A is for Albany. The second-seeded Great Danes (16-2) are making their first trip to the semifinals in their 10^th NCAA tournament appearance. The America East champions lead the country in scoring at 14.61 goals per game and have defeated Richmond (18-9) and Denver (15-13) to advance to the season’s final weekend.

B is for the Bay State. Plenty of Massachusetts natives will enjoy something of a homecoming this weekend, including Yale defenseman Will Weitzel, Maryland long pole Nick Brozowski and Duke midfielder Sean Lowrie and defenseman Josh White. Lowrie, who has 18 goals on the season, grew up in Foxboro.

C is for Curtis Corley. The Maryland junior defenseman had a stellar championship weekend last year, bottling up both Denver’s Austin French and Ohio State’s Jack Jasinski. A second team all-Big Ten pick this spring, the physical Corley has a team-high 13 caused turnovers and has emerged as one of the Terrapins’ most consistent players.

D is for Duke. The fourth-seeded Blue Devils (15-3) are making their 11th appearance in the semifinals and their first since 2014. A three-time national champion (2010, 2013 and 2014) playing in its 22nd NCAA tournament, Duke ranks second in the country in scoring (13.78) and reached the semis with victories over Villanova (17-11) and Johns Hopkins (14-9).

E is for Sean Eccles. The Albany junior delivered a hat trick in the Great Danes’ quarterfinal defeat of Denver and enters the semifinals with 31 goals and 14 assists out of the midfield. He is one of four 30-goal scorers on Albany’s roster, joining attackmen Tehoka Nanticoke (49), Jakob Patterson (41) and Connor Fields (31).

F is for Chris Fake. The Ivy League’s rookie of the year, Fake has started throughout his freshman season for Yale and forced four turnovers in the Bulldogs’ 14-6 rout of Albany last month. Fake has marked the top player from opposing offenses throughout the season, including Loyola’s Pat Spencer in last weekend’s quarterfinals.

G is for Justin Guterding. One of three Tewaaraton finalists to make it to the semifinals, Guterding has scattered his name across the Duke and Division I record books over the last four years. The senior broke Zack Greer’s career Division I scoring record in Sunday’s quarterfinal defeat of Johns Hopkins and now has 207 goals. His 104 points this year surpassed Jordan Wolf’s single-season school record of 103 (set in 2014), and he sits 11 points shy of Matt Danowski’s Duke record for points in a career (353).

H is for Handsome Dan. Nearly everything about this weekend can be debated, but one thing is decided by an immutable law: The best mascots are live mascots. Enter Handsome Dan XVIII, the young English bulldog who doubles as Yale’s mascot.

I is for TD Ierlan. Albany’s sophomore leads the country in faceoff percentage (81.0), which is on track to set the Division I single season record. Ierlan (341 of 421) already owns the single-season faceoff wins record, breaking former Duke star Brendan Fowler’s mark of 339 set in 2013. However, Ierlan was just 8 of 21 in the Great Danes’ loss to Yale last month and will get a rematch with the Bulldogs’ Conor Mackie on Saturday.

J is for jubilation, and as anyone who has spent time around Maryland fans in the 21^st century will tell you, few things deliver that emotion quite as well as beating Duke in … anything. Chances to do so have been rare since the Terrapins left the Atlantic Coast Conference for the Big Ten in the summer of 2014, and men’s lacrosse is no exception. Saturday’s semifinal will mark the first time Duke and Maryland have met in the sport since March 1, 2014 (a 10-6 Terp victory). Maryland leads the all-time series 62-20 and won the last two postseason meetings (the 2011 and 2012 semifinals).

K is for Connor Kelly. The Maryland senior has 45 goals and 33 assists to earn a nod as a Tewaaraton finalist. His 127 career goals are tied for fifth in Terrapin history with mid 1970s star Frank Urso, and he owns 24 goals and two assists in 14 career NCAA tournament games. His one point (a goal) in the quarterfinals against Cornell matched a season-low for the centerpiece of the Maryland’s offense.

L is for legacy. Each team can cement how it’s remembered this weekend, but one player is already part of lacrosse royalty. Yale attackman Jackson Morrill is part of the only family to have three generations inducted into the U.S. Lacrosse Hall of Fame --- his father Mike, grandfather Bill and great-grandfather Kelso are all honored. Jackson Morrill has 37 goals and 26 assists as a sophomore, including a seven-goal outburst against Massachusetts in the first round of the tournament.

M is for Maryland. The top-seeded Terrapins (14-3) have advanced to the semifinals for the 26th time in 41 NCAA tournament appearances. It’s Maryland’s fifth consecutive trip to the semifinals, and last year they won their third NCAA title and first in 42 years (1973, 1975, 2017). The Terps, who have defeated Robert Morris (14-11) and Cornell (13-8) in this tournament, are seeking their sixth trip to the national title game in the last eight years.

