2015 NCAA Division I Men's Lacrosse Championship
The 2015 NCAA Division I Men's Lacrosse Championship was the 45th annual single-elimination tournament to determine the national championship for National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I men's college lacrosse. Eighteen teams competed in the tournament, selected by winning an automatic qualifying conference tournament or as an at-large team based upon their performance during the regular season. The 18 teams were announced on May 3.
| 2015 NCAA Division I Men's Lacrosse Championship | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Teams | 18 | ||||
| Finals site | Lincoln Financial Field Philadelphia, PA | ||||
| Champions | Denver (1st title) | ||||
| Runner-up | Maryland (12th title game) | ||||
| Semifinalists | Johns Hopkins (29th Final Four) Notre Dame (5th Final Four) | ||||
| Winning coach | Bill Tierney (7th title) | ||||
| MOP | Wesley Berg, Denver | ||||
| Attendance | 29,123 semi-finals 24,215 finals 53,338 total | ||||
| Top scorer | Wesley Berg, Denver (16 goals) | ||||
| |||||
Tournament overview
The first round and play-in games were played at campus sites. The quarterfinal games were played on May 16 and 17, 2015 at Navy–Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis, Maryland (hosted by the United States Naval Academy), and Sports Authority Field at Mile High in Denver (hosted by the University of Denver).
The semifinals were played on May 23, 2015, and the championship on May 25, 2015. The semifinals and championship were held at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, and were hosted by Drexel University.[1]
Schools from 10 conferences, the America East Conference, Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), Big East Conference, Colonial Athletic Association (CAA), Big Ten Conference, Ivy League, Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC), Northeast Conference (NEC), Patriot League, and Southern Conference (SoCon) were eligible for automatic bids into the tournament by winning their respective conference tournaments, leaving eight remaining at-large bids for top ranked teams.[2]
Albany (America East), Bryant (NEC), Denver (Big East), Johns Hopkins (Big Ten), Towson (CAA), Colgate (Patriot), Syracuse (ACC), Yale (Ivy), High Point (Southern Conference) and Marist (MAAC) were the 10 schools that received the tournament's automatic bids.
Teams
| Seed | School | Conference | Berth Type | RPI[3] | Record |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Albany | America East | Automatic | 8 | 15-2 | |
| Brown | Ivy | At-large | 14 | 12-4 | |
| Bryant | Northeast | Automatic | 28 | 8-9 | |
| Colgate | Patriot | Automatic | 13 | 10-5 | |
| 8 | Cornell | Ivy | At-large | 10 | 10-5 |
| 4 | Denver | Big East | Automatic | 5 | 13-2 |
| 5 | Duke | ACC | At-large | 4 | 12-5 |
| High Point | Southern | Automatic | 27 | 10-6 | |
| Johns Hopkins | Big Ten | At-large | 11 | 9-6 | |
| Marist | MAAC | Automatic | 21 | 13-3 | |
| 6 | Maryland | Big Ten | Automatic | 7 | 12-3 |
| 3 | North Carolina | ACC | At-large | 3 | 12-3 |
| 1 | Notre Dame | ACC | At-large | 2 | 10-2 |
| Ohio State | Big Ten | At-large | 15 | 11-6 | |
| 2 | Syracuse | ACC | At-large | 1 | 12-2 |
| Towson | CAA | Automatic | 20 | 11-5 | |
| 7 | Virginia | ACC | At-large | 6 | 10-4 |
| Yale | Ivy | Automatic | 9 | 11-4 |
Results
The Denver Pioneers beat Maryland 10–5 for the school's first national championship, and also the first-ever NCAA men's lacrosse title for a school located outside the Eastern Time Zone.
Wesley Berg was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player, scoring the overtime winning goal in the semifinals. This was Bill Tierney's first championship since he won with Princeton in 2001, and seventh overall coaching title.
Bracket
| Play-in game May 6 | ||||
| Towson | 10 | |||
| High Point | 8 | |||
| Play-in game May 6 | ||||
| Bryant | 6 | |||
| Marist | 10 | |||
| First Round May 9–10 | Quarterfinals May 16–17 Sports Authority Field at Mile High Navy Marine Corps Stadium | Semifinals May 23 Lincoln Financial Field | Final May 25 Lincoln Financial Field | ||||||||||||||||
| 1 | Notre Dame | 12 | |||||||||||||||||
| Towson | 10 | ||||||||||||||||||
| 1 | Notre Dame | 14 | |||||||||||||||||
| Albany | 10 | ||||||||||||||||||
| 8 | Cornell | 10 | |||||||||||||||||
| Albany | 19 | ||||||||||||||||||
| 1 | Notre Dame | 10 | |||||||||||||||||
| 4 | Denver | 11* | |||||||||||||||||
| 4 | Denver | 15 | |||||||||||||||||
| Brown | 9 | ||||||||||||||||||
| 4 | Denver | 15 | |||||||||||||||||
| Ohio State | 13 | ||||||||||||||||||
| 5 | Duke | 11 | |||||||||||||||||
| Ohio State | 16 | ||||||||||||||||||
| 4 | Denver | 10 | |||||||||||||||||
| 6 | Maryland | 5 | |||||||||||||||||
| 3 | North Carolina | 19 | |||||||||||||||||
| Colgate | 12 | ||||||||||||||||||
| 3 | North Carolina | 7 | |||||||||||||||||
| 6 | Maryland | 14 | |||||||||||||||||
| 6 | Maryland | 8 | |||||||||||||||||
| Yale | 7 | ||||||||||||||||||
| 6 | Maryland | 12 | |||||||||||||||||
| Johns Hopkins | 11 | ||||||||||||||||||
| 7 | Virginia | 7 | |||||||||||||||||
| Johns Hopkins | 19 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Johns Hopkins | 16 | ||||||||||||||||||
| 2 | Syracuse | 15 | |||||||||||||||||
| 2 | Syracuse | 20 | |||||||||||||||||
| Marist | 8 | ||||||||||||||||||
- * = Overtime
All-Tournament
Wesley Berg A Denver (Most Outstanding Player)
Trevor Baptiste M Denver
Ryan LaPlante G Denver
Zach Miller M Denver
Mike Riis LSM Denver
Kyle Bernlohr G Maryland
Matt Neufeldt LSM Maryland
Matt Rambo A Maryland
Sergio Perkovic M Notre Dame
John Crawley D Johns Hopkins
References
- "2014-18 NCAA Championship Sites". NCAA.com. Retrieved 8 May 2014.
- "2015 NCAA Championship Format". NCAA.com. Retrieved 18 May 2015.
- "nitty selection" (PDF). NCAA. Retrieved May 20, 2018.