Lacrosse

[Bombers798891]

Ithaca sort of sleepwalked through the E8 title game, the scored tied 10-10 in the 4th before pulling away. But the Bombers are showing no signs of letdown in their NCAA opener. Ithaca's reeled off 14 straight goals and leads Morrisville State 17-2 at the half

Is anyone else pumped for a potential Ithaca-Cortland 3rd round game?

[Bombers798891]

Ithaca adds two more early in the 2nd half and has now taken their foot off the gas. A 19-2 lead with 13:00 to go in the 3rd is now 19-5 at the end of the period. Good to see the Bombers focused, but also playing with some sportsmanship. I tend to give teams a little more leeway in the postseason for this stuff...you've got to play your game and be sharp for the next one....but hate to see anything get too out of hand

[amh63]

Watched the Amherst vs RPI game at RPI at the RPI East field.   Wanted to see the game at the newer football field.
Anyway, it was 2-3, RPI, first quarter; 8-6, Amherst at the half; 13-8, Amherst after the 3rd period and 16-11 Amherst at the end of the game.  Amherst over came a 5-2 situation in man-down penalties. 
In the last few minutes, Amherst was trying to run the clock down..avoiding another score.  RPI then tried to put 2 players on the Amherst player with the ball...even pulling its goal keeper.  An Amherst player put the ball in the open net, stood still and shrugged his shoulder as to say, Why Not!...as time ran out.

Now the Amherst team has to face RIT in the next round.  Meanwhile, Tufts ran over its opponent Emmanual  at Tufts.  The Midd vs Springfield game in VT was nip and tuck until the end.  The Pride won in Three OTs over a flat Panther team, imo.

It seems that there were many lopsided scores in the first round.  The announcers for RPI mentioned that the game at RPI was expected to be close; between two evenly ranked teams.

Have a niece that graduated from RIT.  Hope it will be close as RIT has only lost one game so far this season.

[jknezek]

W&L eased past Sewanee with a strong 4th quarter. Sewanee statistically had the better game, but W&L looked the better team. Bigger, stronger, faster. Lot of Sewanee shots were wing and prayer from outside as they had trouble penetrating the W&L defense. W&L, however, will need to play better to get past York. A hot goalie helps, and W&L's was outstanding again, but despite being physically more imposing than Sewanee the Generals looked tired in their 3rd game in 5 days. With only a short turn around before York, W&L will need to find an extra gear somewhere.

[Bombers798891]

It seemed that there were many lopsided scores in the first round. 

So, I wanted to ask about this, because I don't know much about D-III lacrosse nationally, but watching the Ithaca game, I was kind of stunned that, even against a team as great as this Bomber team is, an NCAA playoff team could get outscored 13-0 in one quarter.

I was looking at some top 20 polls, and I saw that Ohio Wesleyan (10/17), Bowdoin (13/16), Williams (16/ARV) Bates (14/18) and  Stevens (19/ARV) teams did not qualify for the NCAA Tournament, while obviously some unranked teams did. Rankings aren't gospel truths, of course, but this happens in D-III sports. Because of the reliance on autobids, sometimes really good teams from deep conferences get left home if they lose in the conference tournament while the best team in weaker conferences gets in, despite probably not being as good.

I don't know if this is the case with regard to lacrosse, and as I said, if it is, D-III views it as a feature, not a bug (Which...okay, I don't agree, but it is what it is). And this isn't a rip on Morrisville St., but it's the first thing that popped into my mind

[amh63]

Have to give credit to the Amherst men's team...the student part of the student-athlete.  The NEILA...New England.. Lax Assoc...announced its All-academic awards today.  89 seniors were honored among Div1,2 and 3 schools....65 were D3 players that met the grade point minimum and were prominent players on their teams.  Amherst led all schools in all divisions with 8 seniors!  Nescac rival Middlebury had 6 seniots. Div 1 schools, Brown and Harvard each had 6 seniors honored.

Jknezek, mentioned that some of the teams playing in the first round seemed a bit fatigue late in the game....due to the number of games played over a short period of days.  The announcer at the RPI game brought that point up as Amherst started to pull away in the second half.  He mentioned a recent RPI game against a tough opponent...while Amherst had about "two weeks" off after being upset by Williams in its Tourny.  It was the end of April!   Need to point out that the start of finals at Amherst was on Tuesday...with the game on Wednesday.   Seniors have much to do before graduation in a few weeks ...at Amherst.

[jknezek]

It seemed that there were many lopsided scores in the first round. 

