Virginia, seeded fourth, will play top-seeded Notre Dame in the semifinals of the 2026 Allstate Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Men’s Lacrosse Championship on Friday, May 1. The game is scheduled for a 5 p.m. start at American Legion Memorial Stadium in Charlotte and will be broadcast on ACC Network.
Notre Dame enters the matchup ranked No. 1 nationally according to the latest USILA coaches poll. Virginia, North Carolina, and Syracuse all finished tied for second place in the conference standings, but tiebreaker procedures placed Virginia as the No. 4 seed.
The Cavaliers previously defeated Notre Dame this season on March 28 at Klöckner Stadium by an 11-9 score. In that game, freshman Brendan Millon contributed two goals and two assists and scored the winning goal late in the fourth quarter after Virginia held Notre Dame scoreless for over nineteen minutes. This marked Virginia’s first-ever win as an unranked team against a No. 1 opponent.
Since joining the ACC in 2014, Notre Dame has played Virginia three times during tournament play (2018, 2019, and 2024). Virginia holds a record of one win and two losses from those meetings; their sole victory came during the championship game in 2019 when they shut out Notre Dame for forty minutes en route to a title-clinching win.
Virginia is aiming for its twentieth ACC championship overall and its first since sharing the regular-season title with Notre Dame in 2022 when standings determined that year’s league crown.
In Friday’s other semifinal contest at American Legion Memorial Stadium, third-seeded Syracuse will face second-seeded North Carolina at approximately 8 p.m., also airing on ACC Network. Winners from both semifinals will meet Sunday at noon to decide this year’s champion.
Tickets are available online for individual sessions of this year’s tournament with general admission policies applying.
