Rutgers Women's Lacrosse reacts to NCAA Tournament Bid

Rutgers Women’s Lacrosse Head Coach Melissa Lehman and players (Caroline Ling, Lily Dixon, and Katie Buck) offer their reactions to the Scarlet Knights making the 2026 NCAA Tournament.

Join The Knight Report now for $1 your first week and enjoy a complimentary year of The Athletic – included with your membership.

Full Rutgers Women’s Lacrosse Presser Transcript

Coach, what’s it like to be back in the NCAA tournament and what’s your early thoughts on Princeton? Well, we are so excited. This is actually the first time since 2022.

And so for all the girls on this team, this is their first opportunity going to the tournament. So it means a lot for this group. They’ve been working really, really hard the last couple of years.

And this year, you know, it was just extra motivation. So couldn’t be more proud of this group, especially these seniors who are truly the leaders of this program. Coach, you’re facing a team that you’ve seen earlier in the season.

How has the preparation kind of changed going into the second matchup with them? Yeah, it’s always interesting when you get to play a team again. We’re very familiar with Princeton. We’ve played them every season since pretty much I’ve been here.

And so the interesting thing is like we played so early. We played in February. Here we are in May.

So in a lot of ways, we’re different. I think for us, we’ve grown a lot, but we’ve really honed in on game planning, looking back at our film from last time where we maybe fell short. I think the biggest thing for us in our game plan, we have to be in control of the game.

And that means not just winning the draw controls and possessions because we did that last time, but it’s how we are controlling the game on the offense, the opportunities we’re looking for and making sure we play a full complete game. Last time, you know, the second quarter kind of put us in a rut and too big of a hole to bring ourselves out of. So for us, it’s really focused on every set, every play, the possession we have and playing 60 minutes.

Coach, when you get to tournament time, how important is experience and leadership in keeping the team focused under pressure? It means a lot, you know, I think because these games mean everything, right? It’s one game. And if you don’t win, you go home. And so you have to be able to play composed.

You have to be able to perform under pressure. We know that in big games like this, we play big 10 games, which are a battle every single time we’re out there on the field. So you have to have that composure and the ability to figure out just the way the game is going.

And so I’m really happy that I have a senior leader in Lilly Dixon. She’s been on the field for us for three, even four years. But the last couple of years has really been that constant who settles the team down and really gives them the fight and the belief, like she’s never going to give up on a play.

And that’s the mindset you need to have because the game is a game of runs and you can score quickly and rebound quickly. So yeah, I’m really excited about that leadership we have. Coach, you had five players named to all big 10 recently.

Just talk about that honor and what it meant for you guys. And on top of that, how important were those five to getting this tournament birth? Yeah, that was a great honor for our team, for our program and being recognized. I think that for the two that got selected to the first and second team, Caroline Ling and Katie Buck, just they deserved it.

They put up the points. They were a force as an attacker, Caroline Ling with 90 points tying the our program record for a single season. And so I’m just so proud of her and Katie Buck really has done so much for us on the field.

She has 157 draw controls, leads our team as a defender as well with cause turnovers and ground balls. So I think just their performance and their play earned that, but they’d also be the first ones to say they need the team with them. And I’m so glad that we got the three freshmen named to the all freshmen team.

We do have a lot of youth on our team with freshmen and sophomores out there. If you look at our roster and you see that, and those players are on the field for us, but they were able to do what they did because of the team and the culture and the belief that the upperclassmen give them. Like freshmen don’t just come out there on the field and don’t do that if they don’t feel that they can do that on their team.

And that speaks a lot to the seniors of this team and the culture that they’ve set. And they want them, they know they need them to perform. One thing on this team that they do particularly well or anything that you point to and say, if we keep, if we do this really well, we’ll be able to make a run in the tournament.

Thank you. So I think that with this team, I think we share the ball really well. I think that’s why we have a lot of offensive threats.

I think our attack coaches this year have done a phenomenal job really preparing them. So T.G. Nislonski and Olivia Rosenzweig, and just helping them build their IQ. I think we’re one of the top teams in the country in assist to goal ratio, and that’s our game.

And so we have to find ways to continue to share the ball, talk to each other, communicate the one more pass, and find the back of the net. This is the third tournament appearance you’ve had in this program. There was one before you arrived.

Are you getting a sense of what you’ve been able to do with this program since you’ve arrived and expanding the potential this program has had? Yeah, I mean, this is so exciting, the success that we’ve had, but it’s really a lot of hard work. And kudos to the players on the team, because we recruited them here for a reason, to chase excellence, to play to a high standard, and that’s what they want. They have high goals.

They want to compete for championships, and I couldn’t be prouder, especially getting here for the third time in six years. It’s a testament to the work, the high standards, and then the culture that we’ve been able to build. And here at Rutgers, competing in the Big Ten, we feel that support from our administration that they believe we can win.

