Second Round of the 2026 NCAA Division I Women's Lacrosse Championship stamped every reason behind the Eagles' championship pedigree. Multiple turnovers forced, multiple ground balls, a green card against the Seawolves, and one massive save from goaltender Shea Dolce all provided the backdrop for one last free position attempt with 11 seconds remaining in the fourth period of the fourth matchup between the two teams most commonly identifiable with the sport's northeast roots. A three-goal deficit was slashed to one after itself emerging from a six-goal game at the start of the second half, and one last opportunity stood between the two clubs.
Embedded within that attempt stood a 13-year construction project by head coach Acacia Walker-Weinstein and a BC program now firmly entrenched as an elite national powerhouse. Even with a 10-7 record, the simple presence of one last maroon-shaded opportunity sent fear rippling through LaValle Stadium, the byproduct of eight straight trips to the sport's national championship weekend.
One whistle later, the streak found itself snapped. Stony Brook caused a turnover and collected a groundball before releasing the emotion associated with a four-year wait to qualify for the sport's final eight spots. The Boston College run to the national championship was over, but the pride - the very thing established by that first run to the Final Four - broke through the tears in a way that illuminated the Eagles brighter than anyone could have imagined.
"It's really hard when you have a game like that," admitted Walker-Weinstein in an equally-sentimental postgame press conference. "You fight all the way back against a great opponent, and to come up short in the end is just a heartbreaker. But I'm so grateful to have a team that could do it by themselves, with no help from anyone except for themselves and each other, and I'm proud that we could say that we lost [by fighting]. It's a great group and a really hard senior class to lose. It's going to sting for a little bit, but Stony Brook played a great game."
Boston College's record book is littered with some of college lacrosse's greatest players and brightest stars, which is why this year's aggregate and team-based approach refreshed the culture at its very core. So many seasons, especially over the past eight years, contained one player capable of scoring the one goal at the exact right moment while another player made the perfect defensive stop or save in the perfect split second, but this year's team seemingly rewrote its reputation by overly sacrificing personal statistics for the collective approach.
The attack didn't have Rachel Clark's 106-goal season or subsequent 100-point years from Emma LoPinto and Mckenna Davis, and the depth chart didn't have secondary options with 50-point years. Sydney Scales was two years removed from patrolling the defensive backfield, and her departure coincided with a stretch that removed Becky Browndorf, Belle Smith and Hunter Roman. BC's reliance on its development pipeline forced an early trial-by-fire for players who hadn't otherwise shouldered the pressure and load associated with the top-ranked program.
None of that mattered when BC battered Cal on the West Coast before returning home to decimate Harvard and No. 23 Pittsburgh, and the subsequent 13-11 win over No. 2 Stanford on home soil arguably clinched another trip to the national tournament after the Eagles forced North Carolina to surrender a season-high 12 goals at the time of their game, a mark later untouched by any program aside from Northwestern.
"Defensively, I've never seen such a young unit come together and really rally," admitted Dolce. "I'm just so proud because looking into everybody's eyes [against Stony Brook], people were stepping up in the biggest moments of their careers, no matter their age. There was a will, there was a fight, and that's all you can ask for."
Forcing Stony Brook to endure a grueling stretch run in its home stadium therefore combined the core tenets of BC's confident program with its newfound grit and underdog mentality. The Eagles expected themselves to perform and win like those seasons littered with those moments while simultaneously embracing an us-and-the-world persona. Nobody on Long Island expected them to rally from their deficits against a Stony Brook team simmering with hunger for its third overall NCAA Quarterfinal berth and first since its last season in the America East Conference in 2022.
Nobody outside of the BC sideline, at least.
"We were here to win," said Walker-Weinstein, "so we didn't accomplish our goal, but I am just proud that the girls fought. I told the locker room that this is life. Life's not easy, and you have to find ways to fight for yourself, for people around you, and for a senior class that's done an amazing job with this program to go out knowing that they fought. I hope they remember that forever."
