Princeton’s men’s lacrosse team trailed Notre Dame 3-0 four minutes and 49 seconds into Monday’s NCAA championship game at Scott Stadium in Charlottesville, Virginia, and then did something that nobody watching had reason to expect, they scored 11 consecutive goals.
The run turned a three-goal deficit into an eight-goal lead by halftime.
The Tigers held on through a Notre Dame rally in the third quarter and won 16-9 to capture the program’s first NCAA men’s lacrosse championship since 2001 and its seventh overall.
The victory came with a specific poetry that Memorial Day delivered. On the same day the 2001 Princeton championship team was being honored on its 25th anniversary, 25 years since the last time the Tigers had held a national trophy, the 2026 team went out and earned a new one.
Chad Palumbo, a junior from Newton, Massachusetts who attended Noble and Greenough School before arriving at Princeton, scored all four of his goals in the first half, including his 48th of the season with 22 seconds remaining before halftime that gave the Tigers an 11-3 lead.
It was Palumbo’s fifth game this season with four or more goals. Colin Burns added a hat trick.
Goalie Ryan Croddick made 13 saves and kept Princeton’s sixth postseason opponent to 10 goals or fewer. Top-seeded Princeton finished 17-2, won 12 consecutive games and played in its first championship game since 2002.
The Start That Could Have Broken A Different Team
The first five minutes of Monday’s championship game belonged entirely to Notre Dame.
The Fighting Irish came in as the No. 2 seed, the two-time defending national champions, having won in 2023 and 2024, and playing in their third title game in four years.
They arrived in Charlottesville as the program that has been the most dominant force in college lacrosse in recent seasons, and their fast start looked like exactly the kind of early statement that a defending champion makes to let the challenger know it will not be easy.
Notre Dame scored three goals before Princeton could answer. The game was less than five minutes old and the Tigers were down 3-0 at one of the biggest venues in college sports against one of the best programs in the country.
The crowd, the moment and the scoreboard all aligned against them simultaneously.
Then Princeton turned it off.
Over the next stretch of the first half, the Tigers scored 11 consecutive goals, an 11-0 run against a Notre Dame defense that had been among the best in college lacrosse all season.
The run was systematic rather than frantic, goal by goal, possession by possession, Princeton methodically dismantling the early deficit and building something that Notre Dame could not close by halftime.
When Palumbo scored his fourth of the half with 22 seconds left before intermission, the scoreboard read 11-3 Princeton. The game that had started as a Notre Dame statement had become a Princeton demolition.
Palumbo And The First Half That Decided Everything
Chad Palumbo’s background explains something about the composure he brought to Monday’s championship stage.
He grew up in Newton, Massachusetts, attended Noble and Greenough School, a prep school that produces athletes who have competed at the highest levels of their sports, and won seven state championship titles across soccer, hockey and lacrosse during his prep career.
Seven state championships before he ever played a college game. He arrived at Princeton having already experienced what it feels like when the stage is large and the stakes are real.
At Princeton he became one of the most productive offensive players in the country. His 48 goals entering the championship game led the nation.
His involvement in Princeton’s first three goals of Monday’s game, either scoring or assisting on each of them, set the tone for the run that ended Notre Dame’s championship hopes.
His fourth goal with 22 seconds left before halftime was the exclamation point on a first-half performance that gave the Tigers everything they needed to win a national championship.
Monday’s game was his fifth of the season with four or more goals, a consistency benchmark that reflects not just talent but the specific ability to produce at high volume in the games that matter most.
His performance in the title game, against the best opponent his team had faced all year, was the best version of what he does throughout the season.
Colin Burns contributed a hat trick and scored his 11th goal of the tournament overall, the kind of sustained postseason production that championship runs require.
Tucker Wade scored to give Princeton its 50th shot of the game and make it 14-8, extending his own record of multigoal games to 13 on the season. Sophomore Jake Vana, from Boxford, Massachusetts, added two goals and demonstrated the kind of contribution from younger players that coaches talk about when they describe a complete team.
The Second Half And Notre Dame’s Failed Rally
Notre Dame did not simply accept an eight-goal deficit and let the second half pass quietly.
The Irish came out of halftime and began to chip away at the lead, twice getting within five goals before Princeton answered to push the margin back out. Luke Miller converted a man-up goal with 4:54 left in the third quarter to make it 12-7, the closest Notre Dame had been since the first quarter.
Burns ended that rally immediately, scoring his 11th goal of the tournament to make it 13-7 and take the wind out of whatever Notre Dame comeback narrative was beginning to form.
Wade added his goal to make it 14-8 and Princeton’s eventual 16-9 final carried the comfortable margin of a team that was simply better on Monday, regardless of what the first five minutes had suggested.
Notre Dame finished 13-3 on the season, a remarkable record for almost any program in any year.
Their three losses were all close or against elite competition. Being in the national championship game for the third time in four years represents a dynasty-level consistency that very few programs have ever achieved.
Monday’s loss does not diminish what Notre Dame has built, it reflects the specific reality that Princeton was better on this day, at this venue, against this competition.
Ryan Croddick And The Defense That Made It Possible
Behind the Princeton offensive performance that generated 16 goals and more than 50 shots is a defensive performance that deserves equal acknowledgment.
Ryan Croddick, the Princeton goalie who was named the Ivy League Goalie of the Year during the regular season, made 13 saves in the championship game and was the primary reason Notre Dame never got close enough to make the outcome genuinely uncertain.
Monday was the sixth consecutive postseason opponent that Princeton held to 10 goals or fewer, a statistic that runs through the entire NCAA Tournament bracket and reflects a defensive system that has been consistently excellent at the highest levels of competition.
Holding six tournament opponents to 10 or fewer goals while simultaneously scoring 14 or more in every game is the formula for dominant postseason runs, and Princeton executed it across every round of the bracket.
Croddick was not merely serviceable in the championship game, he was active.
His 13 saves against Notre Dame’s offense, which had been producing efficiently all season, were the saves that prevented what might otherwise have been a closer game in the second half.
The 25-Year Wait And What It Means
Princeton has seven national championships in men’s lacrosse. The previous six came in 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000 and 2001, a remarkable run of six titles in 10 years that established the program as one of the dynasties of the sport.
The 2001 title was followed by a 25-year absence from the top of the bracket, a quarter century in which Princeton remained consistently competitive but could not get back to the level its 1990s teams had defined.
The 2026 team broke that drought in the most definitive way available — winning the championship, not losing a close game in the final or falling in the semifinals.
Princeton 16, Notre Dame 9, at Scott Stadium in Charlottesville on Memorial Day, in front of the 2001 team being honored for their 25th anniversary at the exact moment their successors honored the program’s tradition in the best possible way.
Princeton is the national champion. The wait is over.
