University Lacrosse Team

There are plenty of university teams that make up the NCAA community of lacrosse. NCAA lacrosse consists of both men and women lacrosse, which are further divided into three divisions each. The NCAA men’s lacrosse Division I is made up of 57 teams, the Division II comprises of 32 teams and the Division III has 131 teams. For women’s NCAA lacrosse, there are 83 teams in Division I, 37 in Division II and 154 teams in Division III.

The NCAA lacrosse championship was introduced in the year 1971, and the first men’s tournament featured 12 Division I teams. This tournament was won by the Cornell lacrosse team which defeated Maryland by a score of 12-6. Ever since, the NCAA lacrosse championships have become more popular throughout the years. During the 1997 championships final, more than 30,000 fans came to watch the game, and this clearly showed that lacrosse was a sport that could draw the big crowds.

NCAA lacrosse truly became popular in the 1980s when the emergence of the Gait twins took the lacrosse scene by storm. Paul and Gary Gait helped Syracuse University to 3 championships, and they became the first lacrosse celebrities in the country. The Gait twins thrilled lacrosse fans with their creative moves and their extraordinary athletic abilities. Syracuse was the second university lacrosse team in NCAA history to win 3 consecutive championships, the first being Johns Hopkins University.

Throughout the years, NCAA men’s lacrosse was dominated by a handful of teams, namely, Johns Hopkins, Syracuse, North Carolina and Princeton. Recently, the leading teams for the NCAA lacrosse championships include Johns Hopkins, Virginia, Cornell and Georgetown, but this year’s championship game featured Duke University and Johns Hopkins. The Duke University lacrosse team had been impressive throughout the season, but they fell to Johns Hopkins in the final game 12-11. The Duke lacrosse team is a very famous team, and the reason has nothing much to do with lacrosse. Three Duke lacrosse players were suspected of rape, but they were cleared of the charges later on. This was a sensational piece of news made the Duke University lacrosse team the center of media attention throughout the country.

The most dominant team in NCAA women’s lacrosse is Maryland. They have won 9 NCAA titles altogether, seven of which were won consecutively in the golden era of Maryland women’s lacrosse which lasted from 1995-2001. In the 2007 championship final, Northwestern defeated Virginia 15-3 for their third consecutive title.