"After halftime, we had this belief that we were winning this game," added junior Kylee Colbert. "We weren't walking off this field without winning this game, so that was the heartbreaker of that not happening. But we played for our seniors, we were there for our seniors, and that's going to be okay."
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Embedded within that attempt stood a 13-year construction project by head coach Acacia Walker-Weinstein and a BC program now firmly entrenched as an elite national powerhouse. Even with a 10-7 record, the simple presence of one last maroon-shaded opportunity sent fear rippling through LaValle Stadium, the byproduct of eight straight trips to the sport's national championship weekend.
One whistle later, the streak found itself snapped. Stony Brook caused a turnover and collected a groundball before releasing the emotion associated with a four-year wait to qualify for the sport's final eight spots. The Boston College run to the national championship was over, but the pride - the very thing established by that first run to the Final Four - broke through the tears in a way that illuminated the Eagles brighter than anyone could have imagined.
"It's really hard when you have a game like that," admitted Walker-Weinstein in an equally-sentimental postgame press conference. "You fight all the way back against a great opponent, and to come up short in the end is just a heartbreaker. But I'm so grateful to have a team that could do it by themselves, with no help from anyone except for themselves and each other, and I'm proud that we could say that we lost [by fighting]. It's a great group and a really hard senior class to lose. It's going to sting for a little bit, but Stony Brook played a great game."
Boston College's record book is littered with some of college lacrosse's greatest players and brightest stars, which is why this year's aggregate and team-based approach refreshed the culture at its very core. So many seasons, especially over the past eight years, contained one player capable of scoring the one goal at the exact right moment while another player made the perfect defensive stop or save in the perfect split second, but this year's team seemingly rewrote its reputation by overly sacrificing personal statistics for the collective approach.
The attack didn't have Rachel Clark's 106-goal season or subsequent 100-point years from Emma LoPinto and Mckenna Davis, and the depth chart didn't have secondary options with 50-point years. Sydney Scales was two years removed from patrolling the defensive backfield, and her departure coincided with a stretch that removed Becky Browndorf, Belle Smith and Hunter Roman. BC's reliance on its development pipeline forced an early trial-by-fire for players who hadn't otherwise shouldered the pressure and load associated with the top-ranked program.
None of that mattered when BC battered Cal on the West Coast before returning home to decimate Harvard and No. 23 Pittsburgh, and the subsequent 13-11 win over No. 2 Stanford on home soil arguably clinched another trip to the national tournament after the Eagles forced North Carolina to surrender a season-high 12 goals at the time of their game, a mark later untouched by any program aside from Northwestern.
"Defensively, I've never seen such a young unit come together and really rally," admitted Dolce. "I'm just so proud because looking into everybody's eyes [against Stony Brook], people were stepping up in the biggest moments of their careers, no matter their age. There was a will, there was a fight, and that's all you can ask for."
Forcing Stony Brook to endure a grueling stretch run in its home stadium therefore combined the core tenets of BC's confident program with its newfound grit and underdog mentality. The Eagles expected themselves to perform and win like those seasons littered with those moments while simultaneously embracing an us-and-the-world persona. Nobody on Long Island expected them to rally from their deficits against a Stony Brook team simmering with hunger for its third overall NCAA Quarterfinal berth and first since its last season in the America East Conference in 2022.
Nobody outside of the BC sideline, at least.
"We were here to win," said Walker-Weinstein, "so we didn't accomplish our goal, but I am just proud that the girls fought. I told the locker room that this is life. Life's not easy, and you have to find ways to fight for yourself, for people around you, and for a senior class that's done an amazing job with this program to go out knowing that they fought. I hope they remember that forever."
"After halftime, we had this belief that we were winning this game," added junior Kylee Colbert. "We weren't walking off this field without winning this game, so that was the heartbreaker of that not happening. But we played for our seniors, we were there for our seniors, and that's going to be okay."
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