Deja Vu Moment Goes Tampa's Way in OT Win for Division II Title

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — It was deja vu all over again for the Division II title.

Last year, Adelphi and Tampa battled to an instant classic OT thriller. In 2026, lacrosse fans were once again treated to an overtime game for all time.

Tampa scored the last two goals of regulation to tie the game at 11 before Tommy Ortega hit the game winner in overtime to lift the Spartans to a 12-11 victory and their second NCAA championship in front of 13,802 fans at Scott Stadium in Charlottesville, Va.

Adelphi came in looking to tie a bow on not just a perfect season, but a feat never achieved. No team has ever won three straight Division II national championships. The Panthers rolled to championship Sunday in dominant fashion. They allowed double digit goals just once all year. In their previous five games, dating back to Northeast-10 tournament play, they had won by an average margin of 12 goals. The Panthers had All-Americans all over the field, led by midfielder Kyle Lewis, attackman Braden Donnellan and goalie Christian Tomei.

Tampa entered Sunday with just one loss on its resume, an early-season game against Anderson that it avenged in the NCAA tournament. The Spartans rolled through the SSC tournament and then continued to pick up steam by beating Flager, Lewis, and Anderson on their way to the title game.

Tampa bore an offense deep with weapons aplenty. Aaron Cho and Ortega had been party starters, but one of Tampa’s best strengths is its ability to strike from all over the field. At times, the 2026 title game felt like a replay of the 2025 title game, but Tampa had prepared all year for that.

“That was our motivation this year,” Ortega said. “We try not to dwell in the past too much. But with a loss like that and everything we felt that day, that was enough to fuel us every single day and push each other to be the best possible versions of ourselves that we can be, and understand that it can all go away in an instant.”

Tampa struck first as Zack Friend fed Jackson Bashaw in tight to put Tampa up 1-0 just 39 seconds into the game. But the response from Adelphi was strong. The Panthers rattled off five straight goals, four of which were scored or assisted by Lewis, last year’s OT hero and the only Division II player selected in the Premier Lacrosse League draft.

Adelphi led 5-1 in the first quarter.

“That was a bit of a shell shock for us,” Ortega said. “We had to look around and brace ourselves for the moment. Any team puts you down 5-1, it’s hard to bounce back from that. It’s a testament to our culture and the belief we have in every single person, the faith that we have, and it came down to us truly believing with every ounce of ourselves that the guy to your left and the guy to our right were going to do it.”

The Spartans continued to battle, and little plays turned into big plays and momentum shifts. Ground balls that were going the way of the Panthers started going the way of Tampa, and they were turned into scoring opportunities as the Spartans fought back. Rex Kesselring had two goals in the second quarter to complete a first half hat trick, the second of which brought Tampa back to within one, as the Spartans trailed just 6-5 at the break.

The back and forth, and the trading of big plays, went on all afternoon.

“We were doing fine, except those close contested ground balls were turning into possessions for them,” Tampa coach J.B. Clarke said. “Three of those times when it was a crazy grounder, we might have even had it in our stick a couple times, one in particular off a faceoff, and they scored on all three of those. It was about getting our guys to focus in on that.”

“We didn’t win faceoffs in the second quarter. We had a couple issues with penalties. We had some ground ball issues that we didn’t pick up, and we only had five shots,” Adelphi coach Gordon Purdie said. “They played a possession game in the second, and that gave them a little bit of time to draw on tiring out our defense. They figured out real quickly that they were going to go on our short sticks, and we didn’t quite have an answer for that at times. They’re a great bunch of coaches, lot of respect to them. That second quarter, if we could get that back, I wish we could have settled the ball just a little bit more than we did.”

“That’s something that we expected,” Lewis said. “We talked about how there’s going to be peaks and valleys through the game, and we just have to get through them. We battled through adversity, took it to overtime, but unfortunately in overtime there’s no bouncing back from a goal.”

