2026 DIV III NCAA MEN'S LACROSSE CHAMPIONSHIP

May 24, 2026

Casey D'Annolfo

Jack Old

Brooks Hauser

Jack Regnery

Scott Stadium

Tufts Jumbos

Finals Media Conference

Tufts 11, RIT 6

MODERATOR: All right. We're joined by the national champions. We have head Coach Casey D'Annolfo, Brooks Hauser, Jack Old, and Jack Regnery.

Gentlemen, first off congratulations. Coach, if you'll make an opening statement and then we'll take questions for the student-athletes. And then we'll finish up with questions for you.

We'll start it out with an opening statement from you.

CASEY D'ANNOLFO: Yeah, absolutely. Really happy to be up here under the circumstances, and a little bitter sweet. I love this senior class so much. It's more sweet than bitter but definitely a bummer it's the last time we get to suit up with these guys, but it's been a pretty incredible journey with this group, 85 and 5 record across four years, and just enjoyed every minute of it.

And just so proud that the end of their freshmen year we walked off the field having lost a National Championship, and I think it's pretty cool that they get to walk off as a senior class winning the National Championship.

Really grateful to be here, grateful to spend time with these guys, Brooks and Jack and their 16 classmates. But just total team effort. Definitely not our prettiest game of the year, but definitely one of our grittiest, and just super proud of their effort for the full 60 minutes.

MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes.

Q. Jack, how do you describe the way that it seemed like in the first half RIT was able to answer a lot of the punches that you guys threw, and how do you describe in the second half your ability to separate and continue to score in bunches and what that meant for the defense?

JACK OLD: Which Jack are you talking about? No worries. I think that we just really have on the defense next-play mentality.

We have so much trust in these guys on the offensive side that they're going to keep pushing and RIT is a great team that they never quit the whole game.

So we just continued to say next play, next play no matter what would happen, goal, stop, save, ride back, anything like that.

We were just saying next play and having trust in our face-off guys, having trust in the guys on the offensive side of the ball was key for us, and turned out great.

Q. Brooks, five points today. What has made playing look some seamless for you all season auto?

BROOKS HAUSER: I mean, it's really the guys around me. As Coach D said, we have a really special, strong senior class, and everyone throughout our whole team has just been working really hard in the offseason in the fall, all the way through till now.

And just that time together every day really creates bonds off the field, but then that translates on the field.

And I think our offense has gotten to the point this time of year where we're just flowing, clicking, and that chemistry just kind of comes natural. It's really easy to play off of the guys out there, and they're all studs.

JACK OLD: Yeah, I think we've had our ups and downs this whole year. I think personally and as a team we obviously lost the game, and we really set the standard every year that we're going to win the National Championship. And we really don't ever stray away from that goal in anything that we do.

And I think that you look back a year ago this day, having not played in the National Championship, having been in khakis when we won, it was pretty awesome. It was an awesome experience, but it also was motivating knowing that I hadn't really made an on-field impact and wanting to come back next year and do the same thing, and I think being able to play in that game, it was a heck of a lot of fun, but it was also just really cool to be a part of a team like that and have that impact that I wanted.

So it's an amazing thing, and just having these guys around us this senior class is unmatched, the level -- how hard they work, how hard they push us every day, holding everyone accountable on the team whether you're at the top or the bottom of the depth chart was key for us and it was an incredible finish, obviously.

JACK REGNERY: On the offensive side of the ball it's just my teammates. Teammates doing a great job working really hard makes my job really easy just finishing the play.

Q. Brooks, you guys have obviously been building something special here, but for the younger guys coming up in the ranks what would your message be to keep this thing moving and continue that standard of winning national championships?

BROOKS HAUSER: That's a great question. All I can say is this program has a bright future. We have some absolute ballers that have already arrived, that are arriving, and I think it is really important to establish that culture of hard work.

And I think the younger guys, all of them, whether they have gotten some time this year, whether they haven't, I think they've been really open to accepting that, and they've just continued to grow throughout this entire spring.

And I'm so excited to watch now as an alumni what they can do next year.

MODERATOR: Any other questions for the student-athletes? Okay. All right. Questions for Coach.

