The History Behind D-I Men's NCAA Championship Game Rematches

February 28, 2025

Patrick Stevens

Rich Barnes

A reunion so soon?

If March 1 seems a bit early for a national title game rematch, well, it is.

Notre Dame — which claimed its second consecutive NCAA tournament championship with a 15-5 Memorial Day drubbing of Maryland — meets the Terrapins at Atlanta’s Bobby Dodd Stadium on Saturday. It will be the third-earliest rematch of an NCAA final.

Appropriately, both programs have history in the other two games.

After Duke edged Notre Dame 6-5 on CJ Costabile’s goal off the opening faceoff of overtime on the latest possible Memorial Day (May 31) in 2010, the teams met on Feb. 20 the following year in Jacksonville, Fla. Zach Brenneman had three goals and two assists for Notre Dame in its 12-7 victory.

Two years later, Loyola was coming off a 9-3 smothering of Maryland to claim its first national championship. A renewal of the in-state series made sense, and the Terrapins visited Ridley Athletic Complex on Feb. 23, 2013, and came away with a 12-10 victory behind four goals and an assist from John Haus.

A couple other rematch tidbits …

• An encore of the previous year’s NCAA final in the regular season is fairly common. Of the 53 national title games played since the NCAA began sponsoring a tournament in 1971, Saturday will mark the 36th time the finalists met the following season prior to conference and NCAA tournaments. Defending champs are 21-14 in those games.

• Unsurprisingly, the game dates of those rematches tilt toward late March and early April. Schedules typically began in mid-March for much of the 1970s before gradually creeping into the earlier part of the month in the 1980s. Late-February openers became common in the 1990s. The first March rematch was on March 9, 1985, when Johns Hopkins (the 1984 champion) defeated Syracuse 8-6.

• Not counting conference tournaments, this will be the third rematch on a neutral field. There was Notre Dame’s 2011 victory over Duke in Jacksonville, as well as Maryland’s 23-12 thrashing of defending champ Virginia at Washington’s Audi Field in 2022.

EARLIEST NCAA CHAMPIONSHIP GAME REMATCHES
DIVISION I MEN’S LACROSSE HISTORY

Year	Date	Prior Champ	W/L	Prior Runner-Up	Score
2011	Feb. 20	Duke	L	vs. Notre Dame*	12-7
2013	Feb. 23	Loyola	L	Maryland	12-10
2025	March 1	Notre Dame	TBD	vs. Maryland**	TBD
1994	March 4	Syracuse	W	at North Carolina	17-10
2000	March 4	Virginia	L	Syracuse	13-12 (OT)
1986	March 8	Johns Hopkins	L	Syracuse	11-10
1997	March 8	Princeton	W	Virginia	14-13 (OT)
1985	March 9	Johns Hopkins	W	Syracuse	8-6
1995	March 11	Princeton	W	Virginia	11-4
2009	March 14	Syracuse	W	Johns Hopkins	14-11
2022	March 19	Virginia	L	vs. Maryland***	23-12
2003	March 22	Syracuse	L	Princeton	11-10
2002	March 23	Princeton	L	Syracuse	11-8
2014	March 23	Duke	W	Syracuse	21-7
1990	March 24	Syracuse	W	Johns Hopkins	13-12
2001	March 24	Syracuse	W	Princeton	14-8
2017	March 25	North Carolina	L	Maryland	15-7
2004	March 27	Virginia	W	Johns Hopkins	9-8 (OT)
2012	March 31	Virginia	W	at Maryland	12-8
1981	April 4	Johns Hopkins	W	Virginia	15-13
2015	April 4	Duke	L	Notre Dame	15-10
2008	April 5	Johns Hopkins	L	at Duke	17-6
2024	April 7	Notre Dame	W	at Duke	15-12
1983	April 9	North Carolina	W	Johns Hopkins	14-13 (OT)
1982	April 10	North Carolina	W	at Johns Hopkins	13-12 (OT)
1973	April 12	Virginia	L	at Johns Hopkins	14-9
2010	April 13	Syracuse	W	at Cornell	8-7
1979	April 14	Johns Hopkins	W	at Cornell	13-5
1978	April 15	Cornell	W	at John Hopkins	16-11
1989	April 19	Syracuse	W	Cornell	20-12
2018	April 22	Maryland	L	Ohio State	12-10
1976	April 24	Maryland	W	Navy	14-10
1986	April 25	North Carolina	W	at Virginia	18-7
1980	April 26	Johns Hopkins	W	Maryland	15-6
1974	May 11	Maryland	L	at Johns Hopkins	17-13
1975	May 17	Johns Hopkins	L	at Maryland	19-11

* = neutral-site game in Jacksonville
** = neutral-site game in Atlanta
***= neutral-site game in Washington, D.C.

Written By

Patrick Stevens

Patrick Stevens has covered college sports for 25 years. His work also appears in The Washington Post, Blue Ribbon College Basketball Yearbook and other outlets. He's provided coverage of Division I men's lacrosse to USA Lacrosse Magazine since 2010.