And when you have an entire community that believes that, your players believe that, and I’m just so grateful to be here, and we’re just going to continue working, and we can’t wait to get our opportunity on Friday. What was it like on Sunday during the selection show? Did you have an idea if you guys would make the tournament? What was the feeling like when you saw Rutgers on the screen? We all had a lot of belief that we were going to make it, and we kind of just went in the whole week being like, we’re in this, we’re in this. And then to hear our name called, everybody, you can see in the video, jumps up.

It was just really exciting to be able to have another opportunity to play with this group, and I think everybody’s just really excited. What’s kind of your, are there any nerves going into this game? It’s a pretty important one. Yeah.

We kind of just have to understand we have nothing to lose and only to gain. So I think playing for this group of seniors and just playing together and knowing we get another game if we win. But to be able to make the tournament is a huge honor, but I think this goal, this team’s goal is to be able to go a lot farther, and there’s definitely nerves like there is every other game, but you kind of just have to go play by play, game by game.

Playing Princeton for the second time, how much of an advantage does it kind of help to already kind of know their team? Yeah. I think it’s kind of similar to how we play like a Big Ten team. You don’t typically get many opportunities to play the same team twice, and especially when it didn’t go our way the first time.

I think it’ll be really cool to just have a rematch. You kind of know a lot of the player tendencies, but they also know ours. So kind of just game planning, seeing where we can fix stuff from a previous time and just kind of going from there.

You guys had a little bit of a skid towards the end of the season. What have you guys learned since that Big Ten loss against Johns Hopkins? Yeah. I think we obviously ended on like a three-game, I think three-game losing streak, which isn’t how we wanted to end, but I think you learn a lot from the close losses, and Penn State and Hopkins especially, like we kind of just had to figure out what our mistakes were and then go from there.

When you’re playing against the best teams in the country, you can’t really afford to have the small mistakes, and we kind of know that going into this game as well. So we’re just kind of excited. Like new season, everybody’s been kind of saying like season two, it’s like a fresh start, 0-0 for everybody.

So I think we’re just kind of excited to clean the slate, and we haven’t played in almost two weeks, so it’s going to be really exciting to play again. Was there a game, a point in the season where you knew this team had a chance to make the tournament and you knew you guys were one of the best teams in the country? Yeah. I think knowing from the fall, like we just all knew how good we were, and we’re very young.

We were like, as soon as this clicks, it’s going to be amazing, and I think Michigan was definitely one of the games that it clicked for us. I think right after Michigan, we were like, we can play with anybody in the country, and so we kind of just, that was probably one of the pivotal moments that I was like, this team’s going to make a run. And I think we wanted to go a lot farther than we did in Big Ten, so I think this is kind of, this one’s a big one for us.

You talked about clicking. What do you think has been the common factor that has made this team stand out more than it did last year? Yeah. We’re just so like dynamic.

You can’t really game plan because anybody can have like a breakout game on any given game. So we have a lot of freshmen, a lot of sophomores, but we also have like a lot of upperclassmen leadership, and like we have a very young goalie, we have a pretty young defense, but there’s kind of sprinkles of, we have like a captain on defense, captain on offense, so kind of just like finding a way to like be able to connect everything, and then when we all are all on, like we were against Michigan, like that’s how good we can be, but then there’s also just kind of learning, like we are really young, so we kind of just have to learn from the mistakes and just move on. What was it like to learn you guys made the NCAA tournament on Sunday, and did you have an idea it was coming, or was it a surprise that you guys made it? Yeah.

It was so exciting. I think being a senior, this is the first time I’ve made the tournament. I think we definitely deserved it, but it was a pretty much 50-50 shot, so going into it, I know a lot of us were pretty nervous, but we couldn’t be more excited to play some more games.

Lily, as a senior, what do you think has made this Rutgers team so connected throughout the season? It’s honestly just our culture. Those are all my sisters in there. We couldn’t have asked for a better team.

We’re all best friends, and I just think it’s such a safe place in our locker room, and I think that carries straight onto the field. You guys had a bit of a skid towards the end of the season. What’s some adjustments that are being made to kind of stop that for this fresh start in the NCAA tournament? Yeah.

I think these past two weeks, we have worked really hard to kind of figure out everything that went wrong those past couple games, just kind of get through the nerves, figure out and find a way to adjust, and I think we couldn’t be more excited to get another shot to prove everyone that those last few games, we could learn from it and move forward and get a win on Friday. A little bit of a homecoming for you being a Maryland native. What’s that kind of like, especially because it’s the NCAA tournament? Yeah.

I couldn’t be more excited when we found out on Sunday that I’m coming home. We’re going to be staying right here in Annapolis. It’s 25 minutes from my house.