Q. Coach, there is the sequence at the end of the first half where RIT committed a turnover out of a timeout and you guys were able to go goal face-off, win, timeout, goal face-off, win, timeout, and then run off three quick ones. Did you, in the moment, kind of identify that as this is a place where we can pull away? It had been pretty back and forth up until that point.

CASEY D'ANNOLFO: Yeah, I mean, we just had a ton of confidence in our guys. We knew we hadn't really played great lacrosse for the first quarter and a half. We were a little bit tight. It was something we talked about all week was just being loose.

But I feel like once we got down there and it was like, hey, 90 seconds left, let's fly around, and they finally shook off the nerves a little bit and that's when they started playing better.

We knew that there were going to be opportunities like that to start to go on a run. I thought RIT did a great job with the face-off against our guys.

So it was tough to get momentum, but once we scored that first one and we knew kind of that zone buster play was going to work we felt like we could span that a little bit and give ourselves an opportunity.

But I think it's just a real testament to Garrett and those guys to get a shot saved or they miss a shot and it's just reload, reload, reload, and they're just not concerned at all about failure.

They just want to get the ball back on their stick and see if they can succeed.

Q. Coach, you dropped the game earlier in the season to Bowdoin. How have you seen the switch flip in hindsight from then to now?

CASEY A'ANNOLFO: Yeah, I think it's really been for our guys, it was a really kind of a blessing in disguise to allow us to refocus. Not that the winning streak that we had was that big of a distraction but I think we were getting a little complacency as a program and not playing our best ball and not practicing as well as we needed to and that was a good wake up call for us because we weren't playing our best lacrosse.

Once that happened there wasn't a lot of yelling and screaming. It was just like hey we're back to work. We know we can be better and we have been. And so I think that's a real testament to the guys.

Again, there's not a lot of yelling and screaming from me. These guys hold each other and this program to such a high standard that they knew that we weren't playing our best and that it was time to get back to work. And it was perfect timing because it was going right into playoffs, and that is when we knew we had to elevate our game.

So it was a blessing in disguise to have a great opportunity to play better. It's just been a lot of fun this last month with these guys because they've really been super focused. It's really just a joy to go out to practice with these guys every day.

Q. Crowd was incredible. You had such a huge section behind you. What does that mean to see all the alum and the parents and the people coming back to support you and your guys and everything that meant and just the entire atmosphere?

CASE D'ANNOLFO: That's the secret sauce. I mean, we have such an incredible network, such an incredible group of people, such a positive and strong alumni base and friends of the program.

We were not anticipating a very big crowd. We're obviously a little bit more off the beaten path down here in Charlottesville and that was as good of a crowd, if not better than we saw last year in Gillette, and we were 45 minutes from our place.

I definitely felt like we had the crowd advantage and there were certain times in the game when whether it was volume or momentum, where they played such a critical role that allowed us to have success. And I'm just so great to be a part of it and to have those folks behind me.

It really made it feel like a big-time atmosphere down here. And it was loud, and it was fun.

Q. Can you put yourself in your opponents' shoes from the standpoint of like felt maybe 28 minutes or so there were measures by which they were either out playing you or at least playing you even and then as has been the case not just this year but for the majority of your tenure at Tufts, like here comes the wave and it's just so hard to keep your head above water?

CASE D'ANNOLFO: Yeah. I think it's -- you know, we call it psychological warfare just knowing that at some point that's going to happen, and one thing we always say it just takes one guy. Just takes one guy to pick up a ground ball or make a big play or score a goal.

That's going to start that wave like you talked about. I think that gives us a lot of confidence. I don't want to speak on behalf of Coach Coon or anybody we play but having that psychological advantage be that they think oh shoot, here it comes, we feel great about that.

So I think for us it's just like, hey, who's going to be that guy, who's going to make the play, who's going to make the stop. And I thought our bench today was unbelievable just keeping our guys in the right mind frame and just keeping us really level headed. And even when it was even early, we knew like hey, the dam is going to break. They're holding on for deer life. That's break that dam open and let's get a couple here and we did and I think that gave us a ton of confidence going into the second half.

MODERATOR: Thanks a lot, Coach. Congratulations.