Renner, Theriault at Heart of Adelphi, Tampa Successes

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — At the heart of Sunday’s thrilling NCAA Division II men’s lacrosse championship game, one in which an ill-fated timeout and the ensuing overtime winner will garner many of the headlines and memories, there were two goalies who meant a staggering amount to their respective programs.

On the winning side was Dylan Renner, the Adelphi goalie who backstopped consecutive national championships and cemented his status as one of the best Division II goalies in recent memory.

He made 14 saves against Tampa in the 9-8 win, seven in each half.

Renner first made his way to Adelphi after a freshman year at LIU. Division I wasn’t for him, at least not at the time. But after years of sharpening his blade in the ultra-competitive NE-10, Renner entered the transfer portal last year.

His coaches waited anxiously, a word that probably doesn’t even do their angst any justice.

“To think that we were going to lose him, the sleepless nights in the coaches’ room … The day he said, ‘That’s it, I’m coming back,’ was the day you can breathe and say, ‘We can do this again,’” Panthers head coach Gordon Purdie said.

A shot-stopping machine in 2025, Renner holds as much value off the field as he does on it.

“That guy goes 24/7,” Purdie said. “He is such an energetic person and sees the best in everybody.”

Tampa goalie Connor Theriault would probably agree. A first-year Spartan after starting for three years as a Division I goalie at Brown, Theriault was left impressed by his counterpart.

“Dylan Renner, I’ve followed him a bit through his career,” Theriault said. “He’s an awesome goalie. I gained a lot of respect for him getting to play against him. When I talked to him briefly, it was nothing but nice, and I was incredibly impressed with him and his performance.”

The respect is likely mutual. The road was not easy for Theriault, who despite coming from an Ivy League program, was not guaranteed the starter’s job when he arrived on campus.

Head coach J.B. Clarke was honest with his new netminder. He needed to get in shape if he wanted to play.

“He works as hard as anybody I’ve had off the field,” Clarke said. “He came in, he really changed his body. If anybody saw him in January, you’d know that he literally changed his body. We told him he wouldn’t be able to play in Florida in May in the shape that he was in when he got to us.”

Clarke likened Theriault to another coach, especially with Tampa’s young goalies. He mentored them on the field and also encouraged them off it by taking them with him to workouts and extra side sessions on the bike.

He believed in the program that fell just shy of completing an undefeated season on Sunday, making the extra work easy.

“D-I at Brown for four years, I loved it. Loved my time,” he said. “And then I had an extra year, and there’s no other place I’d rather be in the world than Tampa. It’s the people, the coaches, the people the culture … everything. It was the ride of a lifetime.”

What made that ride even sweeter was, ironically, the ending. No, Theriault didn’t get to hoist the walnut and gold championship trophy, but he did have a nine-save performance at Gillette Stadium on the sport’s biggest stage — an all-time athletic achievement for a kid who grew up in nearby Mount Hermon, Mass.

“I ended my career at home in Massachusetts in Gillette Stadium,” Theriault said. “Obviously, I would have wanted to win, but this was probably one of the coolest things I’ve ever done in my life.”

So, for all the talk about timeouts and tumultuous overtimes, you’d be remiss to not mention the two goalies who shaped their programs. One who briefly entertained leaving but couldn’t stand the thought of it. The other who spent just one year at Tampa but had the time of his life.