Everything You Need to Know About the 2025 D-I Women's Lacrosse Season

Each year, coaches like to remind their players — and us journalists calling for season previews — that it’s a “new season.” Last year? That’s over, regardless of how successful it was or how many players are returning.

But 2025 will genuinely mark a turning of the page. The fifth-year stars who walked off the field last spring were freshmen during the COVID-shortened 2020 season. The true seniors didn’t have an extra year of eligibility, nor will the class of 2025.

So, mostly gone are the stacked, veteran-heavy rosters with lineups hard to crack and one-year wonders transferring from mid-majors to national powers. Many of last year’s top teams bid farewell to a bevy of longtime stars, and conference realignment decisions will take shape in 2025. (Thanks for the memories, Pac-12.)

It leaves us with more questions than answers — though it’s a bit exciting to enter knowing one thing: New names, faces and stars are set to emerge, and the storylines and headlines will (at long last) shift.

ROSTERS GUTTED

Let’s start with the massive elephant in the room: The numerous holes many teams will need to fill in 2025, often with rookie talent and upperclassmen who waited in the wings while the likes of Izzy Scane and her peers kept coming back for more. The Wildcats lose Scane, Erin Coykendall and Molly Laliberty, among others, though it’s unlikely they’ll take too many steps back with Madison Taylor returning. Ditto for Boston College, which graduated Belle Smith and star defenders Hunter Roman and Sydney Scales but welcome Emma LoPinto, Rachel Clark and Shea Dolce back.

But Penn State — the runner-up in last year’s Big Ten tournament — loses its top four scorers and three starting defenders. Eloise Clevenger, Emily Sterling and Shaylan Ahern are among the Maryland stalwarts who turned their tassels (fifth-year transfer Meghan Ball is also out of eligibility). Florida, which beat Maryland in the quarterfinals during an improbable final four run last year, loses eight starters. Stony Brook will play without about a dozen veterans, including Tewaaraton finalist Ellie Masera. Syracuse won’t have Emma Tyrrell, record-breaking draw specialist Kate Mashewske and Delaney Sweitzer (now with Northwestern).

We could be here all day if we went on. The bottom line? A common question during season preview interviews was, “How will you replace A, B, C, X, Y and Z,” and the go-to answer from coaches was, “Everyone else is facing the same question.” It sounded canned, but they weren’t wrong.

What does that mean? New stars will arise — exciting. However, fans may need to show some patience as programs go through growing pains and find new identities. There’s always a bit of sloppiness in February (the weather in many locations doesn’t help), but it could be more pronounced this year. It’s the nature of the (COVID-induced) beast. It’s also unlikely to become a trend in future seasons as fewer players have opportunities to extend their eligibility, and true freshmen in starting lineups becomes normal again.

WATCH MICHIGAN, YALE AND NAVY

The next few points about the 2025 season will contradict all of the above. But there are always outliers. See: Michigan, Yale and Navy, which all bring back veteran-heavy lineups. Michigan, an unexpected success story last year, returns 79 percent of its goal scoring. Defensively, the Wolverines will call Erin O’Grady, who finished 2024 second in Division I in save percentage (.549), their anchor. And watch out: Last year, O’Grady played much of the spring on one leg. Head coach Hannah Nielsen says she has both legs back under her, so good luck to opponents, including rivals in need of offensive reloads.

Largely considered a tournament snub last year, Navy will once again play with Emily Messinese (68G, 18A, 64DC), defender Alyssa Dailey (191DC) and netminder Felicia Giglio (8.69GAA). But with apologies to head coach Cindy Timchal, who isn’t big on X-factors, Ava Yovino will be one in 2025. Yovino missed 2024 with an injury after a standout freshman campaign that saw her lead the team with 92 points and 50 assists. She’ll bolster an offense that pushed Loyola to the brink in last year’s Patriot League championship game.

And Yale — fresh off a first-ever outright Ivy League — essentially brings back its entire roster. That roster includes preseason All-American attacker Jenna Collignon, midfielder Fallon Vaughn and defender Emmy Pascal. And then there’s the goalie battle, which has been a three-player race between Laura O’Connor, Cami Donadio and Niamh Pfaff since the fall. The Bulldogs are locked and loaded all over the field.

CAN WE CALL IT A COMEBACK?

Did North Carolina really leave? The Tar Heels made the NCAA tournament, after all. However, the Tar Heels experienced an unexpected roster gutting via injuries before 2024 even began. It’s already been written countless times, but 12-7 and a second-round exit aren’t the results we’ve all come to expect from UNC. You can expect 2024 to feel like a distant memory by mid-March and nearly forgotten about by May (save for the obligatory questions about how gratifying 2025 is after what happened in 2024).

Brooklyn Walker-Welch, Chloe Humphrey, Kaleigh Harden and Marissa White are all slated to return this year. For Humphrey, she’ll make a long-awaited entry into the college game. The Darien (Conn.) star was the USA Lacrosse High School Player of the Year in 2023. She’ll do it alongside both her sisters. Nicole, injured during a one-year stint at USC last year, is back in Chapel Hill, where she was a part of the title-winning team in 2022. Ashley was the lone Humphrey to see action last year — her 38 assists served as a bright spot.

Chloe’s debut isn’t the only significant one, though. The Heels’ top-flight freshman class includes Kate Levy and Eliza Osburn, showing that the program isn’t just set for a season but several to come.

IMPACT TRANSFERS

The influx of transfers has died down, especially this offseason. But players still entered the portal. We covered Nicole Humphrey and Sweitzer (whose presence at Northwestern is especially welcome with Laliberty gone). However, several key transfers come from the Ivy League, which lost two seasons to COVID-19. The two most recent Ivy League Attackers of the Year are now on blue-blood rosters.

First, Mia Mascone, the Division I leader in points per game at Brown last year (6.53), has found a new home at Boston College — the rich get richer, indeed. Another attacker, Niki Miles, a unanimous first-team All-Ivy League pick in 2024, bolsters Northwestern’s sans-Scane lineup. Miles scored 70-plus points in each of the previous two years and corralled a program-record 119 draws in 2024.

A few more to watch (ex-Ivy and otherwise):

• Sam Devito, M, to Syracuse from Princeton (21 goals last year and now has a chance of filling holes the Syracuse offense)
• Riley Campbell, A, to Northwestern from Harvard (team-leading 60 goals last year)
• Jenny Markey, M, to Florida from Syracuse (spirited glue player who makes plays between the 30s — a perfect fit for a generally scrappy Florida team in the middle of a reload)
• Olivia Vergano, A, to North Carolina from Virginia Tech (midfielder who can dodge and coral a draw)

REALIGNMENT TAKES SHAPE

Many of these decisions were made in late 2023, but the impact will finally be felt this year. The TL;DR version: The end of the Pac-12 has made conferences like the ACC and Big Ten more stacked than ever. It also opens the door for the beginning of the Big 12.

We’ll bullet the key changes so you don’t need a map to figure out who’s where:

• Stanford and Cal join the ACC from the Pac-12
• USC and Oregon join the Big Ten from the Pac-12
• The Big 12 begins with headliners Florida and Colorado

Adjacent to conference realignment, USF will make its debut in 2025 under Mindy McCord, who built Jacksonville into a perennial NCAA tournament team. It will play in the American Athletic Conference. Rhode Island (Atlantic 10) and Charlotte (AAC) are also set to play their first seasons, adding to a narrative of “new” this February.