2026 NCAA WOMEN'S LACROSSE CHAMPIONSHIP

May 21, 2026

Jenny Levy

Eliza Osborn

Sam Forrest

Chloe Humphrey

Martin Stadium at Northwestern

North Carolina Tar Heels

Semifinals Media Conference

JENNY LEVY: First of all, thanks to Northwestern for being a good coast. I'm really excited for all the student athletes who get to compete this weekend because it's such an honor. Excited for our team. We're excited for our team. It's hard to get here. I'm looking forward to a great game tomorrow against Maryland.

Q. How much pride does the unit take in the relentlessness you guys have shown?

JENNY LEVY: This is an offense that never takes a rep for granted. We feed off each other, whether that's energy or being inspired by my teammates on my left and right. So we are constantly just pushing each other each day in practice which I think has shown really well in our games this year.

Q. What do you think is the significance of this event being hosted outside of the Eastern time zone for the first time?

ELIZA OSBURN: I think it's great for people who are on the West Coast to travel. I know a couple people from Colorado are coming out to watch. And also back East, lacrosse is huge. So bringing it out to the West is beneficial for all the players out there and the young girls that are watching.

Q. What would it mean to go out on top and how do you feel you're grown on this journey?

SAM FORREST: For our entire time we've worked so hard to get to this point for the second season in a row, and I think it would just mean so much to do it with our best friends. Over the past five years, I've grown, Jenny can probably attest to this. I didn't play at all in my freshman year and I didn't know when I was going to play.

Now that I have the opportunity to par fate in the Final Four and hopefully for the Championship, it's just such an amazing feeling.

Q. For any of you, what do you feel like you've learned over the past year and from last season to the postseason?

SAM FORREST: It's just that the postseason is very different from the regular season. We like to say that we play three different seasons. Being able to experience every kind of season from regular to ACC to National Championship, you have to treat the three seasons differently and separate from each other. Everyone is playing harder the further you get into the season and throughout the season, I feel like we've learned that we can play faster and harder than we ever thought we could before.

CHLOE HUMPHREY: I would say the biggest thing is not looking too far ahead. Obviously our team sets very lofty goals. Last year we had an undefeated National Championship season, so we accomplished some of our lofty goals but it truly is just taking it one season at a time, whether that's ACC season, regular season, and now the NCAA season. So we just take it like one season at a time, one game at a time, one practice at a time and we are not looking too far ahead. We have Maryland tomorrow to take care of, so we definitely have all our eyes and energy focused on that game.

ELIZA OSBURN: I think something that's really special about our team is we have not hit our full capacity yet.

After a win or loss, we are ready to look at film and see what we can do better. Our team hasn't hit our full (capacity), so we're excited to play against Maryland because I think we can show things that no other team has seen from us yet and put it to them.

Q. Sam, what is the adaptability of defense in the last few games without Brooklyn in the lineup and the growth from the beginning of the year?

SAM FORREST: We always talk about being able to adapt and adjust on the fly and being ready for anything the game may throw at us. Being prepared for somebody to go down, we talked about it earlier, like somebody is always ready to step up and take part in the leadership that's needed to fill those gaps or the specific skills that are needed to fill those gaps, and I feel like we've done a really good job as a unit just adapting to what we need throughout the season and figuring out how to be the best version of our unit that we can be.

Q. This is for Chloe. Obviously you've improved so much as a player from last year, taking the limits even higher but how do you feel that you've improved from freshman to sophomore year as a leader on this team and just your presence leading rest of the players on the squad?

CHLOE HUMPHREY: Yeah, I think it goes to show just how incredible my teammates are. Last year, I like to say my sister was putting the ball on my stick a lot and assisting a lot of those goals.

So I've kind of leaned on other teammates from both like the midfielders to the attackers to do the same, and I think that they have -- that's the staff that you're showing is that they have provided and it truly is a testament to how incredible they are. They are just -- we are never satisfied. So that energy of our team is just so contagious, and allows me to believe like I'm never going to be satisfied no matter what. Sometimes to a fault a little bit. Never satisfied. But it just goes to show how I think my teammates have elevated their games, which natural has just allowed me to elevate my game as well.

Q. Once you found out you were playing Maryland, what's been the focus in practice?

CHLOE HUMPHREY: We've been excited to see a team outside of the ACC. Our first two rounds were ACC opponents and we had to take care of Stanford for a third time which I never had any doubt in my team that we could do that. It was just focusing on us and our game plan and no matter who we are playing or who the opponent is, we are always going to play Carolina lacrosse, and nothing is going to change that.

Q. Offense gets a lot of ink but from your vantage point what stands out about Sam and the defense and how they work and allow you to do your thing?

CHLOE HUMPHREY: Oh my gosh I'm so happy I finally have an opportunity to brag about Sam. She is -- I mean in, practice, she -- I cannot beat her in practice, and genuinely like she is just such a light to our team and is constantly making others better around her. It just goes to show she is someone who puts her head down and works hard and it's paid off beyond anything that she could ever have imagined which goes to show so much about her as a character as well. But she is the anchor of our team and our defense, and it's been just awesome to see the incredible things that she's accomplished and I'm just so honored to be on the same team as her.

SAM FORREST: For the record she does beat me sometimes (laughter).

Q. They were just singing Sam's praises, of course, and how much she's meant to this team. Just from your perspective, what has she brought to this team as a veteran this season, helping the other players step up into leadership roles, and of course, defensively, this season, she's been fantastic. So if you want to just talk about that as well.