Adelphi mixed in both man and zone defense to try to keep the Spartans off balance, but Tampa looked ready for everything that the Panthers tried.

As the game wore on, Tampa refused to go away. Adelphi held out through cramping and injuries as Noah Gibson, Carter Linkletter and Ries Bower were all hobbled. The Panthers managed to keep Tampa at arm’s length, clinging to one- and two-goal leads throughout the second half, but the Spartans steadily gained momentum.

Late in the fourth quarter, Ortega was able to swim dodge by his defender, get by a second defender and score to tie the game at 11. Cramping continued to take a toll on some of the Adelphi lineup, though Tampa had been running deep with its personnel all day in an effort to stay fresh.

“You could see even in the first quarter, they kept going to that first midfield. We kept going to our second midfield,” Clarke said. “I think playing a few more guys helped us a lot. You could start to see that happen towards the end of the first quarter. But they’re a great team with unbelievable skill, so that’s not going to be the only answer.”

Adelphi thought it had pulled back in front with just over a minute to play. Donnellan fed Michael Durnin inside, and Durnin dove and scored. But the goal was reviewed, and it showed that Durnin’s hand had touched inside the crease before the ball crossed the goal line, so the goal was waved off and the game stayed tied at 11.

“It’s moments like that that can dictate a game,” Tampa’s Rex Kesselring said. “You just have to wait, keep yourself levelheaded, react and respond to whatever the ref decides and whatever the call is. Thankfully that one bounced our way.”

Said Purdie: “I was over there by Matt Palumb, the head official, and I knew it before it was announced. Those emotions were disappointment, but the game wasn’t over. It was just another call. And in life you get things that happen, and it’s how you react as to what defines you as a person.”

Tampa got one last possession in regulation but couldn’t find a quality shot. For the second year in a row, it would take overtime to decide the national championship between Tampa and Adelphi. The similarities between the two games were striking, to say the least.

The Panthers won the opening faceoff and called timeout to draw up a play. Lewis dodged across the top, in a similar way to how he did when he won the game last year. But Tampa was able to deny him a shooting opportunity. Instead, the ball went forward to Donnellan, who looped around from X and fed inside. A shot missed the net, Schmidt backed it up and Tampa cleared.

“Lacrosse at the end of the day is a game of runs,” Bower said. “They just happened to have one more run than us.”

“Last year, literally, they had one more possession than us. Our Anderson loss in March, they had one more possession than us. So we practice, we put the guys in situations and say we have to get this possession or else we lose,” Clarke said. “You don’t have to give up a goal to lose this, but we have to get possession.”

The Spartans didn’t call timeout, instead opting to let the game play out. It was eerily reminiscent of a year ago, when a Tampa goal that would have won the game was taken off the board because Clarke called a timeout. After this year’s game, Clarke chuckled at being asked if he considered calling timeout in overtime. He said that on his way to the stadium today, as the Tampa bus passed the Adelphi fans, one Panther fan was holding up his hands to make a T, in the gesture used to signal for a timeout.

While the 2025 moment is now part of history, Clarke said he and Purdie have talked about it since.

“He called me last summer, I guess a couple weeks after the game,” Clarke said. “He said it was maybe in their semifinal game, one of their overtime games, he was trying to get a timeout, and the refs didn’t give it to him, and they scored to win the game. It was very nice of him to call me and say ‘Look, this happens.’ In his words, it was the right timeout to call. He’s a class act. Their program is a class act.”

This time, no timeout was called. Ortega got the ball on the high wing, dodged lefty down the alley and fired past Tomei to sting the far pipe and win Tampa the title.

“We just knew we had to have it,” Ortega said. “We’ve been saying that all week. ‘We have to have it.’” Ortega said.

“At the end of the day, the ball rolled their way. They got the good shot,” Lewis said. “They have a talented offense. So do we, but they got the good shot. It’s devastating because of how far this group has come, but you have to give props to Tampa. It was an even game. Just didn’t end up in our favor.”