Don’t call them Cinderella. National champs will do just fine.

James Madison, the surprise team of the 2018 NCAA women’s lacrosse season, rode its belief in itself all the way to Memorial Day weekend, culminating Sunday in a 16-15 win over Boston College in the championship game at Stony Brook’s LaValle Stadium.

.@JMULacrosse has won the #NCAAWLAX championship! The Cinderella story with a Hollywood ending, a 16-15 win over @BCwlax in a classic at LaValle Stadium pic.twitter.com/NeuE0CGHdz

— US Lacrosse Magazine (@USLacrosseMag) May 27, 2018

The third-seeded Dukes put the lacrosse world on notice back on Feb. 10 with a 15-14 double-overtime victory at North Carolina, beat Towson twice in a one-week span to claim the CAA regular-season and tournament titles, then went through Virginia, Florida and North Carolina again to reach the championship game.

Opposite James Madison stood fourth-seeded Boston College, which lost to Maryland in the 2017 NCAA championship game and shed its own Cinderella label with a dominant run to this year’s final, taking down fan favorite Stony Brook in the quarterfinals and then getting revenge against the defending NCAA champion Terps in the semifinals Friday.

An instant classic that featured five lead changes and four ties and never saw a margin greater than three goals went down to the wire. Haley Warden’s goal with 7:02 remaining put the Dukes ahead 14-11, but the Eagles responded with two goals in 60 seconds, both of which came while playing a man down.

Unsurprisingly, both teams’ Tewaaraton finalists stepped up in the final moments. For James Madison, Kristen Gaudian, battling a face guard all game long, converted after the Dukes broke BC’s full-field ride, scooping the ball off the turf after it was dislodged from her stick and scoring to make it a two-goal game with 3:21 left. That goal, plus Haley Warden’s insurance tally with 1:05 remaining, proved crucial, as Eagles star Sam Apuzzo kept winning draws and fed Tess Chandler inside for a goal with 22 seconds left to pull BC within one.

James Madison, which won just 13 of 33 draws but harangued the Eagles into committing 18 turnovers, controlled the final draw and held on for the win.

A major momentum swing in the game came early in the second half. Trailing 10-9, James Madison went a man down and lost Corinne Schmidt for the game after she was ejected for her second yellow card. The Dukes successfully killed the penalty, and then scored on the other end, with Maddie McDaniel converting a Katie Kerrigan feed to tie the game at 10. That was part of a 6-1 run punctuated by Warden’s goal, the fourth of the game for the senior captain.

In addition to heroics by Warden and Gaudian (three goals), emotional leader Elena Romesburg and Hanna Haven each had three goals and an assist for James Madison.

Apuzzo, meanwhile, factored in nearly half of the Eagles’ goals, finishing with three goals and four assists. Chandler equaled Warden with a game-high four goals.