DECATUR — The William Penn men’s lacrosse team fell one step shy of battling for a Red Banner as it dropped a 19-7 decision to No. 1 seed Madonna (Mich.) in the NAIA National Championship Semifinals Thursday.
The fifth-seeded Statesmen, who finish the 2026 campaign at 13-4, put an early scare into the Crusaders (20-1), but could not come away with the upset two days after making history with their first-ever national tourney victory.
The navy and gold controlled the opening stanza, pulling out to a 3-0 lead after 15 minutes of action.
Blake Cyboron (Jr., Council Bluffs, Iowa, Business Management) started the day’s scoring with an unassisted goal with 11:08 on the clock.
Kenny Bohney (Jr., Moorhead, Minn., Exercise Science) then doubled the margin less than a minute later off a pass from Nate Levy (So., Lynwood, Wash., Biology).
Neither crew could find the netting over the next seven minutes before Matt Scott (Fr., Denver, Colo., Sports Management) made it 3-0 with help from Isaac Heitschmidt (Fr., Oregon City, Ore., Industrial Technology).
It remained a 3-0 game three minutes into the second period before Madonna proved why it is the NAIA’s top-ranked program, scoring five unanswered goals and never looking back.
Scott stopped the bleeding with the assist credited to Garrett Katrana (So., Parker, Colo., Industrial Technology) with 2:55 left, but the Crusaders notched the next three scores to go up 8-4 at intermission.
Both teams scored early in the third quarter with Harley Williams (Sr., Edmonton, Alberta, Political Science) putting in a Levy pass on a man-up situation.
Unfortunately, MU found another gear and tallied eight goals in a row to put the game out of reach.
The navy and gold managed late unassisted goals by Cyboron and Heitschmidt, but it was not enough to lift the team to the national championship game.
Cyboron and Scott led the offense with two goals each, while Heitschmidt managed one goal and one assist and Levy tallied two assists.
Despite falling to Madonna, the Statesmen actually posted a 64-41 edge in shots, including a 30-29 advantage in shots on goal. The Crusaders’ shooting efficiency was unfortunately incredible by scoring on 46.3% of its tries, compared to 10.9% for William Penn.
Beyond the shots category, the contest, like WPU’s quarterfinal bout against Reinhardt (Ga.), was very even. Both squads managed 39 ground balls, and the Statesmen matched the Crusaders with 14 faceoff wins and a 23-for-27 effort in clears. WPU also committed fewer turnovers (25-27) than MU.
The trio of Heitschmidt, Campbell, and Nolan Soller (Fr., Owatonna, Minn., Industrial Technology) all ended up with four ground balls, while Heitschmidt and Soller both recorded two caused turnovers.
Connor Russell (Sr., Grand Haven, Mich., Applied Computer Science) closed out his collegiate career with 10 saves.
“Our program has always been built brick by brick,” Head Coach Luke Christiansen said. “This is the next chapter to build off. We are proud of the guys for all they accomplished this year and giving us everything they had all the way to the end. Ultimately, we ran out of gas today. We will use this to build from moving forward to get past this round.”
