Boston College Athletics
Photo by: Nick Green
Goin' Home Again: Colbert Sisters Power BC Past Buldogs
May 09, 2026 | Lacrosse, #ForBoston Files
Kylee and Casey Colbert broke Yale's fourth quarter momentum in front of a native Long Island crowd.
The NCAA Division I Women's Lacrosse Championship first round matchup between Boston College and Yale began a third period swing after the Eagles battered the Bulldog cage for five second period goals. Whitney Froeb's free position within the first 95 seconds signaled a switch from BC's initial halftime lead, after which the first five minutes of the second half resulted in little more than Yale's continued possession. BC mounted little more than one successful defensive clearance, and no Eagle beyond Marissa White and Shea Baker even attempted a shot on Yale goaltender Niamh Pfaff.
The slow and deliberate pace swung momentum to the Ivy League's regular season champion despite an inability to crack BC goaltender Shea Dolce beyond that one goal, and shots were whistling at and around her cage as the fourth quarter began. Simply put, the Eagles required a run, a spark, a dagger, or any other type of game-breaking play within their arsenal.
Enter Kylee Colbert.
The first round regional at Stony Brook University had brought the Long Island native to within earshot of her hometown for the national tournament. Her older sister Casey was a former member of the Seawolves, a transfer who joined her with the BC program for the 2026 season. Together they'd journeyed through the lacrosse landscape as two of the best prospects to emerge from arguably the nation's most fertile proving ground, and together they willed BC to that momentum-crushing moment that ended Yale's threat.
Their linkage on BC's fourth quarter goal reestablished a five-goal lead as time wound towards its interminable end. Their grind against the No. 18 team in the nation, finalized the end of the season for one of the nation's hottest non-power conference teams, and their collective stance, their 33rd goal and 24th assist, powered the Eagles into the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
"It's such a special experience [to perform in front of a home crowd]," said Kylee after BC's victory. "It's even more special to do it with my teammates alongside me. So I'm just grateful [because] the second that I set foot back [on Long Island], I was just in awe, the entire time."
Evolving the Colbert sisters into that moment was never a linear journey within the NCAA lacrosse landscape. Both starred for North Shore High School as four-year letter winners, and each warranted All-County and All-America mentions or honors for their exploits as members of a Viking program forced to compete with some of the region's most powerful programs.Â
Casey was the Long Island Metro Lacrosse Scholarship winner and elected to remain home with a Stony Brook team recognized among the best mid-major programs in the country. Even prior to her arrival, the Seawolves advanced through eight consecutive America East Conference championships with three trips to the NCAA Quarterfinals, and the 2018 iteration infamously lost to Boston College in double-overtime. Neither the COVID-19 pandemic nor a switch to the CAA slowed that momentum, and even this year's team advanced through a perfect conference regular season - the 11th straight season and 12th time in the past 13 years that Joe Spallina's team posted an undefeated league mark.
It took until her senior year in 2025 to truly break out on the national stage, but after appearing in 19 games over the previous three years and producing five goals without an assist, Casey launched her career with a team-high 57 assists and a 79-point campaign. She led the CAA in assists per game and finished eighth in the nation - numbers that propelled Stony Brook to another 16-win season and eventual win over Loyola in the national tournament before losing, ironically, to her younger sister and Boston College, the very place that eventually claimed her transfer in the off-season.
"Stony Brook is very competitive," Casey told The Podcast for Boston this week. "It's a winning tradition and a winning culture, and that was the same thing [at BC]...I'm so grateful for my background at Stony Brook because winning is everything and a tradition that's always there. When I got to BC, I just carried on with that tradition."
Kylee, meanwhile, was likely awaiting a national-level breakout. A five-star recruit and the No. 6-ranked player in the 2023 recruiting class, she was a four-time Under Armour All-American and a five-time All-Nassau County selection before committing to Boston College for the 2024 season. Traveling to Cary, North Carolina, her freshman year had ended with BC's second scudetto as national champion.
She was not, however, a featured player in the team's overall run. Appearing in eight games with four goals and three caused turnovers, she instead served as an understudy to BC's latest group of legendary scorers and learned from a culture that included Rachel Clark, McKenna Davis and Emma LoPinto. Five separate Eagles had tallied 40-goal campaigns during her first year, and both Clark and LoPinto scored 75 goals in 2025, with Clark registering a program-record 106 goals.
