On Sunday night we will find out which 30 teams will be competing for the 2014 NCAA Division III Men’s Lacrosse National Championship. Among them will be powerhouses and underdogs, bid stealers and unchallenged champions, unbeaten teams and teams we left for dead a few months back. Despite all of these differences, they will all have one thing in common: the thrill of conference championship week.
This is the week where we find out if there is another St. Mary’s out there, lurking in the fog waiting to bring one team’s season to an end by upsetting the delicate balance atop its conference. Last year Salisbury – yes, that Salisbury – was an at-large team that had to sit patiently on its couch on Sunday evening awaiting its fate. Meanwhile, hundreds of miles to the north, Conn College and Middlebury were left home as the Seahawks celebrated their Capital Athletic Conference championship.
Such is the emotional roller coaster of championship week. With only five at-large bids available to teams in conferences with automatic bids, the leftovers from the ODAC, Centennial, Capital, Empire 8, Liberty League, NESCAC, Commonwealth Coast, and MAC Commonwealth will inevitably find themselves on the outside looking in. That could mean we have an NCAA Tournament without most of a strong group of teams like Washington & Lee, Lynchburg, Dickinson, Gettysburg, Wesleyan, Amherst, Western New England, Widener, Nazareth, York, and Union. Nobody is safe. Nobody is secure. And that is perhaps what makes this one of the purest tournaments in sport.
We could sit here and argue the merits of allowing teams from smaller conferences like the Little East and GNAC over some of the aforementioned powerhouses, but the fact remains that had those teams simply taken care of business, they would have had nothing to worry about. Win and you’re in; lose and be at the mercy of the selection committee. Best of luck to everyone competing this week. We’ll see you on the other side.
Tuesday Schedule
Old Dominion Athletic Conference First Round
Lynchburg vs. Virginia Wesleyan, 7:00 p.m. (Winner plays Roanoke)
Hampden-Sydney vs. Randolph-Macon, 6:00 p.m. (Winner plays W&L)
CSAC Semifinals
Cabrini vs. Neumann, 6:00 p.m.
Marywood vs. Gwynedd Mercy, 5:30 p.m.
Little East First Round
UMass-Dartmouth vs. UMass-Boston, 7:30 p.m.
Western Conn. vs. Plymouth State (N.H), 4:00 p.m.
MAC – Commonwealth First Round
Lycoming vs. Messiah, 4:00 p.m. (Winner plays Stevenson)
MAC – Freedom Semifinals (Pool B)
Eastern vs. FDU-Florham, 3:00 p.m.
DeSales vs. King’s, 4:00 p.m.
