Notre Dame men's lacrosse star Shawn Lyght becomes first defenseman ever to win Tewaaraton Award

On Thursday night, Notre Dame men’s lacrosse defenseman Shawn Lyght made history.

Lyght won the Men’s Tewaaraton Award, becoming the second Notre Dame star in three seasons to take home lacrosse’s Heisman Trophy (Pat Kavanagh in 2024). He was one of five finalists, alongside North Carolina’s Owen Duffy, Cornell’s Willem Firth, Princeton’s Nate Kabiri and Syracuse’s Joey Spallina. However, that’s not the most impressive part of Lyght’s achievement.

In the 25-year history of the Men’s Tewaaraton Award, no defensive player has ever won it… until now. Lyght is the first defenseman to ever take home lacrosse’s highest individual honor on the men’s side and second in general, following Princeton women’s star Rachael Becker in 2003.

And sure enough, each of the four finalists Lyght beat out are attackmen. Only a junior in 2026, Lyght anchored one of college lacrosse’s top defenses and led Notre Dame to the national title game, where the Irish lost to Princeton.

Notre Dame constantly used Lyght to cover the opposing team’s best player and alter the offense’s game plan. As the Irish put it in their press release, “opposing attacks rarely go at the elite defenseman.” He also won the William C. Schmeisser Award, which goes to the best defensive player in the country, for the second consecutive season.

Lyght is the cousin of Todd Lyght, who played at Notre Dame from 1987-90. A two-time consensus All-American and one-time unanimous All-American, Todd Lyght went on to play in the NFL for over a decade, mostly with the Los Angeles/St. Louis Rams. He was also Notre Dame’s defensive backs coach from 2015-19.

More on Notre Dame men’s lacrosse: How U.S. Space Force’s Josh Yago made the most of his year at Notre Dame

From Blue & Gold’s Tyler Horka

Josh Yago formally addressed his Notre Dame teammates the night before the national championship game. An Air Force Academy graduate and a lieutenant in the U.S. Space Force, Yago didn’t get into what it would mean for him personally to cap his college lacrosse career by winning it all. 

Monday’s match wasn’t about him or any one person. 

It was about the country he serves and the people who inhabit it. 

It was about the nation so many before him proudly fought for, some paying the ultimate sacrifice so that a game like the one that occurred at Scott Stadium in Charlottesville, Va., could take place at all. 

That game, unfortunately, didn’t go Notre Dame’s way. Yago and the Irish lost, 16-9, to top-ranked Princeton. His postgame message was similar to the one he delivered to the Irish beforehand — no matter what happened on Memorial Day, simply wearing an American flag patch over his chest and saluting Old Glory waving in the wind during the national anthem just moments ahead of the opening face off was always going to be one of the greatest honors of his life. 

He knew it all weekend in the lead up to the match. He most certainly felt it in the moment. And it still resonates with him afterward, even after a gut punch of a loss. 

“It means a lot,” he said. “So all my brothers and sisters in the military, I wish we could have won a National Championship for them, but at the end of the day, it’s an honor to fight for this country, and I’m proud to be fighting for this country.”

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