Rearview: Feel the Crunch

Photo by Louis Murray

By: E.J. Freeman | MCLA.us       

ATLANTA- It was another busy weekend in the MCLA.  We had playoff games, rivalry games, top-five showdowns,  and conference tournament previews. 

Our Friday schedule started with a bang when #4 Air Force faced #3 College of Idaho.  Air Force showed up ready to play and took a 12-6 lead after three quarters before a strong fourth quarter effort from the Yotes brought the game to the 13-10 final score in favor of Air Force. This was the first loss of the season for the Yotes.  As usual for the Falcons Mark Tang was big scoring five goals.  Eric Olsen made thirteen saves in goal for Air Force.  The ten goal output tied the Yotes’ lowest scoring output of the season.  This was a big win for Air Force as they now head into the Rocky Mountain Lacrosse Conference (RMLC) tournament seemingly on a collision course with Montana State.

In Michigan we had Grand Valley State, St. Thomas, Rhode Island, and Montana State all meet to play.  Grand Valley State is looking like the team we expected them to be now.  They defeated both Rhode Island and Montana State and were competitive against St. Thomas.  The Tommies beat Rhode Island as well as the Lakers and have an early season win against Montana State.  The Tommies’ closest game of the season is the five-goal win over Grand Valley State.  It looks like it is going to take a nearly perfect effort to knock off the Tommies.  While the Rams lost all three games they still had a good showing and the weekend will set them up well for Richmond should they make it.  The Rams’ ten goals against St. Thomas tied the highest figure the Tommies have allowed all season.  Montana State picked up another ranked win over Rhode Island and are still a contender despite losing to Grand Valley State.

On Friday we had a top-five showdown between #5 Virginia Tech and #3 Tennessee.   The two teams have shown the ability to score all season, but the first quarter ended with the game tied at one goal apiece.  The offenses found their footing as the night wore on.  The Volunteers ran the zone defense that has served them well for much of the season.  Both teams are accustomed to winning a heavy majority of the faceoffs in their games, but the faceoffs in this game were very close to even, which neutralized a big advantage both teams are used to.  As I mentioned on Friday, the Hokies have some serious stretch shooters that could be problematic for the zone defense and lo and behold the game winning goal was a deep step down shot out of a timeout from Austin Ashley.  The Hokies set a seal on a Volunteer defender and got just enough of him to create the space for Ashley to fire home the game-winning goal.  With the 12-11 win the Hokies have an inside track to the number one seed in the Atlantic Lacrosse Conference (ALC) tournament.  The Volunteers turned around and played #8 Clemson on Sunday in another crucial game.  Tennessee was able to pick up the win 18-12 and now look poised to be the number two seed in the ALC.

Utah Valley and Brigham Young made their trip to Colorado to play Colorado and Colorado State.  The Buffs lead 10-9 after three quarters against Brigham Young, but could not hold off the Cougars.  The  Cougars outscored the Buffs 3-1 in the quarter to win 12-11.  Colorado will likely need to win the RMLC tournament to make it to Richmond or at least get a win against one of the Utah schools in the RMLC tournament.  The Buffs fought tooth and nail with Utah Valley, but eventually ran out of gas as the Wolverines rode a 7-1 fourth quarter to win 15-7.  Colorado State lost both games 20-9.  Utah Valley and Brigham Young are likely to remain 1-2 in the poll this week with their Colorado sweep.

Texas beat their rivals from College Station on Thursday behind five goals from Jack Eigen.  The win sealed the top seed in the Lone Star Alliance (LSA) tournament.  On Saturday, the Longhorns went to Baton Rouge and lost to LSU who failed to qualify for the LSA tournament.  The loss had no impact on the conference playoffs, but likely torpedoed any chance at an at-large bid.  Texas likely needed the LSA automatic qualifier anyway, but now that seems to be a certainty. 

UC Santa Barbara got the win over their rivals Cal Poly to take the top seed in the Western Collegiate Lacrosse League (WCLL).  Both teams got the first round bye in the WCLL playoffs. While the Gauchos and Mustangs are the top two seeds the conference playoffs look to be pretty wide open for any of the top four seeds.

North Florida defeated Georgia Southern 11-10 to take the top seed in the SouthEastern Lacrosse Conference North region.  The most important part of that might be the bye in the quarterfinals on Friday while the second and third seeds for each region will have to win three games in less than 48 hours to take the league crown.

