In its only game of the season decided by less than five goals, the Grand Canyon University Women's Lacrosse team finished off its 2025-26 campaign with a close-to-the-vest 14-12 loss to University of California-Berkeley in the 5^th-place game of the Western Women's Lacrosse League Playoffs in Santa Barbara, California. The loss came less than 24 hours after the Lopes dropped their quarterfinal match of the tournament to 3^rd-seeded California Polytechnic State University, 19-11, which snapped the Lopes' longest winning streak of the season at three games.
 
The Lopes entered the tournament playing their best lacrosse of the season, scoring 55 goals in three games to finish off the regular season in wins over archrivals University of Arizona and Arizona State University, as well as Utah Tech University. The 16-6 win over the Sun Devils in Tempe clinched the playoff berth for the Lopes, and the Lopes headed to Central California trying to avenge an earlier loss to the Mustangs at the Santa Barbara Shootout in in early February. The Mustangs had relied on their high-powered offense much of the year and did the same against the Lopes in the quarterfinals, using a 7-1 3^rd quarter to break open the game en route to the win.
 
The loss dropped the Lopes into the 5^th-place matchup with the Bears, who the Lopes had only faced in the postseason once before during the national tournament run of 2024. It was a 5^th-place game that played like a championship match, with neither team getting any kind of cushion throughout. The game was tied at the end of both the 1^st quarter and halftime before the Bears held GCU to just a pair of goals in the 3^rd quarter. Both defenses clamped down defensively in the final 15 minutes, but the Lopes simply couldn't mount a late comeback to tie Cal – despite the efforts of 1^st Team All-WWLL forward Layla Cates, who finished her Lopes' career by with nine goals and four assists in the two games. Fellow senior (and 2^nd Team All-WWLL) Ava Loeffler pitched in a three-goal performance of her own against Cal.
 
For the season, Cates led the Lopes in every scoring category with 41 goals (8^th-best in the WCLA) and 15 assists (56 points), while Loeffler finished right behind Cates in goals (34) and points (38), and fellow senior Bree Caffey finished off 2025-26 with 27 goals. Defensively, Lopes' goalie Tristen Mielke's WCLA-leading 142 saves earned her a spot on the All-WWLL 2^nd Team with Loeffler, and senior midfielder Nicole Terry was 3^rd in the nation with 40 takeaways. The Lopes finished the year with a WWLL record of 3-5 and a 4-11 overall mark.