Yale Lacrosse: National Champs

Yale men's lacrosse won its first NCAA title in 13-11 win over Duke. Four squad members are from Westchester. (Yale Athletics photo)

No matter the breadth, scope and history of Yale athletics, national championships don't come often. No matter the stories, the legends, and the strides the department has made in recent years, national championships are few and are treasured.

Yale men's lacrosse captured the 2018 national championship by whipping an academic school that, well, puts far more emphasis on the importance of accumulating national championships, usually basketball, sometimes lacrosse:  Duke.

For this Yale team, the expectations had actually been high. Despite losing ugly to Cornell in the Ivy League championship game, Yale was projected to get into the Final Four and projected to at least compete in the championship game.

Before close to 30,000 fans in the stadium where the New England Patriots play, Yale prevailed, 13-11, in Foxborough, Mass., May 28. The Bulldogs hoisted an NCAA championship plaque back to Ray Tompkins House in New Haven--its first ever. (The 1883 Yale team claimed a national championship before the existence of the NCAA.) The Bulldogs finished 17-3.

The team had its stars--most notably, Ben Reeves '18, who scored 62 goals in 2018 and was team captain and Ivy League Player of the Year. It also had team members from the Westchester County area, which in the past decade has proven to be an productive farm league for Top 20 college lacrosse teams and which has become a lax hotbed in the way Long Island has been for decades.  (At least 10 players on the Yale championship roster hailed from Long Island.)

If Long Island had 10 or more, then Westchester area had its four.

Aidan Hynes '20, a defenseman, played regularly enough at Yale this year and last year to have earned Second-Team All Ivy last season.  Before Yale, he went to Mahopac High School and played lacrosse there for four years.  In high school, he also starred in basketball and soccer. 

Ted Forst '19, as a junior from Bronxville, scored four goals this season as a regular. Two of those goals came against Harvard in a 16-8 victory in April.  Forst followed his mother Susan Forst '87 to Yale, where his uncle David Ryan '92 also played lacrosse.

Bronxville's Owen Jones '18 was a midfielder, who played sparingly, but had his best game this year in the win against Harvard as a face-off midfielder. Along with Ted Forst, he helped Bronxville High School win a state lacrosse championship and kicked for its football team.

In his first year on the Yale squad, Scarsdale's Will Cabrera '21 scored two goals in the attack position.

To get to the championship, Yale ousted Albany two days before, 20-11, and beat Loyola and UMass on the way to Foxborough.