
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.
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Walk onto the field with us as Syracuse celebrates its second straight national title in one of the most exciting finishes in D-I Lacrosse Championship history. Click here for the video!
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.
DIVISION I NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP No. 2 seed Syracuse (15-2) vs. No. 5 seed Cornell (13-3) Monday, 1 p.m. | Gillette Stadium | ESPNHD/ESPN360.comNCAA.com Interactive Bracket
After four days in Foxborough, the action wraps up with the highest prize in college lacrosse being awarded on Memorial Day. As you prep yourself for face-off, use this hub for all your championship-day needs, with links to all of the footage, features and more that we've brought you all weekend. And stay tuned for more as the day goes on, including a feature on the 25th Anniversary Team!
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- lacrosse video,
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- Pat Perritt,
- syracuse lacrosse
Syracuse's senior class leaves behind a legacy marked both by a painful fall and, more importantly, a brilliant rise.
The cover of Inside Lacrosse's 2005 recruiting issue featured the magazine's second, third and fourth-ranked recruits, all three staring out at the camera and into three futures that looked, at the time, like perfection. All three were in Orange.
Four years later, those three men, Syracuse's Kenny Nims, Pat Perritt and Dan Hardy, are All-Americans - Nims, the country's leading scorer, on the second team with Hardy, and Perritt on the third team; And on Monday, they and eight other seniors will walk onto the Gillette Stadium field for their final game in Orange, taking on Cornell in the D-I national championship game. It's a chance to end a career that could have gone so wrong - and for a time, did, with the Orange hitting an almost unprecedented trough in 2007 - by clinching the team's second straight national championship, a feat that hasn't been accomplished by Syracuse since 1990, when the Orange finished a string of three straight titles under legendary coach Roy Simmons, Jr.
Before Cornell and Syracuse meet in Monday's national championship game, players and coaches from the Big Red and Orange met with the media on Sunday. For video links, click here: Syracuse | CornellFor transcripts, click here: Presser TranscriptsStay tuned for tonight's Championship Game Prep Package, where we'll give you everything you need to know for Monday's final.
Saturday featured two blowouts in D-I. But two very, very unexpected blowouts, as Syracuse hammered a Duke team that hadn't lost since mid-March, 17-7 and Cornell took down the top-seeded team in the Tournament (Virginia) with a 15-6 pummeling. Check out our footage from Saturday, including pressers from all four teams and finishing with Cornell celebrating its epic upset. And for all the videos from the weekend at Gillette, head to http://www.ncaa.com/ot/mlax.html.
The D-I semifinals have finished, the press conferences aired, so take a look to see what happened on the field and what was said off of it. For Cornell/Virginia Notes & Quotes, click here. For Syracuse/Duke Notes & Quotes, click here!
By Monday, all three national championship trophies could be making their way back to three schools separated by about 25 miles. And now, with lacrosse at an all-time high in popularity, the trifecta would bring the game back to one of its birthplaces. Video Interviews: Le Moyne's Brian Welch | Cortland's Cody Hoyt and Connor Duffy | Tewaaraton Finalists, Including Syracuse's Matt AbbottTheirs is the land of forever hills and tireless clouds, of a winter that arrives always too early and lasts far too long, of cornfields and trees and rust-wrapped mills. Onondaga and Cortland Counties are places famous for their natural beauty - sitting, as they do, on the northeast tip of the Finger Lakes region - but, like the rest of Upstate, routinely abused by outsiders, including their downstate neighbors in The City. Said American singer Connie Francis: "There are some cities that I did take time out to study, because I love history and one of them was Boston, and of course Rome and all of those places like that. But, in Syracuse or Rochester, or any of those places, no." Three hundred miles from Boston, with just three games remaining in the NCAA men's lacrosse season, this place has also become perhaps the most fertile land in lacrosse. With defending D-I champ Syracuse at the center, the possibility exists that all three national championship trophies will make their way back to one 25-mile stretch in Central New York. On Sunday, in the D-II final, it'll be Le Moyne (located in Syracuse) playing for its third crown in four years, with Cortland State out for its second D-III crown in four years. And in Monday's D-I final, Syracuse takes on Cornell, a team a little outside the immediate region, but just over 50 miles from the Carrier Dome.
Click below for pictures from the first day of play!
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

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.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kevin Scheitrum
The lacrosse editor for NCAA.com, Kevin is covering his second Championship Weekend at Gillette Stadium. A lot has changed since last year for the native Pennsylvanian and BU grad: The Phillies won the World Series, BU won the Men's D-I Hockey national title and he discovered half-priced sushi.
BLOGROLL
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