There were plenty of figurative punches thrown in the Backyard Brawl as Pitt won a shootout 21-19.  While this is no longer a conference game, it is still a heated rivalry.  Marc Bartolomucci totaled nine points to pace the Panthers.

Another shootout of a rivalry game was played in the Battle for the Cast Iron Skillet.  The cookware is headed to Dallas as Southern Methodist defeated Texas Christian 17-14.  The Horned Frogs were ranked #16 in last week’s poll, but have lost four of their last five games and most of them by significant margins.  The late season skid has likely pushed them out of the poll after a cameo in the top-ten earlier this season.  The skid for the Horned Frogs will hurt the potential bubbles teams that they beat earlier in the season.  The folks in Orange and Boulder are hoping the Horned Frogs manage to stay in the poll.

Speaking of the folks in Orange at Chapman, we discussed how to approach late regular season games on Friday and we have set up for two of those scenarios in the Southwest Lacrosse Conference.  This week Arizona will play Arizona State and Chapman will play San Diego State and next week those exact same match ups will be the semi-finals in the SLC conference tournament.  These are rivalry games so all four teams will certainly want these games and be juiced up to play, but those playoff games will loom large the following week.  How will those teams handle the regular season finale?

We had our first playoff games of the season this weekend as the SELC Division I playoffs started.  On Friday Georgia Tech traveled to Florida State for a rematch of their season opening game that Florida State won in overtime.  Georgia Tech scored the opening goal, but the Seminoles scored seven of the next eight goals to lead 7-2 early in the second quarter.  Tech got within two goals at 8-6 with just over ten minutes remaining in the second quarter, but could not keep the game in reach as Florida State scored six of the last seven goals of the half to lead 14-7 at the half.  Florida State won 19-12 in the end.  The loss will end the season for Georgia Tech and means the SELC Championship will go somewhere other than Atlanta for the first time since 2022.  Division I’s longest active streak of appearances at the MCLA National Championship Presented by New Balance will also come to an end.

On Saturday, Central Florida traveled to Athens to play in the other quarterfinal game.  The Knights kept the game close in the first quarter as it closed with the Dawgs leading 5-3.  A 5-0 second quarter broke the game open in favor of Georgia and the Dawgs never looked back on their way to a 17-8 win.  The Seminoles and Bulldogs will advance to the semi-finals where the Seminoles will play South Carolina and Georgia will play Auburn.

On Sunday, Liberty traveled to James Madison and beat the Dukes.  The win means the Flames will likely make the ALC playoffs and as such have a glimmer of hope remaining to make it to Richmond.  The Flames have a good win over South Carolina, but have been run off the field against several strong teams and will almost assuredly need the ALC automatic bid.

Out in the Pacific  Northwest Collegiate Lacrosse League Oregon beat Boise State over the weekend.  Oregon will play Oregon State next weekend and Simon Fraser will play Washington; the Ducks and Red Leafs will be heavy favorites in those games and should they win will be the top two seeds in the conference tournament.  On the Division II side,  it seems that Montana and the College of Idaho are on a collision course for a rematch of the game College of Idaho won 10-9. 

Picker Results

Thanks to Sam Bellomy for jumping into the hot seat and picking games. Sam went 3-2 on the weekend.  This will conclude our guest pickers for the season as we get deeper into the playoffs.  Thank you to everyone who jumped on board and went on record with their picks.

Congratulations to Ryan Kerr and Brian Barnhill who went undefeated as our guest pickers and finish the season atop the leader board.

Guest Picker Leaderboard:

Ryan Kerr, Brian Barnhill 5-0

Dylan Hess, Tim Haslam, Ethan Zwickey 4–1

Chris Marshall, Aidan Smith, Justin Straker, Sam Bellomy 3-2

J.J. Arminio, Andrew Golden 2–3

Fan Vote Upset of the Week

The fan vote was heavily in favor of Iowa State against Minnesota to the tune of 74% of the votes.  The Gophers got the win 12-11 to take home the fan vote upset of the week.  Congratulations to the Gophers.   If the Gophers can beat Purdue they will claim the top spot in the Upper Midwest Lacrosse Conference West region.

As always,  head coaches get your nominations for Warrior Player of the Week and PEARL Goalie of the Week to info@mcla.us by noon local time Monday.