After a whirlwind weekend that started on Thursday and finished with a D-I champion crowned on Monday, it's about time to leave Gillette Stadium. Congratulations go out to Syracuse (D-I), C.W. Post (D-II) and Cortland State (D-III) for their 2009 national championships.

Now that the action's over, take a look at some of our favorite pieces from the five days to relive the NCAA's second-largest event this year (some 100,000 fans bought tickets to the games at Gillette this weekend, behind only the Men's D-I Basketball Tournament at Ford Field) now that it's in the books. And for more, just browse around the blog.

Thanks for being with us and we'll see you next year at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore. In the meantime, keep up with us on twitter at http://Twitter.com/NCAALax09.

Video	Feature Stories	Other
Matt Kelly: Pi Enthusiast G'burg: All In The Flow The Big Red Pep Band The Kids Take Gillette D2/D3: Day Of Champs Orange, Like Clockwork J-Hops 25th Anniversary	Big Heart on the Big Red Pride of the Orange Bringing a Game Home The X-Factors Food As Change Devils Playing Loose Kenny Nims (2008 story)	Gallery: Orange Win It All Gallery: Saturday Semis Gallery: Friday Night Live Gettysburg Notebook Preview Podcast

For all of the weekend's videos, go to http://www.ncaa.com/ot/mlax.html.
For the complete blog archives, go to http://www.ncaa.com/blog/2009mlaxblog/2009/05/.
For all your college sports needs, go to ncaa.com.

The stadium's empty at Gillette, except for the cleaning crew weaving its way through the 41,935 abandoned seats -- the sixth-largest crowd in D-I championship history. So, it's time for some notes:

The Syracuse Orange completed one of the greatest comebacks in NCAA championship history on Monday. Click 'more' below for a field-level look at the Orange as they celebrated their second straight national title.

Cortland State and C.W. Post are the D-III and D-II national champions, and you can watch highlights from their days -- and their celebrations -- right here. Click on for full video.

Two D-I semifinal games are on the schedule at Gillette today, with Duke-Syracuse already underway and Virginia-Cornell scheduled to start at 2 p.m. For more from the games, check out our (very cool) interactive bracket http://www.ncaa.com/brackets/2009/ncaa_bracket_DI_lacrosse_men.html.

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Duke-Syracuse Updates
Syracuse wins, 17-7
- Syracuse posts most goals in a semifinal game since 2006
- Margin of victory of 10 is biggest in Duke postseason history and biggest in the national semis since 2003

End of 3rd Quarter
Syracuse up, 14-6
Kenny Nims has a hat trick. Pat Perritt has a career-high four goals. 'Cuse dominating in all aspects of the game right now.
-- Duke hasn't allowed this many goals since April 3, 2004

End of 1st Half
Syracuse carries an 8-4 lead into the half.

A few notes:
- That eight goals are tied for the most that Duke's allowed in the first half this year.
- Syracuse's Pat Perritt has three goals already, tying his career-high.
- Zach Howell has two goals for Duke

End of 1st Quarter
Syracuse's Kenny Nims scored with less than a second left on the clock to end the quarter and give the Orange a 4-2 lead going into the second

All five of Friday's videos are now live, including the long-awaited public release of Gettysburg lacrosse: The Secret Of the Flow.

Others include our interviews with the four Tewaaraton Trophy finalists taking the field Saturday, Le Moyne and Cortland (and Syracuse) representing upstate New York, and more.

Check them out at http://www.ncaa.com/ot/mlax.html!

And for more on the theory of how 90% of Lacrosse is in the Flow, gaining wide acceptance day by day, there intellectual epicenter is at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2226960697.

Alex Cocoziello was told he'd never walk again after an accident split his skull when he was three years old. Today, roaming the sidelines, he's one of the central figures on the Cornell lacrosse team that's out for its first national championship game berth in more than 20 years.

FOXBOROUGH, MASS. -- For nine months, Sharon Cocoziello dozed through her nights in a hospital chair. Every day, she'd sit beside her son, Alex, as he healed from head trauma that doctors estimated would leave the right side of his body paralyzed forever. Every night, she'd fight the nurses who told her she had to go home. She would, invariably, win.

"I never left," she said. "They didn't want me there. Parents weren't allowed to sleep over. They had to change the rules after seeing how he progressed because I was there."

When Alex Cocoziello was rushed into emergency brain surgery 18 years ago, the three-year-old's cranium split open after his father accidentally hit him on the downswing with a golf club, doctors told Sharon that Alex had a 30 percent chance of surviving the surgery. After that, they told her Alex's right side would be paralyzed forever, that the Cocoziellos should prepare their house for a permanently handicapped child.

She fired them.

Last year, Gretchen Meltzer's team underestimated things. Badly, Meltzer, the direct of catering at Gillette Stadium, said.

In 2008, in the first year that the Men's Lacrosse Championships took place at Gillette - the first time that any lacrosse game at all took place at Gillette, home of the New England Patriots - the caterers planned for about 240 people at the welcome banquet, she said. There were a little under 200 people eating.

"They ate us out of house and home last year," Meltzer said with a laugh. "You watch five plates go by, and then they come back for more."

This year, roughly the same amount of people showed up to the banquet. The caterers planned for 400.

The Men's Lacrosse Championships at Gillette Stadium officially opened up with Media Day and the team dinners on Thursday, a day packed with wide-eyed players looking up at 69,000 vacant seats at Gillette, All-American attackmen sporting Lady Gaga sunglasses, a buffet that was designed for 500 people that was easily dispensed with by about 200 lacrosse players and coaches, a delayed flight from Durham, some Cornell-attire-bashing from John Kraft (president of the Kraft Group) and a lot more.

Check back later for video from Day One, including but not limited to tournament director Phil Buttafuoco explaining how Gillette '09 is going to blow away Gillette '08 and a Virginia defenseman counting out pi to almost 40 digits.

And also, stay tuned for a full wrap of the day and a story on a member of the Cornell team who, two decades ago, wasn't sure if he'd walk again. 

Just a few hours from now, we'll be at Media Day at the Lacrosse Championships at Gillette Field, where all eight teams -- players, coaches, SID's, pets -- will be on the field, ready to tell their stories, at least when they're not staring up in awe at the Gillette stands. It's a great time. Here, Ryan -- our intrepid video guy -- and I are going to be shooting a ton of features, gathering lots of stories for the blog and, with any luck, eating some cheddar Goldfish in the press room.