Colbert's story involved steady improvements, and finally breaking through to BC's starting lineup on 11 separate occurrences enabled her to score 23 goals and a hat trick in the team's regular season victory over Northwestern - the very team that eventually eliminated the Eagles in the Final Four.
"You really can't take anyone for granted," said Kylee. "You need to go out there and it's kill-or-be-killed. You have to go out there and prove who you are, each and every day. That starts with a practice on a Monday afternoon, because every day is game day, so you have to play like every day is game day."
Playing together for the first time since high school always meant that the 2026 season felt like a golden opportunity, but returning home for Friday's matchup against Yale illustrated how two homegrown lacrosse players can convert an on-field performance into emotional theater. The fourth quarter goal by Kylee that broke the Bulldog attack was their second connection of the game but occurred on BC's first shot on goal since the second quarter. The Eagles that probed Yale's defense for 15 shot attempts and 11 on-goal shots in the first two quarters found themselves slipping to two shots in the third quarter and nothing before the late fourth while the Bulldogs peppered 17 second-half attempts on Dolce.
Turnovers had become a problem for BC, and the Eagles hadn't won a draw control in the second half. They hadn't gained a free position and needed to attempt seven clears, of which one failed. Kylee, already with four goals in her pocket, rewrote her personal record book first by matching her outburst from a 22-5 win over Albany and then by reaching six goals for the first time in her career - a number that ultimately provided the cushion between the Eagles and the Bulldogs and advanced BC to a matchup with, of all teams, Stony Brook.
"Kylee's worked really hard on her shooting," said head coach Acacia Walker-Weinstein, "but this team, we had each other's backs. The girls had been working so hard, and Yale is a powerful team. We knew we had to be really competitive all over the field to win, and I think the girls did a great job."
"Playing on Long Island, it's all-lacrosse, all-the-time," said Kylee. "That's something that's honestly really cool. Playing for our travel teams, it was competitive. We never wanted to leave the island, but we always went elsewhere to travel and play other teams, so this is so cool to come to this next level and see all of these other teams. It's kind of funny because it's [still] where everyone ends up."
BC and fifth-ranked Stony Brook play one another on Sunday, May 10, at LaValle Stadium in Stony Brook, New York. Opening draw time is set for 12 p.m. with television coverage available on the ESPN+ streaming service available on the network's family of Internet and mobile device apps.
The slow and deliberate pace swung momentum to the Ivy League's regular season champion despite an inability to crack BC goaltender Shea Dolce beyond that one goal, and shots were whistling at and around her cage as the fourth quarter began. Simply put, the Eagles required a run, a spark, a dagger, or any other type of game-breaking play within their arsenal.
Enter Kylee Colbert.
The first round regional at Stony Brook University had brought the Long Island native to within earshot of her hometown for the national tournament. Her older sister Casey was a former member of the Seawolves, a transfer who joined her with the BC program for the 2026 season. Together they'd journeyed through the lacrosse landscape as two of the best prospects to emerge from arguably the nation's most fertile proving ground, and together they willed BC to that momentum-crushing moment that ended Yale's threat.
Their linkage on BC's fourth quarter goal reestablished a five-goal lead as time wound towards its interminable end. Their grind against the No. 18 team in the nation, finalized the end of the season for one of the nation's hottest non-power conference teams, and their collective stance, their 33rd goal and 24th assist, powered the Eagles into the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
"It's such a special experience [to perform in front of a home crowd]," said Kylee after BC's victory. "It's even more special to do it with my teammates alongside me. So I'm just grateful [because] the second that I set foot back [on Long Island], I was just in awe, the entire time."
Evolving the Colbert sisters into that moment was never a linear journey within the NCAA lacrosse landscape. Both starred for North Shore High School as four-year letter winners, and each warranted All-County and All-America mentions or honors for their exploits as members of a Viking program forced to compete with some of the region's most powerful programs.Â
Casey was the Long Island Metro Lacrosse Scholarship winner and elected to remain home with a Stony Brook team recognized among the best mid-major programs in the country. Even prior to her arrival, the Seawolves advanced through eight consecutive America East Conference championships with three trips to the NCAA Quarterfinals, and the 2018 iteration infamously lost to Boston College in double-overtime. Neither the COVID-19 pandemic nor a switch to the CAA slowed that momentum, and even this year's team advanced through a perfect conference regular season - the 11th straight season and 12th time in the past 13 years that Joe Spallina's team posted an undefeated league mark.