So, I wanted to ask about this, because I don't know much about D-III lacrosse nationally, but watching the Ithaca game, I was kind of stunned that, even against a team as great as this Bomber team is, an NCAA playoff team could get outscored 13-0 in one quarter.

I was looking at some top 20 polls, and I saw that Ohio Wesleyan (10/17), Bowdoin (13/16), Williams (16/ARV) Bates (14/18) and  Stevens (19/ARV) teams did not qualify for the NCAA Tournament, while obviously some unranked teams did. Rankings aren't gospel truths, of course, but this happens in D-III sports. Because of the reliance on autobids, sometimes really good teams from deep conferences get left home if they lose in the conference tournament while the best team in weaker conferences gets in, despite probably not being as good.

I don't know if this is the case with regard to lacrosse, and as I said, if it is, D-III views it as a feature, not a bug (Which...okay, I don't agree, but it is what it is). And this isn't a rip on Morrisville St., but it's the first thing that popped into my mind

Bombers it works the same way as it does in football, AQ, Pool B and Pool C. So you end up with the same disparities you are familiar with in other sports. All of DIII works the same way, and given the same kind of travel restraints, you get what you get. I will say that while football has a few conferences with 2 or maybe 3 playoff worthy teams, there are lax conferences that run almost the whole conference deep versus some of the AQ leagues.

[amh63]

Bomber798891...it is what it is presently and what happens when there are strong conferences and weak conferences.  I was somewhat surprised that the Nescac got only three teams into the post season....Bowdoin, Wesleyan and Williams missing out.  Case in point was that Tufts, top ranked Nescac team, blew out its opponent....the winner of its conference.  It was over by the first quarter....final score was 25-5, I believe.  RIT, beat out RPI for its conference title.  Meanwhile, Middlebury lost in 3OTs to Springfield at home 11-10.  Middlebury beat Williams in the semi- final game to reach the conference finals.  It is noted that Amherst was upset by its arch rival in the quarter finals.  Emmanuel has played Tufts for the past three years in the first round in Medford...and lost.  Things may change in the future as the lax talent pool grows around the country.  Meanwhile, schools like Ithaca, Cortland State, RIT capture the NY talent!

[Vandy74]

Now the Amherst team has to face RIT in the next round.  Meanwhile, Tufts ran over its opponent Emmanual  at Tufts.  The Midd vs Springfield game in VT was nip and tuck until the end.  The Pride won in Three OTs over a flat Panther team, imo.



Have a niece that graduated from RIT.  Hope it will be close as RIT has only lost one game so far this season.

Flat describes the Panthers perfectly amh63.  I was there.  Very disappointing.  I watched it with a Middlebury friend whose grandson plays for St. Lawrence.  Prepped at Choate, I believe.  He was disappointed the possible Middlebury-St. Lawrence rematch wouldn't be played here but since the Panthers didn't win it doesn't matter.

[Vandy74]

It seemed that there were many lopsided scores in the first round. 

So, I wanted to ask about this, because I don't know much about D-III lacrosse nationally, but watching the Ithaca game, I was kind of stunned that, even against a team as great as this Bomber team is, an NCAA playoff team could get outscored 13-0 in one quarter.

I was looking at some top 20 polls, and I saw that Ohio Wesleyan (10/17), Bowdoin (13/16), Williams (16/ARV) Bates (14/18) and  Stevens (19/ARV) teams did not qualify for the NCAA Tournament, while obviously some unranked teams did. Rankings aren't gospel truths, of course, but this happens in D-III sports. Because of the reliance on autobids, sometimes really good teams from deep conferences get left home if they lose in the conference tournament while the best team in weaker conferences gets in, despite probably not being as good.

I don't know if this is the case with regard to lacrosse, and as I said, if it is, D-III views it as a feature, not a bug (Which...okay, I don't agree, but it is what it is). And this isn't a rip on Morrisville St., but it's the first thing that popped into my mind

the 2013 Panthers went 13-3, 8-2 in the NESCAC tying Conn. Coll. for 1st place.  They were highly ranked nationally.  Both losses were by a single goal.  As the #1 seed in the CAC tournament they handled Amherst 19-9 in the quarterfinal game.  I was there.  In the semifinal, however, #4 Wesleyan upset them 9-8.  It was a down year for Tufts who had finished only third in regular season play but they upset Conn. Coll. in their semifinal action and went on to beat Wesleyan for the AQ in the finals.  Middlebury did not get an at-large bid.  Last season Middlebury was 7-3 in conference play, 13-6 overall.  Losses included a 17-11 beating by Tufts and a 21-11 drubbing at the hands of RIT.  In the conference semifinals Tufts manhandled them 23-9.  But Middlebury still made the NCAA tournament.  Go figure.

