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In the final in-season ranking of the USA Lacrosse Division I Men's Top 20, presented by CWENCH Hydration, there is not much new to report.
There were a few surprises, like Duke's potentially season-saving win against North Carolina and Cornell's win over Ivy League rival Harvard, but neither represented a happening seismic enough to completely shake up the Top 20.
North Carolina has slipped from the top three to No. 4 — just a one-spot slide for a team with such a strong resume. Cornell is just behind at No. 5, and it looks like the Big Red are peaking with May on the horizon.
At the top of it all is Notre Dame, the popular NCAA title favorite after it continued its reign at No. 1 by dispatching Syracuse 16-11.
1. Notre Dame
2. Princeton
3. Richmond
4. North Carolina
5. Cornell
6. Syracuse
7. Johns Hopkins
8. Maryland
9. Georgetown
10. Harvard
11. Penn State
12. Virginia
13. Ohio State
14. Towson
15. Duke
16. Army
17. Yale
18. Loyola
19. Penn
20. Michigan
Also considered (alphabetical order): Boston U
Several conference championships were decided this weekend, while other tournaments are still in flux.
With new automatic qualifiers in Division II, the game changes a little bit. Even though the NE-10 marches onward with what seems like an inevitable Adelphi sweep, the rest of the teams in the field will be hunting for an upset.
Likewise, in the SAC, it looks like a showdown between Wingate and Lenoir-Rhyne is looming — but Anderson and Newberry are looking to crash the party with a finals appearance.
So far, your conference champs are:
1. Adelphi
2. Tampa
3. Saint Anselm
4. Wingate
5. Lenoir-Rhyne
6. Seton Hill
7. Anderson
8. Newberry
9. Lewis
10. Molloy
11. Pace
12. Maryville
13. Florida Tech
14. Catawba
15. Assumption
16. Mercy
17. Saint Leo
18. Rockhurst
19. Flagler
20. Concordia Irvine
Also considered (alphabetical order): Barton, Belmont Abbey, Frostburg, Lees-McRae, Westminster
It was quarterfinal weekend for multiple teams lucky enough to be included in conferences large enough to have such a thing and to have a record good enough to make the cut.
The NESCAC tournament had its usual spate of upsets, most notably Hamilton taking down Wesleyan with a 10-9 final. Bates also upended Amherst 12-7, while Bowdoin made no mistake about their first-round triumph over Williams with a convincing 22-4 victory. Tufts bounced back from their regular-season-finale loss to Bowdoin with a 10-goal win over Middlebury, 21-11.
One of the more shocking games of the weekend came from the ODAC, where Lynchburg fell to Washington and Lee 17-15 in the regular-season finale. Though it won't affect the Hornets very much, it does give the Generals a nice top-five win and more juice as they enter the playoffs to face Shenandoah in the ODAC quarterfinals on Monday.
1. Bowdoin
2. Tufts
3. Christopher Newport
4. York
5. Salisbury
6. Lynchburg
7. Gettysburg
8. Babson
9. Dickinson
10. Wesleyan
11. Stevens
12. RIT
13. Bates
14. Washington and Lee
15. Hamilton
16. Cortland
17. Amherst
18. St. Lawrence
19. Ithaca
20. Middlebury
Also considered (alphabetical order): Endicott, Roanoke, St. John Fisher, Washington College
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