Boston College Changed Everything to Turnaround 0-3 Start

As Boston College endured its first 0-3 start in more than two decades, coach Acacia Walker-Weinstein ushered in an in-season process of redefinition.

She presented the Eagles with a pointed query — “what legacy were they leaving behind?”

“This team had to learn on its own some of the core components of what’s important to be able to win,” Walker-Weinstein said. “These girls are winners, but in the culture these guys have been a part of, where we have won so consistently, sometimes you forget some of those components. It’s not negligence or misbehaving. It’s the man hours you have to put in.”

Throughout the season’s opening month, Boston College encountered myriad lessons as it grappled with roster turnover and on-field adversity. Both players and the coaching staff needed to adapt.

The Eagles, who have made sustained success in May an expectation, underwent a February reckoning. From lineups to practice structure, no constant remained.

“It was nonstop, and we were not only talking about physical shifts,” Walker-Weinstein said. “The preparation was different. When we weren’t competing at the level — not even winning or losing — that we needed to compete at, we changed how we were practicing. We changed the drills, we changed the format, we changed the expectations. We had to make things harder.”

After suffering a 17-6 loss at Duke on March 4, Boston College has won five of its last six games. This past week, the Eagles knocked off previously undefeated Stanford 13-11 on March 26 before blitzing UAlbany 22-5 on Monday.

“The belief really started during the week of practice,” junior attacker Molly Driscoll said of her team’s win over the Cardinal. “I knew we were going to win and were taking steps to become a winning team. On the day of the game, everyone was just on such a high level. That was the most connected game we’ve played all season.”

In 2025, Driscoll produced 54 points as a sophomore while developing under a trio of 100-point scorers in Rachel Clark, Emma LoPinto and Mckenna Davis. The junior leads Boston College with 39 points on 24 goals and 15 assists this season.

In a new-look Eagles attack, Driscoll has risen toward the top of every opposition’s scout. She’s developed an enhanced off-ball presence while building connections with new teammates such as Marissa White and Casey Colbert. White has netted a co-team-high 28 goals, sharing the mantle with breakout sophomore Giulia Colarusso.

For Driscoll, Boston College’s “humbling” start to the 2026 campaign has forged significant character within the group.

“We talked a lot about how we can’t rely on our history of winning,” Driscoll said. “We historically had beaten some of the teams that we had lost to, and I think we were relying on that in some way. We’ve really taken steps to become a new team.”

While Walker-Weinstein has seen an evolution in her attack during the season’s opening two months, she credits her team’s collective leadership with forging the Eagles’ turnaround.

She’s looked toward seniors Shea Dolce and Shea Baker as steadying presences for the entire group.

“The senior class has so much experience with fighting through adversity that when we sort of sat down and said, ‘Hey, this is not going the way that we need it to go,’ they didn’t run from that,” Walker Weinstein said. “They were like, ‘Alright, here we go. This is our adversity, and let’s fix it.’”

Throughout her tenure at Boston College, Walker-Weinstein has made it a point to peak at pristine moments. Eight consecutive final four appearances have provided annual demonstrations of the fine margins that separate wins and losses at the highest level.

While they’re carving out their own chapter in the program’s legacy, the Eagles have looked back upon prior teams for both motivation and self-reflection.

“We’ve gone through so much this year — we’ve hit high roads, low roads and made changes we needed to make,” Driscoll said. “Just looking back historically on different BC lacrosse teams, seeing that they’ve been through similar things has really pushed us to know that we can turn the season around. That’s really inspired us to want to build our own story.”

Boston College’s next test pits the program against No. 17 Loyola, a team on an upswing of its own, on Saturday in Baltimore. The Greyhounds, winners of five consecutive games, upset then-undefeated Navy on March 28.

For Walker-Weinstein, the 2026 season has embodied the growth of women’s lacrosse into remarkable parity. She said the teams ranked from No. 10-25 are better than ever, and the sport is no longer a tale of “the usual suspects.”

“At Boston College, we’re lucky enough to say that we won for so many years, and people and lacrosse fans just assumed, ‘Oh, these teams are just going to keep winning,’” Walker-Weinstein said. “It doesn’t work that way. We didn’t have this epic fall off that everybody thinks we had. It’s just really hard to win.”