The Division 1 NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Tournament begins this weekend and Monmouth University is looking to make a Cinderella run.

The 2021 MAAC champions are fresh off of winning their second conference title in program history. The team earned an automatic bid to this year’s NCAA Tournament.

“We have so much momentum and mojo and good experience with our MAAC Tournament and winning it and becoming champions is something that these guys will have for the rest of their lives,” says coach Brian Fisher. “So just the opportunity to play one more, we’re extremely excited for.”

It is an impressive accomplishment for a program that only started playing Division 1 lacrosse in 2014.

“Even this season we weren’t the favorite or anything to go on and win the conference and that’s just always what we’re looking for – long tunnel and we finally got to the end,” says sophomore Matt Soutar. “We just won it and it was so surreal, we couldn’t feel like it was really happening.”

Monmouth drew the No. 1 overall seed North Carolina in the first round. They will go head-to-head this Saturday in Chapel Hill.

“If everybody is clicking on the same day, it's going to be hard to beat us. And once we put our foot down and go down to Chapel Hill, it's going to be a hard-fought battle and we're going to give them our all and seeds don't really matter,” says senior Rudy Beck.

While Monmouth has a tough draw with UNC, the stats don’t lie. The Hawks are second in the nation in defense and third in faceoff winning percentage. The players say that anything is possible.

“Definitely a perfect opportunity for a storybook upset. We're still a really new program. Coach Fisher started it up just a couple years ago and this is such a good chance for us to put our name out there,” says Soutar.

Monmouth and North Carolina face off in Chapel Hill this Saturday at noon. Meanwhile, Rutgers will take on Lehigh in their first-round match-up at 2:30 p.m. in Charlottesville.