The ACC has stamped its dominance on collegiate men's lacrosse in 2026, with three of the conference's four lacrosse programs — Duke, Notre Dame and Syracuse — booking their places in NCAA Championship Weekend.
The last team standing from outside the conference is top-seeded Princeton, who held off Penn State 14-10 on Sunday in a quarterfinal far closer than the seeding had suggested it should be. Princeton's reward for survival is a semifinal collision with Duke at Scott Stadium in Charlottesville, Virginia, on May 23, with the Notre Dame-Syracuse pairing on the other side of the bracket.
It is the sixth time three ACC programs have advanced to the NCAA tournament's Championship Weekend. The previous occurrences were in 2005, 2011, 2014, 2021 and 2023 — a list that, taken together, accounts for nearly a quarter of the conference's modern competitive history.
Notre Dame, the No. 2 seed, secured their place with a 15-9 demolition of Johns Hopkins. Josh Yago led the way with four goals and three assists for seven points, while Matt Jeffery added two goals and three assists. Will Maheras's two-goal afternoon — both scored in the second half — kept the gap from closing as Johns Hopkins fought back.
Syracuse delivered the more dramatic result of the weekend, upsetting No. 3 seed North Carolina 13-11 as Joey Spallina recorded a hat trick with three assists. John Mullen's 13-of-24 faceoff performance gave Syracuse the possession edge it needed to control late-game tempo, and Spallina's goal with under eight minutes left in the fourth quarter proved decisive.
Duke, unseeded coming into the tournament, was the most emphatic of the three ACC winners. Their 16-6 dismantling of Georgetown was built on four goals from Max Sloat, a hat trick from Benn Johnston, a coast-to-coast highlight by Cal Girard off a faceoff and ten saves from goalkeeper Buck Cunningham.
The semifinal schedule pairs Duke against Princeton at noon ET on May 23, with Syracuse-Notre Dame following at 2:30 p.m. ET, both contests airing on ESPN2. The championship game is set for May 25 at 1 p.m. ET on ESPN.
The ACC-on-ACC clash between Syracuse and Notre Dame may be the more emotionally charged of the two semifinals. The Orange and Irish have grown into one of the league's deepest rivalries since Notre Dame's elevation into the ACC realignment, and a semifinal between the two automatically carries conference-pride stakes alongside the championship implications.
The Duke-Princeton fixture, meanwhile, has its own historical resonance. The two programs have produced some of the most memorable contests in modern NCAA tournament play, and Princeton's overall body of work has positioned head coach Matt Madalon's team as the favourite to claim a national title.
For the ACC, the bracket is a vindication of the league's investment in lacrosse depth across the past decade. Three teams in the Final Four — the league's full lacrosse-playing membership — is the kind of result that places the conference at the centre of any conversation about the state of the sport. The next two games will determine whether one of the three can take it further.