It took until her senior year in 2025 to truly break out on the national stage, but after appearing in 19 games over the previous three years and producing five goals without an assist, Casey launched her career with a team-high 57 assists and a 79-point campaign. She led the CAA in assists per game and finished eighth in the nation - numbers that propelled Stony Brook to another 16-win season and eventual win over Loyola in the national tournament before losing, ironically, to her younger sister and Boston College, the very place that eventually claimed her transfer in the off-season.
"Stony Brook is very competitive," Casey told The Podcast for Boston this week. "It's a winning tradition and a winning culture, and that was the same thing [at BC]...I'm so grateful for my background at Stony Brook because winning is everything and a tradition that's always there. When I got to BC, I just carried on with that tradition."
Kylee, meanwhile, was likely awaiting a national-level breakout. A five-star recruit and the No. 6-ranked player in the 2023 recruiting class, she was a four-time Under Armour All-American and a five-time All-Nassau County selection before committing to Boston College for the 2024 season. Traveling to Cary, North Carolina, her freshman year had ended with BC's second scudetto as national champion.
She was not, however, a featured player in the team's overall run. Appearing in eight games with four goals and three caused turnovers, she instead served as an understudy to BC's latest group of legendary scorers and learned from a culture that included Rachel Clark, McKenna Davis and Emma LoPinto. Five separate Eagles had tallied 40-goal campaigns during her first year, and both Clark and LoPinto scored 75 goals in 2025, with Clark registering a program-record 106 goals.
Colbert's story involved steady improvements, and finally breaking through to BC's starting lineup on 11 separate occurrences enabled her to score 23 goals and a hat trick in the team's regular season victory over Northwestern - the very team that eventually eliminated the Eagles in the Final Four.
"You really can't take anyone for granted," said Kylee. "You need to go out there and it's kill-or-be-killed. You have to go out there and prove who you are, each and every day. That starts with a practice on a Monday afternoon, because every day is game day, so you have to play like every day is game day."
Playing together for the first time since high school always meant that the 2026 season felt like a golden opportunity, but returning home for Friday's matchup against Yale illustrated how two homegrown lacrosse players can convert an on-field performance into emotional theater. The fourth quarter goal by Kylee that broke the Bulldog attack was their second connection of the game but occurred on BC's first shot on goal since the second quarter. The Eagles that probed Yale's defense for 15 shot attempts and 11 on-goal shots in the first two quarters found themselves slipping to two shots in the third quarter and nothing before the late fourth while the Bulldogs peppered 17 second-half attempts on Dolce.
Turnovers had become a problem for BC, and the Eagles hadn't won a draw control in the second half. They hadn't gained a free position and needed to attempt seven clears, of which one failed. Kylee, already with four goals in her pocket, rewrote her personal record book first by matching her outburst from a 22-5 win over Albany and then by reaching six goals for the first time in her career - a number that ultimately provided the cushion between the Eagles and the Bulldogs and advanced BC to a matchup with, of all teams, Stony Brook.
"Kylee's worked really hard on her shooting," said head coach Acacia Walker-Weinstein, "but this team, we had each other's backs. The girls had been working so hard, and Yale is a powerful team. We knew we had to be really competitive all over the field to win, and I think the girls did a great job."
"Playing on Long Island, it's all-lacrosse, all-the-time," said Kylee. "That's something that's honestly really cool. Playing for our travel teams, it was competitive. We never wanted to leave the island, but we always went elsewhere to travel and play other teams, so this is so cool to come to this next level and see all of these other teams. It's kind of funny because it's [still] where everyone ends up."
BC and fifth-ranked Stony Brook play one another on Sunday, May 10, at LaValle Stadium in Stony Brook, New York. Opening draw time is set for 12 p.m. with television coverage available on the ESPN+ streaming service available on the network's family of Internet and mobile device apps.
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