OT Hero Kyle Lewis Returns to Adelphi Eyeing Three-Peat

Championship weekend in 2025 was filled with the spectacular. While Division I tends to grab the most headlines, fans who attended the NCAA Division II men’s lacrosse championship game were treated to possibly the most iconic singular moment of the weekend.

Adelphi and Tampa were in overtime. Panthers midfielder Kyle Lewis got the ball at the top left, shook his man with an explosive dodge to the right, and buried a shot on the run to win Adelphi’s second straight national championship. The goal capped a remarkable season for Adelphi and for Lewis, who entered 2026 as the USA Lacrosse Division II Men’s Preseason Player of the Year.

The Panthers offense is loaded with players who can hurt you. Lewis is one of four to have 70-plus points a year ago. But there’s no one who dominates from the midfield, and does it in as many ways, as Lewis does.

He was second on the team in assists (35) to go along with 37 goals. If you turn back the clock, though, it was never even a given that lacrosse was going to be the sport Lewis pursued in the first place.

Lewis hails from Franklin Square, N.Y., and attended H. Frank Carey High School. He excelled in multiple sports — football, lacrosse and baseball.

“I was actually a baseball player until about 10th grade,” Lewis said. “That’s when I switched over to travel lacrosse and started to really focus on lacrosse and football. Then I came to Adelphi and with the help of my coaches and my teammates, I really developed as a lacrosse player.”

If you had asked around Carey back then, you would have heard that football was a possible path.

“He could have played D-I football. Incredible football player,” Carey head lacrosse coach Tom Aiello, an Adelphi alum, said. “He could probably play at a Big Ten school as a slot receiver. He has the softest hands, great ball skills, and an unbelievable route runner. He’s got special speed, change of direction, strong, and incredible hands.”

Ultimately, lacrosse won out, with a little bit of a push from Aiello. But even though he first started playing in second grade, baseball was still there as a competing spring sport. Until the 10th grade, it even looked like baseball might be his sport of choice.

“We brought him up as an eighth grader to play with the JV, and he had a great year,” Aiello said. “And then I find him mid-year as a ninth grader, and I say, ‘Kyle, we’re getting ready to start our lacrosse workouts.’ And he says, ‘Coach, I think I’m gonna play baseball.’ And I said, ‘No, you’re not. You’re playing lacrosse.’”

Lewis, who graduated from Carey in 2022, was also on the young side. He has a December birthday. His sophomore year was the COVID-19 season of 2020. He didn’t start playing club lacrosse until after his freshmen year of high school.

All that adds up to a recruiting journey that wasn’t necessarily typical for players at his level of athleticism and ability. Aiello said when he started travel ball there were “a couple nibbles” on the recruiting path, but it wasn’t until between 10th and 11th grade that his game really took off.

“He was a super young athlete when we first saw him. His athleticism stood out to us,” Adelphi head coach Gordon Purdie said. “It wasn’t just that, it was his ability to see the field. You can get a check on how much he can bench press, but it’s not just that, it’s how his vision is one of the best in Division II. With that said, he’s got a lot to work on, and we’re really excited about this upcoming year.

(For the record, Lewis said he maxed out at 385 pounds on the bench in the fall.)

Lewis’ speed, strength and vision meant he played his way into games right away. Once he was on campus, it didn’t take long for him to make an instant impact. Just how long might depend on who you ask.

“Kyle and I joke about that,” Purdie said. “He’ll tell me he was third string as a freshman. His high school coach Tommy Aiello and I played together, so Tommy and I had a lot of conversations even prior to Kyle coming here. We saw Kyle being a great player, but we didn’t want to throw him in the limelight right away. We wanted to develop him as a player. And it took more time than Kyle wanted.”

Call it a competitor’s mindset.

“I always mess around with Coach P about that,” Lewis said. “But to be fair, coming in my freshman year, I wasn’t the player I am now. I wasn’t really a developed lacrosse player. It was really only my third year focusing on lacrosse. So, I mess around with him about not playing me freshman year, but I understand it.”

That first year, in a game against Franklin Pierce, an injury pushed Lewis up the depth chart and onto the first midfield line. It was the first time he felt comfortable and confident in a college game setting.

