NCAA spring championship updates in water polo and lacrosse

The GIST: Another weekend, another mountain of spring championship news. The women’s and men’s tennis super regionals were an as-expected snoozefest, but there was plenty of drama in the pool and on the field. Fingers crossed tennis finds its fire before the gals resume play tomorrow. Let’s dive into the hardware-hungry havoc.

🤽 Women’s water polo: All hail the queens! No. 1 Stanford swam their way to back-to-back ’ships last night, (egg)beating rival No. 2 USC 11–9 to claim their ninth national championship — more than any other squad in the sport. In a true team effort, Stanford had seven different goalscorers to just outpace the formidable USC.

• This year’s tourney was another chapter in a story of dominance. Since the sport’s first natty in 2001, every title game has involved at least one of these teams, and they’ve been playing hot potato with the trophy since 2010. Sheesh.

🥍 Men’s lacrosse: The natty’s second round featured some close wins and some…not-so-close ones, but Army’s 16–15 upset of defending champs No. 4 Maryland had our jaws on the floor on Saturday. The thrilling dub, full of wild momentum swings, will send the military men to next weekend’s quarter-finals for the first time since 2010. Holy moly.

• Unseeded Michigan also impressed this round. After making their first-ever natty by unexpectedly winning the Big Ten Tournament, they kept the ball rolling with yesterday’s 15–14 upset win over No. 8 Cornell.

🥍 Women’s lacrosse: The eight seeded women’s teams had their fair share of close calls this weekend, but only committee-selected Notre Dame was able to pull out an upset in yesterday’s second round, defeating No. 6 Florida 16–15 to become the lone unseeded squad in Thursday’s quarter-finals.