Anyone who thought the Yale men’s lacrosse team had suffered too many graduation losses in 2018 to get to the season’s final weekend obviously has been proven wrong.

But, as senior midfielder and team captain John Daniggelis says, anyone who figured several months ago that the Bulldogs would sail into Philadelphia in 2019 with an equally dominant squad didn’t exactly get that one right either.

The bottom line is the defending NCAA champions are facing Penn State in Saturday’s semifinal round at Lincoln Financial Field in Philly. It’s right where Yale wanted to be – even though the fifth-seeded Bulldogs (14-3) are trained hard by coach Andy Shay and his staff to look ahead one obstacle at a time and forget about the long view.

The similarities between this year’s team and the most accomplished squad in school history clearly are there. Each team started the season with a one-goal loss to Villanova. Each entered the postseason with three losses, having scored a ton of goals and on various occasions overwhelmed its opposition.

Talk to players like Daniggelis, senior midfielder Joe Sessa and junior attackman Jackson Morrill, and you hear a consensus comparison regarding the path traveled to the season’s final weekend.

It has not been easy. Even with junior superstar transfer T.D. Ierlan, the game’s premier faceoff specialist, feeding the Yale offense (second-ranked in Division I with 15.65 goals per game) with ridiculous consistency. Even with an offense that lost the game’s Tewaarton Trophy winner in Ben Reeves, the Bulldogs have hummed for most of the year under the spectacular guiding hands of Morrill.

But to the veterans who have already been here, getting back has been especially rewarding, because of the shortcomings Yale has battled. The Bulldogs suffered huge losses on defense – as close defenseman Chris Keating and dominant short-stick midfielders Jason Alessi and Tyler Warner departed. Faceoff specialist Connor Mackie was replaced ably by Ierlan, but Mackie offered more size to a very physical roster.

Yale also confronted a stronger Ivy League and a lacrosse world highly tuned into the Bulldogs, who would sneak up on no one. Until last year under Shay, Yale was pretty much a talented, up-and-coming Ivy force that had trouble getting past the first round of the NCAAs.

“Coming into this year as a senior class, we tried to flush last year as soon as possible and look for the next thing,” Daniggelis says. “Last year gave us something to aim for, but it also put a ton of pressure on us all year. Constantly being in the spotlight is not something we’re used to. It’s been our most stressful year, by far.”

“We felt like the next step for us was to make it back to championship weekend,” Sessa adds. “We want to be a program like Maryland. They’re a staple at the final four, and we want to be that. I don’t think we’re the most dominant team this year – and we’ve kind of grown to like that. Those cracks have forced us to come together more as a team and figure out how to win.”

The Bulldogs are still alive because Ierlan and their offense buried unseeded Georgetown early in their first-round matchup, only to have the Hoyas make things uncomfortable late in a 19-16 victory.

A week later, Ierlan and Penn FOGO Kyle Gallagher battled evenly, and Yale survived a back-and-forth, battle royale with Ivy rival Penn in a 19-18, overtime classic. It was Yale’s only victory in three tries against the Quakers, who had bested the Bulldogs by a goal twice.

Now, fittingly, Yale must knock off top-seeded Penn State, which has taken Division I by storm with the most explosive offense and consistent, all-around team, as the Nittany Lions (16-1) pursue their first-ever title – after never having won an NCAA playoff game.

Yale is the only team to have solved the Penn State. On a February day when Ierlan was nearly perfect, the Bulldogs squeaked by, 14-13.

“All three of my years have been different, and this year has been so different from last year,” says Morrill, who leads Yale in assists (45) and points (88). “It’s been frustrating at times, trying to come close to playing a perfect game as a team. There has been friction, which is nothing unusual. But we’ve just kept working.”

The seniors in the fall knew it would be a whole new year, with so many new or young and inexperienced players coming in, and their fall player-planned practices confirmed it – especially on defense.

Shay’s family also had a major scare last fall, when a fire severely damaged their house, forcing Shay and his wife, Sheila, and three children – sons Logan and Griffin and daughter Everly – to relocate. The family moved back home in early March.

“That was a tough time for the family, and I didn’t do the best job [with the team], and it has showed this year. Some days we just haven’t played that well,” says Shay, who missed numerous days with the Bulldogs.

“Coach [Shay] is the kind of guy who takes accountability even when he doesn’t have to,” Sessa says. “What happened last fall to his house was tough on all of us. We knew about the sleepless nights he had helping out his family. There isn’t a harder worker than him. He’s a role model.”

Says Danigellis, “When we first got together in the fall, our last lacrosse recollection was the peak performance of that [championship] team. That took a whole year to build to. On day one of practice [in the fall], when we were trying to teach the younger guys how to clear the ball, we knew we had a lot of work ahead. Each team is its own organism.”

The Bulldogs have scored early and often this season and have beaten down teams with an offense that has reached 15 or more goals on 10 occasions. They have the game’s ultimate equalizer in Ierlan, who was a huge difference maker in early-season wins over UMass and Penn State.

Defensively, Yale has allowed almost 11 goals per game, and ranks 33rd in that category – a year after ranking 14th (8.9 gpg). Some of that is due to the shot clock era. Some is clearly due to personnel losses that usually can’t be replaced overnight.

But here is Yale, on the precipice of making history. Here is Yale, one victory away from a chance to be the first Division I team to repeat as titlists since Syracuse pulled it off 10 years ago.

“We are confident, but we stay worried about the day-to-day here,” Morris says. “The coaches really don’t allow us to get to a point where we felt, ‘Hey, we’re pretty good.’ It’s at that moment, when you get worse.”