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…
All of the games have been played, all the trophies have been handed out, and we are now left with 30 teams vying for the 2014 Division III Men’s Lacrosse National Championship. Leading the way are the usual suspects with RIT getting the top seed and bye in the North Region, while Salisbury sits atop the South. Let’s dive right into this by looking at the best first-round matchups, top…
If Tuesday was a day of dipping our toes in the water, then Wednesday is full-blown cannonball. Eleven conferences will be playing semifinal contests today, including such power conferences as the Centennial, SUNYAC, Empire 8 and Commonwealth Coast. Each conference features several teams that entered the season with NCAA Tournament hopes, and even some may now stand as long shots. The beauty of the tournament format is that every team…
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…
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…
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 NCAA Division III Tournament is set up in such a way that where a team resides geographically has an impact deeper than just its conference. While there is sometimes some crossover, the brackets are set up in such a way that a team from the north will emerge to face a team from the south. The USILA will begin releasing its regional rankings as the season progresses (check out…