JENNY LEVY: Yeah, Sam, her signature trademark her footwork and her ability to change directions and take people out of games with her one-on-one. But she's really had to step up into a leadership role this year with us with different defenders coming in and out of the lineup. Obviously we're missing Ellie from last year, and Brooklyn has been in and out of our lineup this year.

There's a whole new group that she's playing with down there, and you know, it took awhile for us to kind of find that rhythm. And I attribute a lot of that to Sam and just reinforcing to her that she can lead and she can do it, and also do her job, which when sometimes all you have to do is your job, it's a lot easier.

But when you have to lead and do your job, that balance becomes a little bit of a challenge when you haven't had to do that before. So really proud of her. As she mentioned, her freshman year, she didn't play because of the defensive unit in front of her, and we always knew she would be a star and be great.

She has exceeded all of our expectations. She's been awesome this season.

Q. This will be the first time in more than six years that you guys match up with Maryland. What do you think is means for this sport to have such an historic rivalry renewed on this stage?

JENNY LEVY: Yeah, we have so much -- Cathy and I go way back and we have so much respect and admiration for each other and how we run our program.

I think both sides, I assume, I haven't read anything, but we're really excited. It's such an honor to play Maryland and the Carolina/Maryland matchup is something that all of these players watched that goes way back to when they were little. It inspired them to either go to Maryland or go to Carolina.

So I think for the lacrosse world, it's really exciting to see this matchup again, and it's really exciting to see it in the Final Four.

Q. This is far from your first trip back to the semifinals, and so many of these players that were part of last year's team obviously won the National Championship. Is there anything you tell them going into this weekend or going into the tournament overall just to get them in that, like, we're going-to-win-it-all mindset or anything like that?

JENNY LEVY: You know, mindset starts when we first meet in August. We work on mindset and where we are mentally on a day-in, day-out basis every day.

So it's not something that's new for them. It's something that we build in as a mental skill all the way through the year, and I think the biggest challenge is usually January, February, when you're going into the season, and you have last season in your mind.

I think by the time you get to this point, it's this team, this year, and what's unique to this team this year. It doesn't have anything to do with last year.

And so, you know, coming into this championship weekend, all four are great teams, great coaches who have been in positions before to win championships, and have won championships.

So it's really about, like, mentality, how you feel and we build that all year. So it's nothing unusual for them. What I tell them, they don't need -- they are ready to go because of what we have already done.

Q. Obviously Eliza had a spectacular freshman season but how would you characterize the evolution of her game that you've seen from the start of the year to this point now?

JENNY LEVY: Yeah, she's an incredible talent as everyone can see. Her speed and explosiveness. She came in fast. We can't train fast in explosiveness, but we can train stick skills and IQ and things like that, and I think the biggest mark of her development this year has been her better understanding of the game and also better -- like her stick work and the things she's able to work on and see the results of what it takes to even take another step of being elite, to match that with her elite athleticism.

She's a really exciting player to coach. These a great teammate, and she's exciting to watch, too. All these little Colorado kids are hopefully watching her.

Q. You met obviously in Evanston this weekend, first time the Final Four has been in the Central time zone. What do you think that signifies for the sport and growth the lacrosse across the nation in recent years?

JENNY LEVY: Yeah, I think it's great to move it around. The opportunity last year to play up in Boston in Foxborough was exciting.

Being here in the Midwest makes it more accessible to maybe people that wouldn't come to an East Coast championship. The growth of the game is really exciting right now. With the Olympics on the horizon in '28 and really exciting players in the game right now -- not just Chloe but there's a lot of really exciting players across the country. It's important to inspire the next generation, and it's really important to grow the game right now, and it's on us to do that because there's other things that will threaten that if we don't take care of the game and move it forward.

Q. This Final Four is historic for women's lacrosse. In the era of revenue sharing, how important is it to grow the sport at the college level?

JENNY LEVY: Do you have a week to talk about that? It's hard. It's not just happening, NIL, rev share, it's not just happening to football, basketball, baseball level. It's happening in the Olympics sports, as mentioned.

It's difficult, because where I sit, I've done this for a long time. We really are in the business of building athletes and growing humans and helping them have a transformational experience of development and growth, not just on the lacrosse field but as humans.

I find, like all of it that's happening right now is very transactional, so as coaches, we're trying to find a balance between obviously competing at the highest level and wanting to win but also saying true to the values that I have which is I want to help young people become the best versions of themselves and sometimes those two things are hard to coexist right now.

We fight hard to help pep understand the value of hard work and working through struggle and getting to the back side of that versus like, oh, well, this isn't working out, so I'm just going to go to the transfer portal or I'm just going to go chase money. You know, in our sport, I don't know -- I probably shouldn't say this -- but we are a fortunate sport. The socioeconomic blueprint of our sport is good. It's a challenge but it is what it is. If you want to compete, you've got to find a way to say true to your values but also be current.

Q. How do you keep the team focused while going 40-1 over the last two years?

JENNY LEVY: You know, again, it's all about like what we do day in, day out. I think our job as coaches is to challenge our athletes to be present and be in the moment, and take care of the details that help them improve throughout the course of the season.

If we are constantly working on what the result's going to be, then we're going to miss the mark by a lot. Keeping them present, keeping them humble and keeping them focused on growth is the best -- it's the best recipe I know of to position ourselves to be here this weekend.