Notre Dame beat No. 6-seed Syracuse 15-7 at Scott Stadium on Saturday, earning a spot in the NCAA national title game against Princeton on Monday, May 25 at 1 p.m. ET on ESPN.
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Scott Stadium felt like it belonged to Notre Dame from the opening minutes. The Fighting Irish scored twice in the first five minutes, then kept widening the gap with goals at key moments, finishing with a 15-7 win over No. 6-seed Syracuse on Saturday.
With the win, Notre Dame will play in the final game of the season for the third time in four years. The Irish will take on Princeton in the championship game at 1 p.m. ET on Monday, May 25 at Scott Stadium. The game will air on ESPN.
Josh Yago pushed his NCAA Tournament run forward again, posting his second-straight seven-point performance. This time it came with three goals and seven assists. The grad student now has a team-high 54 points in the tournament off 31 goals and 23 assists.
Brock Behrman had his best NCAA Tournament game of his career, finishing with four points—two goals and two assists. Will Maheras also finished with four points, including a goal and three assists.
Max Busenkell and Luke Miller each added two goals in the win, while on defense, Thomas Ricciardelli delivered a standout performance in goal. Ricciardelli made 14 saves and held Syracuse’s high-powered attack to just seven goals, tying a season low for the Orange.
How it happened started fast. Notre Dame scored twice in the first five minutes to grab a 2-0 lead off goals from Behrman and Will Angrick. The Irish then tacked on two more scores over the next seven minutes—courtesy of Max Busenkell and Matt Jeffery—to make it 4-0.
Syracuse answered with a burst late in the first frame, scoring three times in the final two minutes to cut the Notre Dame lead to one, 4-3, after the opening 15 minutes.
Early in the second quarter. the Irish were flagged for a two-minute unreleasable penalty. but Notre Dame flipped the momentum back on its side when it scored its first man-down goal of the year at the end of the period. Teddy Lally scored off the feed from Maheras to put the Irish back on top by two.
Busenkell then scored his second of the afternoon three minutes later to push Notre Dame ahead 6-3. Syracuse got as close as 6-4 with just under six minutes left in the half. but Notre Dame cashed in again on an extra-man opportunity—its second of the first 30 minutes—to take a 7-4 advantage into halftime.
After the intermission, Notre Dame scored twice over the first nine minutes of the third quarter to push its lead to 9-4, its largest of the game. Behrman and Dylan Faison accounted for those goals.
The Orange refused to fade, registering the last three scores of the quarter to make it 9-7 heading into the final 15 minutes.
The decisive swing came at the start of the fourth. Notre Dame struck three times during a non-releasable two-minute penalty on the Orange. Brady Pokorny scored first with a behind-the-back finish, and then Yago and Miller added scores to make it 12-7.
From there, Notre Dame kept control. Maheras scored with 10 minutes left, followed by goals from Miller and Yago to put an exclamation point on the victory and send the Irish to Monday’s title game.
Extra-man opportunities were central to the result. Notre Dame finished 5-for-6 on extra-man tries and held Syracuse to 0-for-5. The Irish also scored when down a man, their first such goal of the season.
Notre Dame’s game didn’t just move it into the championship; it carried plenty of milestone weight. The Irish improve to 33-26 in NCAA Championships history, including a record of 28-12 over the last 15 tournament appearances. Notre Dame has now won 12 of its last 13 NCAA Tournament games. and each of Notre Dame’s last eight NCAA Tournament wins has come by at least five goals.
The eight-goal win marks the largest margin of victory in an NCAA semifinal game since the 2021 season. This 2026 season is the fifth time in program history that Notre Dame has reached the NCAA Championship final.
The Irish also took the lead in the all-time series against Syracuse, moving to 13-12 in matchups with the Orange. The victory gives Notre Dame a record of 33-9 against ranked opponents since the beginning of the 2023 season.
After holding opponents to fewer than 10 goals, Notre Dame has now won 57 straight games, a streak that dates back to the 2019 season.
Yago recorded his sixth hat trick of the season in the win. Ricciardelli has finished with a save percentage of 50 percent or better in 11 of 15 games this season. And with two goals against Syracuse, all five of Busenkell’s goals on the season have come against the Orange.
Notre Dame’s opponent is set: Princeton, the top-seeded team, will visit for the title at 1 p.m. ET on Monday, May 25 at Scott Stadium in Charlottesville. The game will air on ESPN.
Notre Dame Syracuse NCAA lacrosse national championship Princeton Scott Stadium Josh Yago Thomas Ricciardelli