[PolarCat]

Hey!  What happened to gender equality on this board?  Let's talk about WLAX, too.

If you think the men's bracket has some lopsided results, wait till the women start playing on Saturday.  All 4 NESCAC teams (Midd, Trinity, Bates and Amherst) have first round byes, as do Cortland, TCNJ, Salisbury, F&M, York and Catholic.  Some of the AQ's also got first round byes, including Pomona-Pitzer, Chapman, Denison, Calvin (), Colorado College, Rhodes (), Augustana and Concordia.  Expect some blow outs when some of these AQ's take on the "big dogs" in the third round.

Meanwhile, last year's "Team That Wanted to Be Recognized" Mount Union takes on a very solid Washington & Lee team in the first round, with the winner facing F&M.  Washington & Lee is 13-5 but all their losses came from ranked teams, like Salisbury, F&M and Gettysburg, and two of their losses were by single goals.  I think the Generals will easily handle the 15-3 Purple Raiders on Saturday, then get fed into the meat grinder against the Dips on Sunday.

[jknezek]

Meanwhile, last year's "Team That Wanted to Be Recognized" Mount Union takes on a very solid Washington & Lee team in the first round, with the winner facing F&M.  Washington & Lee is 13-5 but all their losses came from ranked teams, like Salisbury, F&M and Gettysburg, and two of their losses were by single goals.  I think the Generals will easily handle the 15-3 Purple Raiders on Saturday, then get fed into the meat grinder against the Dips on Sunday.

I don't know about UMU but W&L is a few pieces shy of being able to beat the big dogs. They are very good, are on their seventh straight trip to the tournament, and beat their first opponent the last two years before succumbing. Not sure this is W&L's best team, they struggled for goals against the top tier teams, but I also think they will get past a relatively untested UMU. SJF seems to be the only tournament team UMU faced, and SJF didn't have much trouble with the Raiders.

W&L gave Mary Washington and St. Mary's all they could handle. If they had pulled out one of those two wins they might be sitting on the bye. But Salisbury, Gettysburg and F&M showed W&L there is still work to be done if you want to compete at the very top level.

I'd like to see W&L earn the rematch with the Dips. See if they can hold them to just a few goals again.

[amh63]

In spite of PolarCat's call for equality....hey, the CAC schools like Amherst are playing on Sunday in the 2nd round....women teams, I have a men lax question for posters here. The question is the amount of  crossover players between Football and Lax.  In my dark age time at Amherst, there were a number of football players that played Lax.  Yes the sport has changed and stick skills much improved as well as the quickness, speed of players, etc....far from the days at Johns Hopkins where football players used that sport to get into shape for Lacrosse,
Anyway, in recent games that I watched, announcers mentioned particular players at Middlebury, Tufts, RPI and maybe Williams that also played football.  I took notice in the Middlebury game when the draw/ face off specialist of Middlebury was mentioned as a football player.  I thought of strong forearms and strength of wrists.   In the Williams upset of Amherst...7th seed over the 2nd seed, Williams dominated Amherst in the draws.  I do not believe that the present Amherst team has a football player on its roster.  The HC seems to go after pure Lax players.

[jknezek]

W&L had one guy last year that played both football and lacrosse. I think it's not too terribly uncommon to have one or two at W&L. But there are none on the roster right now. It was a lot more in the late 90s when I was there. Probably 3-5 at a time. But I don't remember there being that many in quite a while.

Kids specialize so much these days and it starts so early, I think it is harder and harder to compete at even the larger h.s. levels in more than one team sport let alone DIII. Track and football? Sure. But wrestling and football or football and lax, let alone football and basketball? Really, really hard.

[Bombers798891]

Bombers it works the same way as it does in football, AQ, Pool B and Pool C. So you end up with the same disparities you are familiar with in other sports. All of DIII works the same way, and given the same kind of travel restraints, you get what you get. I will say that while football has a few conferences with 2 or maybe 3 playoff worthy teams, there are lax conferences that run almost the whole conference deep versus some of the AQ leagues.

Yeah, I figured the pool system was the same, and this last part was more what I was wondering. How much of a problem* is it? Seems like a big one, if Ithaca's first-round game is any indication

*As defined by those of us who don't like seeing playoff games that are 24-7, 21-4, and the like. Obviously, D-III doesn't consider it a problem since they approved the system they use.

I've come around that AQ's are going to exist, and that they should, to some degree. But I do think they could be modified in a way to mitigate these issues to an extent