I know talking about baseball is sacrilegious in the lacrosse space. But I’m a baseball fan first. And the Yankees are back (and 3-0).
I bring this up because lacrosse, specifically women’s lacrosse, should eye Major League Baseball as a typically slow-moving institution that felt pressure to improve its on-field product and succeeded wildly.
Major League Baseball games were shortened to 2 hours and 36 minutes in 2024. It was a shade under 2 hours and 40 minutes in 2023 when the pitch clock was first introduced. That was down from 3 hours and four minutes per game in 2022.
Games have gotten shorter even as the challenge system has allowed for managers to briefly pause the game so umpires can get the call correct.
The goal should be to make games shorter while also making them more entertaining (which MLB did by widening the bases to encourage more aggressive baserunning).
There have been times in 2025 when women’s lacrosse games have been painstakingly long. My opinion has nothing to do with the quality of play, the talent or the teams. It largely has to do with the gruelingly slow challenge process, random stoppages that alter pace (the Stanford-Yale game a few weeks ago had oodles of those), and other seemingly avoidable issues.
I love the game of women’s lacrosse. I never thought this would become my career as a young sports journalist coming out of college who didn’t understand lacrosse’s allure. But here I am, somehow now in my ninth year covering the game.
I just want what’s best for the sport and its visibility on television. Speeding things up doesn’t mean less lacrosse. It means a cleaner, crisper, more engaging product.
It’s time for the people with influence to put their heads together and innovate. Nobody thought Major League Baseball ever would. But it did, and it’s better for it.
RANDOM OBSERVATIONS
I led our weekend preview on Thursday with the “prove-it” theme. It wasn’t directed at a singular team. But North Carolina and Northwestern were squarely in the crosshairs, because a win for either in that head-to-head matchup would say quite a bit. The Tar Heels continued their torrid start in the 15-12 win, with Chloe Humphrey going for four goals and four assists and Ashley Humphrey going for two goals and four assists. Prove it, they did.
The defending NEC champion LIU Sharks fell during the week, somewhat improbably, to Wagner. You never know what you’re going to get coming crunch time in the non-power conferences, and that’s what makes April fun. LIU was a surprise champion itself a season ago.
Johns Hopkins is off and running. It must feel freeing to not play one-goal game after one-goal game for two straight weeks. The Blue Jays dominated James Madison 17-8 on Wednesday before thumping Oregon 22-8 on Sunday, bringing them to 8-2. Ashley Mackin went off for 17 goals and three assists this week. Just absurd.
Take a bow, Lindsey Serafine. A lot had to go right for Army to earn its highest-ranked win in program history, a 12-9 triumph over Stanford. Serafine’s second-half performance was crucial. She made eight of her nine saves in the second half on 12 shots faced. That’s lockdown.
The usual suspects did their parts, too. Allison Reilly had five goals and two assists, and Brigid Duffy stuffed the stat sheet with two goals, four assists, five caused turnovers, eight draw controls and two ground balls.
Brown didn’t play its best game against Harvard. The Bears only got off 19 shots and just one in the first quarter. But they won 12-10 because of incredible goalie play from Claire Mahoney, who made 12 saves. Brown is climbing the Ivy pecking order.
Rutgers is building a sleeper-type resume. The Scarlet Knights beat Stony Brook a few weeks back, and now they’ve beaten Ohio State, 12-8. They are now 7-4, and each of their four losses (Army, Yale, Princeton and Johns Hopkins) are understandable. It’s likely we’ll see Rutgers in the NCAA tournament as long as it finishes .500 or better.
Here’s something of an oddity for you. Penn and Florida were tied at the end of every single quarter. It was 3-3 after one, 4-4 after two, 8-8 after three and 12-12 after four. Gianna Monaco deposited the winner for Florida in overtime, ending the stalemate.
MY PICKS
I admittedly went against the grain ON PURPOSE by choosing both Yale and Harvard in their Ivy League rivalry games. Princeton beat Yale. Brown beat Harvard. We move on to next week after going 2-3, bringing my season record to 21-19.
BY THE NUMBERS
1 • Northeast Conference victory in program history for Howard, which beat Delaware State 9-8 in overtime on Wednesday. Taylor Harris scored the winner for the Bison.
10 • Games that went to overtime this week, culminating in Penn State’s 13-12 upset victory over No. 13 Michigan.
21 • Straight games with a hat trick for Northwestern’s Madison Taylor.
23 • Draw controls by Maddie Epke for James Madison against Charlotte, new single-game program and AAC records.
39 • Combined goals between Loyola and Navy in the Greyhounds’ 20-19 win over the Mids, ending a game that was nearly three hours long (see the above rant on game length).
707 • Days between home losses for Yale, which finally felt the sting of defeat in New Haven with Princeton’s 13-10 win.
