FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Unranked at the beginning of the season, Loyola of Maryland is No. 1 at the end.

Loyola beat the University of Maryland 9-3 Monday to win the NCAA men’s lacrosse national championship, three months after the Greyhounds opened the season miffed at being overlooked in preseason polls.

“We knew what we had in our locker room through the whole year. It’s just been an unbelievable journey,” said Eric Lusby, who scored four goals and set an NCAA record with 17 in the tournament.

Loyola completed one of the most rewarding runs possible, going from unranked to No. 1 seed and finally national champion. The top-seeded Greyhounds captured their first NCAA title and finished the season 18-1. Loyola was in the title game for the first time since losing to Syracuse in 1990 — when current coach Charley Toomey was a goalie for the Greyhounds.

“We don’t bring up past history. This is our team,” Toomey said. “This is a special group of young men that fought through a lot of things this year to put themselves in this position and they stood tall on the biggest day.”