As fans of the sport, we all love to see underdogs make their way from the bottom of the Selection Sunday pile to the pinnacle of the sport. Last year we saw a six-loss Western New England team make a run to the quarterfinals before bowing out to Cortland. There has been no such magic this year. Instead, the eight teams left standing after the weekend’s second round contests are…
Easter weekend yielded the annual matchup between Salisbury and Stevenson with the teams entering play among the top three in the land. The Seagulls emerged victorious, 11-9, and with the win leapt them past the Mustangs into the No. 2 spot in this week’s USILA Coaches Poll. Stevenson now finds itself the No. 3 team in the country behind the two teams that have felled it in 2014: RIT and…
I wrote last week about how Springfield College is in a position where every non-conference game is a must-win due to the relatively weak conference it calls home. I likened it to Cabrini and its position in the CSAC and this week we saw one team keep their non-conference roll going while the other stumbled against what looked like the far superior team. The Cavaliers saw their first drop of…
No poll is perfect and to believe that any body of voters could accurately rank every team in the country is foolish. But this week’s edition of the USILA Top 20 has inspired doubt in me because of the way its voters have treated the No. 5 Stevenson Mustangs in the wake of their loss to top-ranked RIT. It’s just wrong. The Mustangs have done nothing but lose to the…
This week’s USILA Top 20 has seen some upheaval thanks to RIT’s win over Cortland in its second No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup of the season. The Tigers remain No. 1 in the country after beating the Red Dragons and Western New England this week while Cortland slides all the way down to No. 6. Taking their place in the top pairing are the Seagulls of Salisbury who improved…
This past week was, when compared to the previous week, a fairly pedestrian one. The best teams took care of business and the top six of the USILA Top 20 seems to have taken its permanent shape. RIT, Cortland, Salisbury, Tufts, Stevenson, and Cabrini have been on a whole other level than the rest of the country and it will take a major shakeup for any other teams to crack…
The first full week of Division III lacrosse is in the books and the warts of preseason polls are beginning to show themselves. Gone are teams like Western New England, Middlebury, Stevens and Roanoke—all good teams off to slow starts—while teams like Springfield College and Endicott have shot towards the top 10. The top end has stayed true, but the rest of the poll has proven to be an inexact…
If you haven’t picked up on it yet, I carry with me a certain bias when I talk about Division III lacrosse. Yes, I’m a graduate of Springfield College and have a connection to the program at St. Mary’s, but where my real bias lies is with the perpetual underdogs, the underappreciated, the respected but not necessarily the favorite. I’m talking, of course, about teams from up North. Up here…
Predictably, the RIT Tigers have taken over the No. 1 spot in the USILA Top 20 after knocking off Stevenson in overtime on Saturday afternoon. The Mustangs weren’t punished too harshly for the loss, falling just two spots to No. 3 while Cortland jumps up to No. 2. Salisbury and Tufts round out the rest of the top five. Two teams suffered upsets on Saturday and both teams were punished…
The first true weekend of Division III lacrosse kicks off this weekend with more games than any one person could handle. Being the first time many teams take the field, some of the top teams will not be playing teams of note. No matter, though – there are enough quality games on the schedule to keep you all busy while inevitably sitting inside during a winter weather catastrophe. One isn’t…