Playing right in College Park. So I just know that I’ll have a big group of supporters there, all my family and friends, and they’re just my biggest supporters, and I couldn’t be more excited to be close to home. You guys got to play Princeton earlier in the season.

What has changed from that game to now that would lead to a different result? Yeah. Princeton’s a really good team, but I think they’ve improved, but so have we. I think that wasn’t our best game, and we realized that they have a really good goalie, and we’re going to have to find a way to put our shots away and use the clock more.

You came in, I believe the program was just off of two straight NCAA tournaments. Now you’re back in the tournament as a senior. What is it like for you, one, to break through and make the tournament, and what do you think that says about what Coach Lemon has been able to do to this program, where making the NCAA tournament is a more regular thing? Yeah.

We’ve had some good wins the past couple years, but it hasn’t ultimately gone our way. I think all of our hard work, especially for my senior class, we went through so much adversity, and I think these past three years have made us better and made us better leaders to carry this young, talented team to the NCAA tournament. Your father played in an NCAA tournament, too, I believe.

What was his reaction, and what was that, just describe that feeling among now you being in an NCAA tournament? Yeah. Yeah. My dad’s so excited for me.

I think he’s taught me everything I know about this sport. He played at Towson, got to the national championship game versus UNC. I think it was in his 91 year or whatever.

I think he just knows what it takes, and he always knew that I’d be able to lead a team to that point. I think he’s extremely proud of me, and I’m just really happy that we could get to that point, and I could do that for him. What’s it like to make it to the NCAA tournament, and what was your reaction on Sunday when you saw your name on the screen? Yeah, so truly playing with my best friends is such a privilege, and I wouldn’t want to do it with anyone else since day one in the fall.

It’s been nothing but hard work, and I love watching the people next to me succeed. Watching their names on the screen, it was so much fun, almost indescribable. I’m just really just so proud of the people around me, because we’ve really seen what it took to get to where we were, and it was anything but easy, but it’s just something I’m so proud of.

Katie, what has been the preparation for the NCAA tournament as it approaches on Friday? Yeah, like I said, it really started from day one. This week has been nothing but grinding, but it’s been consistency all season. This has been something we’ve been working towards, and it’s been marked on my calendar.

The past couple years, obviously, it hasn’t gone our way, and as a senior, it’s so exciting to make the tournament and finally get to the point of what we’ve been working towards, but this week, we’ve really been making it about us. Princeton’s a great opponent. I’m so excited to play such a great team, but I’m really just focused on the talent we have and what we’re going to do with it, and I know we can do so much with it, so I’m just really excited to see just what we got on this weekend.

You guys have hit a bit of a skid in those past couple of games. Internally, how do you guys kind of handle that mentally and stay focused on the task at hand? Yeah, like I said before, our senior class has handled a lot of adversity, and I think just as leaders, losing is definitely not something that shakes our confidence. I think a lot of it comes internally, and I know what I’m capable of, and a lot of those outcomes haven’t gone our way, but I see what my teammates can do every day at practice and just giving everyone around me the confidence that they can achieve anything.

This upcoming tournament, it’s a whole new season, and learning from the mistakes we’ve made but also not holding onto them for too long, really just having a new mindset for this new season. 2026 team captain, 2026 All-Big Ten first team, now in the NCAA tournament, what do you kind of attribute to all that success? Yeah, honestly, my coaches have been such a huge aspect in all of this. My freshman, sophomore year, I suffered two ACLs.

I lost a lot of confidence, had no experience. They really gave me the confidence in who I am as a player. I really couldn’t have gotten to this point without them.

They’ve taught me so much that I can’t even really put that into words, and now I can confidently say I have the confidence in myself and to instill that in the rest of my team, and I’m so grateful for that, but I really just thank my coaches for picking me up when I was at my lowest, and now I’m here, and through a lot of hard work, I’m just really proud of not giving up. I think that was something that was definitely possible for a long time, and I stuck through a lot of hard times, but now as a senior, I’m kind of just cherishing every moment more so than anything. I know that anything can be taken away at any second, so not reading too much into the stats or the other team or the rankings and all of that, everything externally and just focusing on cherishing every moment I have out there because I don’t really know when it’s my last.

Katie, as a senior leader on the field, how do you keep the team composed in high-pressure situations? Yeah, I really think it’s about leading by example. People kind of just mimic how you’re acting out there on the field, and I really just try my best to stay composed, especially being the first whistle out there on the drill. I think that’s a really important aspect.

Just from the very start, I can’t go out there and control what everyone’s doing, but if they see how I’m acting out there and staying composed, level-headed and calm, like I said before, I kind of just have a cherish-every-moment-out-there mindset no matter how the game’s going. I feel like the people around me tend to do the same, so just leading by example is definitely something I try to lead by.