N is for New England. For the second consecutive Memorial Day weekend and the fifth time in the last 11 years, the national champion will be crowned in Foxboro(ugh). Previous winners at Gillette Stadium include Syracuse (2008 and 2009), Loyola (2012) and Maryland (2017). Yale is the first team to play in a semifinal in New England since the championship weekend format was adopted in 1986.

O is for one, the number of players remaining in the Duke locker room from the last time the Blue Devils won the national title. That would be goalie Danny Fowler, who redshirted during Duke’s 2014 title season and has since gone on to start for 3 ½ seasons. Fowler is in the midst of his best year as a Blue Devil, with career bests in save percentage (.538) and goals-against average (8.40) as he chases his second national championship ring.

P is for presidency. Most notably that of Chester A. Arthur, who was the nation’s chief executive from 1881 to 1885. So what relevance could a one-time New York machine politician possibly have this week? Arthur was president in the only year Yale has claimed a national title in lacrosse --- 1883.

Q is for Kevin Quigley. The Duke sophomore has nine goals and two assists while running primarily on the Blue Devils’ second midfield line, a four-man group that also includes junior Sean Lowrie, senior Mitch Russell and sophomore Reilly Walsh.

R is for Ben Reeves. The three-time Tewaaraton finalist was brilliant in the quarterfinals, delivering three goals and three assists in Yale’s 8-5 defeat of Loyola. The Ivy League player of the year holds the Yale career records for goals (168) and points (303), and he is also the only Bulldog ever to record 100 points in a season (56 goals, 46 assists). Slowing him down --- somehow --- will be a priority for Albany.

S is for Smith and Smyth. They do different things for Duke and spell their surnames differently, but this is a good way to wedge both Brad Smith and Bryan Smith into this exercise. Smith, a junior, has career highs in goals (28) and assists (34) while anchoring the Blue Devils’ top midfield line. Smyth is coming off an 18 of 25 performance against Johns Hopkins in the quarterfinals and has scored a goal in both of Duke’s postseason games to date.

T is for two-way middie. While Maryland has made it a point to leave veterans Adam DiMillo and Tim Rotanz on the field for defensive purposes, the midfielder most likely to make an impact at both ends of the field this weekend is Albany’s Kyle McClancy. The senior enters the semifinals with 29 goals and 16 assists while leading an often-overlooked Great Dane midfield unit, but also remains on to play plenty of defense.

U is for Utah. While Division I lacrosse arrives in the Beehive State next year with Utah beginning varsity play, a native son will have some influence on this year’s final four. Maryland attackman Bubba Fairman has 25 goals and nine assists while starting every game as a freshman, and he has six goals and three assists in a pair of postseason triumphs.

V is for Cade Van Raaphorst. The Duke junior, an all-ACC selection, leads a defense yielding just 8.44 goals per game. Among the tidbits sure to be dropped on the weekend broadcasts: Van Raaphorst’s father Jeff (Arizona State) and uncle Mike (Southern California) were college quarterbacks, with Jeff a member of the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame.

W is for waiting, something both Albany’s Scott Marr and Yale’s Andy Shay have done plenty of in building their respective programs. Marr is in his 18^th season and 10^th NCAA tournament with the Great Danes, while Shay is nearing the end of his 15^th season and sixth NCAA tournament with the Bulldogs. Both are making their first appearance in the semifinals, and one will be 60 minutes from a national title by late Saturday afternoon.

X is for the X, or the dot, or whatever you wish to call the place faceoffs occur. On the season, Albany (1^st, .784) and Yale (7^th, .617) are among the nation’s best faceoff teams, with Maryland (25^th, .524) and Duke (27^th, .516) closer to the middle of the pack. In the NCAA tournament, all four teams have thrived on draws --- Duke at 75.4 percent (43 of 57), Yale at 68.1 percent (32 of 47), Maryland at 66.0 percent (35 of 53) and Albany at 65.0 percent (39 of 60).

Y is for Yale. The third-seeded Bulldogs (15-3) are in the semifinals for only the second time and advanced to championship weekend for the first time since 1990. Yale is making its ninth NCAA appearance and is seeking to claim its first tournament title. The Bulldogs defeated Massachusetts (15-13) and Loyola (8-5) to reach Foxborough.

Z is for Christian Zawadski. A junior midfielder who has gotten into eight games for Maryland (including both NCAA tournament contest), Zawadski is one of two players left in the tournament whose name begins with the final letter of the alphabet; Albany defenseman Justin Zelen is the other.