On Sunday evening, the bracket for the 2025 NCAA women’s lacrosse tournament was revealed, and the Boston College Eagles maintained their spot as a #2 overall seed.
The 2025 DI Women’s Lacrosse Bracket #NCAAWLAX pic.twitter.com/EFlFZhdclQ
— NCAA Lacrosse (@NCAALAX) May 5, 2025
BC will receive a bye in the first round, and then play host to the winner of the game between Loyola Maryland and Stony Brook. If BC wins that game on Sunday May 11, then they will advance to play one more game at home for a chance to make the program’s eighth-straight Final Four appearance.
2025 Season Recap
When BC got an early season victory over #3 Northwestern, 13-9, it was an omen of good things to come for the Eagles. That game featured hat tricks by sophomores Molly Driscoll and Kylee Colbert, two breakout players this season that are a testament to the longevity of excellence that head coach Acacia Walker-Weinstein is building at Boston College. They defeated the team that crushed them in the 2023 national championship game and took them down to the wire in the 2024 title game, proving that they were once again ready to compete to defend their title.
As always, the ACC was a juggernaut in women’s lacrosse this season. Seven of the top sixteen teams in the country play in the ACC, including new member Stanford. But the Eagles are playing at such a high level that they basically just trounced through the competition anyway. Outside of their two losses to UNC, the Boston College team has won all of their games against ACC competition by at least six goals, including their games in the ACC tournament.
Senior attacker Rachel Clark is the star of the show, averaging almost five goals per game, which is #2 in the nation. Her fellow senior Emma LoPinto has been a scoring machine herself, putting in 58 goals this season, good for #7 in the nation. These two have led Boston College’s offense to be the best in the nation, as the Eagles scored 26 more goals than any other team in the country this year (18+ per game).
The supporting cast on offense around Clark and LoPinto has been terrific, too, including great performances from longtime Eagle Mckenna Davis, Brown transfer Mia Mascone, and breakout sophomore talents, Molly Driscoll and Kylee Colbert, who all have dozens of goals each this season.
BC also leads the ACC in draw control percentage and has the #2 scoring defense in the conference, behind only UNC. The Eagles defense is definitely helped by the sheer amount of goals that they score and the draws that they win, but it also is led by a stalwart goalie in net, junior Shea Dolce. It seems like just yesterday that Dolce was a freshman phenom taking over the reigns so early in her collegiate career, but she’s come a long way since then.
After backstopping the national championship team last season and making that iconic kick save in the natty, Dolce has not slowed down. She is #1 in the nation in Save Percentage and #2 in the nation in Goals Against Average, behind only UNC’s Betty Nelson. Opponents don’t get lots of opportunities to shoot on net against Boston College, but when they do, Dolce is an elite shot-blocker.
Boston College is once again set up extremely well to make a deep postseason run in the 2025 NCAA tournament, but their failures this season against #1 North Carolina will be looming over their heads. Boston College lost to undefeated UNC by just one goal in the regular season, and then by two goals in the ACC championship game when the Tarheels made a 4th quarter comeback. BC is excellent in all phases of the game and have proved themselves to be in a class above most of the country, but they will still have plenty of adversity to face.
NCAA Tournament Preview
BC will be heavily favored to make an appearance in the 2025 Final Four at Gillette Stadium. Teams in their part of the bracket that they have already played this season include Loyola Maryland, UAlbany, Syracuse, and Brown. BC defeated all of those teams in the regular season by an average of 12 goals each. Their first match-up will be played on Sunday May 11 at 12pm.
The highest ranked team in their region is Yale, who BC has not faced this season, but the Eagles did beat the Bulldogs last season, 16-8 in Chestnut Hill. The Bulldogs boast the nation’s 4th-best scoring defense, trailing only UNC, BC, and Northwestern. So if these two meet in the quarterfinals, it’s a game that could get dicey down the stretch. But Yale’s offense ranks just 28th overall in the country, so it will be important for the Eagles to get their offense rolling as quickly as possible and prevent the Bulldogs from catching up. The quarterfinals will be played on Thursday May 15 and will be broadcast on ESPNU.
If BC makes the Final Four, their likely opponent in the semifinal will be an old foe, Northwestern. The Eagles and the Wildcats have met in the national championship game the past two seasons, with NU winning the 2023 title followed by a BC win in 2024. Both teams are extremely stout defensively and, while BC has the edge on offense, Northwestern is still a top-10 goal-scoring team. BC defeated NU in the regular season, 13-9 in Illinois on February 15th, but it’s been a long time since then. Once you get to the national semifinal, nothing is guaranteed.
Finally, if Boston College advances far enough, they can qualify for their eighth-straight appearance in an NCAA title game. It would add yet another layer to this historic run that Acacia Walker-Weinstein has made at BC. And if they do advance, they are likely to face #1 undefeated North Carolina on the field, the only team that has beaten the Eagles this year. While Boston College has the nation’s #1 offense and #2 defense, UNC has the nation’s #1 defense and #2 offense. They have played two nailbiter games already this season with UNC coming out on top both times, but the old adage goes that it’s extremely hard to beat the same team three times in one season.
Stay tuned to BCI as we cover the NCAA tournament as it progresses, and provide further in-depth analysis of the Final Four if BC makes it that far yet again! The national semifinal will be held on Friday May 23, and the national championship game will be held on Sunday May 25, both games at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, MA.