Out of the nine Generals’ spring sports that competed for Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) championships this spring, five of them were successful. That’s five more conference championships than all of Washington D.C.’s big five sports teams won in 2024, two more than Virginia’s flagship university has won in total this year, and two more than the Generals won last spring.
The list of winning W&L teams includes women’s golf, men’s lacrosse, women’s lacrosse, women’s tennis and women’s track and field. In addition, the men’s golf earned an impressive at-large bid to the NCAA tournament.
From these results, one can see the W&L women’s teams have been more successful than the men’s. Not that anyone’s keeping score.
The women’s teams’ successes were headlined by the track and field team’s winning of cross country, indoor and outdoor ODAC Championships. This feat is especially impressive considering that the women’s track and field and cross country programs have only one ODAC championship to their name during the past five years.
On the women’s track and field team, nine athletes won individual events at the ODAC meet, and two qualified for the NCAA Outdoor National Championships.
Besides track and field, W&L women’s teams have had success in tennis, golf and lacrosse. While the women’s tennis team lost to No. 2 Emory University in the round of 16, they still were able to continue their dominance in the conference. According to Mary Kate Kahl, ’28, the 2025 team “did not drop a line” during the entire tournament. Also, the program has not lost the conference tournament since 1990.
With similar dominance, the women’s lacrosse team earned lopsided victories in the second round of the NCAA tournament against Transylvania University and Sewanee, but ultimately lost to Gettysburg College by eight goals. Unfortunately, they were not able to avenge the men’s team’s loss to Gettysburg a week earlier.
The men’s lacrosse team’s season ended at home when they couldn’t overcome a 3-10 first half deficit. In the last few minutes, the Generals miraculously found themselves one stop away from a game-tying goal, but ultimately, the Gettysburg lead was insurmountable.
Despite the loss, the men’s team had a solid season in which they improved from the previous year. In the ODAC Championship game, the generals won an overtime nail-biter against the University of Lynchburg in front of a crowd of rowdy W&L alumni, which provided plenty of excitement on campus.
Another team that ended their season enroute to a national championship was the women’s golf team. After a solid win at ODACs, they placed No. 20 at the national championship in Williamsburg.
With women’s lacrosse losing on Saturday, only one W&L team (other than a few track athletes) is still competing: the men’s golf team.
While the women’s golf team qualified for Nationals through a conference victory, the men’s team took the unconventional route. After spending time as the No. 1 team in the country, the team fell behind early in the ODAC tournament. In the final round, they shot 11 under par as a team but finished in second place.
During the tournament, Jonathan McEwen, ’27, set the ODAC record with a score of 12 under par. The team will look to win a national championship after receiving W&L’s lone at-large bid of the spring season.
“We have a lot of momentum. We finished off the regular season with a win and placed second in ODACs knowing that we definitely could’ve won. The team is trending in the right direction at the perfect time,” said Tim Kaufman ’28, the reigning ODAC rookie of the year.
While spring term is always an exciting time, the success of these teams has made it even better.
