Welcome back, college lacrosse! The 2025 season got underway on February 1st as the Division 1 season kicked off with the earliest slate of games in history, and some not so surprising results. February is the time of year where many of the nation’s best are working through new systems, working in freshmen and transfers, and getting their legs back under them. But although there are a lot of results that might not seem appealing to the eye test, early February can speak volumes about how the rest of the season will go.
Take Hopkins for example, who started the year with quite the gauntlet playing three top-20 teams in their first three games. Hopkins has played so far just like they have since joining the Big Ten…gritty. They picked up wins over #10 Denver, #17 Towson and #10 Georgetown. A lot of teams use early February games as a tune up, but what Coach Milliman and Hopkins have done early this year is nothing short of impressive. The Jays have been to championship weekend once since 2008. I think this year is their best chance to get back.
Loyola jumped out to a 4-1 lead before Georgetown came roaring back to take the win on 2/1. Both teams have to answer a lot of questions this season as they both lost a lot of their offense from last season. They also started off strong this past weekend at home against Maryland, leading at one point 6-3 before a furious comeback by the Terps. Loyola needed a big goal late to send the game to overtime, where Maryland would score on their first possession. The Hounds are young this season. They will get better, and they will be looking up at Army in the Patriot League but if they play defense like they did Saturday they’ll have a chance to make a late season run.
Towson is looking to have a big spring in 2025. They are led by US Lacrosse Preseason Midfielder of the Year Mikey Weisshaar who plays a lot bigger than he looks. The fast lefty is able to distribute all over the field and he brings some punch shooting the ball as well. Towson came into the season ranked #17 before losing to #8 Hopkins in a very tightly contested matchup. As the season ticks along, look for Towson to fix some of their early season miscues to turn some heads in the CAA. They head up to #2 Syracuse tonight to take on a team who has looked the part this year.
Maryland is 2-0 with wins over Richmond and Loyola. Under John Tillman, Maryland seems like the same type of team every year, but with different players. Their defense is always good and they have solid goalie play. But their offense (besides their dominant 2022 run) at times seems a bit stale, and it did on Saturday. They desperately need an offensive star (like they had in Bernhardt and Wisnauskas). Four attackman run their offense, and if either of Keegan, Spanos, Kelly or Erksa can step up and dominate this season, Maryland will be back in championship weekend. Of course last year it was their defense that carried them to the championship game so that could certainly happen again.
Georgetown has won 7 straight Big East championships and they have a squad fully capable of taking home number eight this year. Starting the year in the top 10 shows promise for the Hoyas. After years of producing offenses who could play with anyone, this year the defense led by Ty Banks and goalie Anderson Moore will keep the Hoyas in games. They struggled against Hopkins on Saturday in a game that they couldn’t get their offense clicking. Excited to see them play #1 Notre Dame in a couple of weeks.
Virginia began their season with a thrashing of Colgate 19-9. Truitt Sunderland and McCabe Millon, two MIAA guys, are heading up the offense in Charlottesville this year in the post-Shellenberger era. Kyle Morris got the start over Matt Nunes and looked solid. Keep an eye on that this season as both are capable goalies. Virginia begins the year at #4 in the rankings.
Two weekends of the season are in the books, and plenty of teams still havent started their season. Memorial Day is still 15 weeks away. I expect these rankings to be a lot different in 15 weeks when we crown a champion in Foxboro on Memorial Day, but here is the first edition of my top-20.
Early February Top-20
- Notre Dame
- Syracuse
- Cornell
- Virginia
- Hopkins
- Maryland
- Princeton
- Duke
- UNC
- Yale
- Penn
- Penn State
- Army
- Denver
- Georgetown
- Towson
- Delaware
- Michigan
- Harvard
- Providence
The Ivy League and ACC dominate the top of the rankings once again this year, with 8 of the top 11 teams landing in either conference. The Big Ten seems to get better throughout the year as they beat up on each other, and they have sent a team to the final four every year since 2013. The Big East seem to always send Denver or Georgetown on a bit of a run, and the Patriot League has sent Loyola and Army on to win playoff games in recent years. College lacrosse is still operating under the wealth of talent that has resulted from the COVID cancelled season, along with freshmen classes that seem to be getting better and better. My early season Final Four teams all land in the top-10 of the February rankings, what could go wrong?
Notre Dame
The Irish are looking to three-peat this Memorial Day weekend in Boston. Only one Kavanagh remains, Chris, as his brother Pat graduated and so did stud goalie Liam Entenmann, which I think is their biggest loss. Preseason First Team AA Shawn Lyght was one of the best defensemen in the country last year as a freshman. Firrst team AAs Ben Ramsey (SSDM) and Will Donovan (LSM) round out the defense for the Irish who should lock down the defensive side. If the supporting cast on offense works well with new point guard of the offense Chris Kavanagh, the Irish could be a problem again in late May.
Syracuse
Joey Spallina in his third year with the Orange is looking to grow once again and lead one of the most talented Cuse teams in recent memory back to championship weekend. It has been 15 years, its about time. Billy Dwan heads the defense for the Orange who are 2-0 so far and have allowed a total of 10 goals. Syracuse is talented, and experienced. They have what it takes to produce in May.
Cornell
CJ Kirst is a unanimous First-Team All American and this team will run through him. He is a dynamic playmaker with the ball in his stick and it is going to take a whole hell of a lot to slow him down this season. We saw him lead Cornell to the National Championship a few years ago when they ran into the Maryland buzzsaw. Maybe this year he gets that monkey off his back.
Duke
The Blue Devils did not win a championship with Brennan O’Neill, one of the highest rated and anticipated recruits in my lifetime. They were close every year but never brought it home. Duke is one of those teams that is always good. John Danowski is one of the top coaches in the nation, which certainly helps in the transfer portal. They bring in a brand new attack unit, but still have Andrew Macadorey operating from the midfield. Their offense will produce, but their defense is going to need to step up late in the season to propel them to Championship weekend, which I think is a doable task.
Here are some big games to look for in the next couple of weeks:
Towson @ Syracuse, Feb 10th
Rutgers @ Army, Feb 15th
Penn @ Georgetown, Feb 15th
Princeton @ Penn St, Feb 15th
Syracuse @ Maryland, Feb 15th
Army @ Yale, Feb 19th
Denver @ Cornell, Feb 22nd
UNC @ Hopkins, Feb 22nd
Maryland @ Princeton, Feb 22nd
Notre Dame @ Georgetown, Feb 22nd
Lacrosse Analyst
Sam Kuhn currently is the graduate assistant for the men’s lacrosse program at Heidelberg University in Tiffin, Ohio and is working to complete his Masters of Business Administration in 2020. Sam graduated from the College of Wooster in 2018, where he received his Bachelors Degree in English and played lacrosse as well. In his four years, Sam was a two time All-NCAC selection, a first team All-Region selection in 2018, and surpassed 100 goals for his career, one of seven members in program history to do so. Sam has interned with Inside Lacrosse, and wrote for the sports section of The Wooster Voice.