That confidence only grew during his sophomore season, one in which he upped his points total from 28 as a freshman to 51. The rapid acclimation didn’t come as a shock to Aiello.

“I knew, physically, when he was a senior he was doing some crazy things on the field,” he said. “He’s one of the quickest kids we’ve ever had. I thought if he really worked at his game, we all knew he could be great.”

Lewis is lightning quick, separating from poles and shorties almost effortlessly. And that’s been true since being pulled up from the Carey junior varsity team.

“The JV coach said, ‘This kid can shake,’” Aiello said. “The coach came to me and said, ‘He’s freaky quick, and freaky fast.’”

Those skills have only gotten better as he’s come into his own.

“He’s fast, strong, shifty — a beast,” Adelphi defenseman Michael D’Alessandro said. “You can go on and on about the high caliber player he is — you can’t boil it down to just one thing he does.”

Lewis doesn’t pattern his game after anyone, though he watches plenty of lacrosse. If anything, there’s an amalgamation of players that lend skills to create his unique brand of lacrosse explosiveness.

“These last couple years, I’ve watched a lot of lacrosse, and I try to pick certain things from different players and add those to my game,” he said. “I want to move like Michael Sowers, but I want to shoot like Brennan O’Neill bringing his hands down, or have that twitch like Grant Ament. I pick certain things from players I want to add to my game.”

In today’s college sports environment, the transfer portal means that top-flight players can change teams and pursue other opportunities. Some players can put their name in the portal just to test the waters, akin to being a free agent.

After he hit the game-winning goal in the title game, Lewis unsurprisingly put his name in the portal. The phone didn’t stop ringing. And it looked like those predictions from high school about Lewis being a Big Ten player might actually come true, just in a different sport than what everyone initially thought.

“Probably the most stressful month of my life, but good stress,” Lewis said. “In the end, I probably had to make the hardest decision of my life, which was committing to Penn State and then realizing a couple days later that this is my home here at Adelphi. It’s not that I regret committing to Penn State, but I knew there was something wrong. It didn’t feel right to leave Coach P, to leave my brothers here on the team, this staff. It’s been three years and they gave me everything and made me feel welcome. So, in the end, I’m glad I made the right decision to come back and play my last year with the Panthers.”

Lewis’ ultimate decision to return was respected by his Panthers teammates.

“When we say brotherhood, we really mean it,” D’Alessandro said. “You could be the best player on the team or low on the totem pole. You can talk to anyone, and it’s like you’ve known them since you were 3 years old. At the end of the day, it’s the culture we have on this team that guys like Kyle want to be a part of and live with.”

Returning to Adelphi also allowed Lewis to continue toward his preferred career on a smoother path. Lewis returned to Carey in the fall for observation work as he worked toward becoming a teacher.

Speaking of careers, patterning his game after professional lacrosse players isn’t a bad idea. Given his ability, opportunities to play professionally in the Premier Lacrosse League could also be part of his future.

With the wealth of weapons at Adelphi’s disposal, one player standing out doesn't happen often. Adelphi is so deep that Lewis thought a player of the year nod could have gone to several of his teammates before himself.

“If you look at our team, there are three or four guys where if you told me you were going to give them this award, I would have said, ‘OK, makes sense,’” Lewis said. “We have Braden Donnellan, Ries [Bower], Michael right here. I don’t think there’s a true best player on our team, or even a true best player in the country. That award could go to multiple players on our team, and I’d probably have the same reaction if you gave it to another player on the team.”

Because all Lewis cares about is ending his Adelphi career with an elusive third-straight NCAA title. For all the All-Americans and preseason accolades he and his entire team (rightfully) earned, they’d trade them all for glory.

Lewis the individual isn’t all that different from Adelphi the team. The culture of the Adelphi locker room shines particularly brightly through him. He is the sum of several outstanding parts.

Part baseball player, part wide receiver, part midfielder. An elite initiator, but a player who excels at getting others involved. A worthy player of the year who would immediately tell you it could easily be a teammate instead. A player of the year who would trade all the individual awards in the sport for the chance to win a third national championship.

Maybe in overtime again. But this time, maybe he assists a teammate rather than scoring the winner himself.