The 2015 Rochester Rattlers are in an interesting spot in the MLL. They are a box lacrosse-heavy team who is about as dangerous as you can be on offense when at full strength. They are coming off a Championship game appearance in 2014. They had the best defense in the league, the best goaltender, best defender, most improved player, and coach of the year. They had no trades in the…
Now that we have made it through a large part of the NCAA regular season and conference tournaments are just around the corner, we can take a broader look at what’s happening. Here are my top surprises so far this season, both good and bad, in no particular order. Good Surprises ACC Out of Conference Everyone knew the ACC would be good, even though they lost Maryland this year to…
The rankings this week had a large amount of self-contained insanity. Just about every team from last week’s top 5 and last 5 all won, with seemingly everyone in between losing. This meant that I didn’t drop anyone this week, but there was plenty of shuffling. Oh, and the Patriot and Ivy Leagues continue to baffle me. Records and scores are including games from April 5. 1 Maryland Record:…
The Black Wolves are in their first year as a new franchise and are not content to just “feel out” their new surroundings. As the NLL trade deadline approached, they made two huge splashes. The first was sending team captain Joel White and a 2017 second round pick to Minnesota for their captain, Andrew Suitor. The second move was a straight up trade with Toronto, sending Kevin Crowley up north…
There was quite a bit of action this weekend that had big impacts on the rankings. Syracuse had their first loss, Duke lost to North Carolina, Albany won 25-0, Georgetown lost after finally getting into the list, and the Patriot league happened. The Patriot league continues to be the most confusing thing in the lacrosse world right now. Navy sits at the top with the best league record,…
And then there was one. Four teams entered the week unbeaten. Only Syracuse would avoid a loss. They also showed that they completely deserve that top ranking by routing Duke 19-7. Maryland gave North Carolina their first loss behind a stellar defense once again. Speaking of defense, Notre Dame shut out Ohio State for the second goose egg in Division I this season. There was a…
This was quite a week in the lacrosse world which will lead to some shakeups in the standings. Over the week, nine games saw a ranked team lose. While most of these were due to other ranked teams, the two exceptions were #20 Holy Cross taking a day off against Bucknell and #3 Denver falling to Ohio State. Other big games were Brown topping Harvard, Notre Dame holding on against…
Syracuse and Johns Hopkins renew their rivalry this weekend as the Blue Jays travel up north for a trip to the Carrier Dome. It may not be the biggest rivalry for either team, but for many years, these two teams were NCAA championship lacrosse. During Syracuse’s run of 22 straight final fours, Johns Hopkins was also there for 15 of them. These two teams met for the championship itself five…
Well that was an interesting week! All sorts of big games caused some chaos in the standings this week. Most conferences will be starting their conference play this week if they haven’t already. Let’s check in a few: ACC: The ACC is 23-Denver in non-conference play. Things are about to get really interesting as these heavyweights gear up to fight for those four conference tournament seats. My personal opinion is…
Syracuse defeated St. John’s with a score of 14-6. While that may seem like what many expected, the way that score came about matched nobody’s expectations. The first half of lacrosse had echoes of last year’s NCAA opener against Bryant for Syracuse’s offense. St. John’s picked up right where they left off in their last game where they took a great Yale squad down to the wire to lose in…