Parity, Not Parody – NCAA D1 Rundown
This year’s college lacrosse season seems to be all about parity… and that means no one is safe from a potential loss, upsets still abound, and even the best of the best are being challenged! Parity makes for confusion, and an exciting NCAA D1 men’s lacrosse season. Parody is a joke, literally, and college lacrosse is anything but that! The two things are NOT the same.
This week was full of great action. More conference play is starting up, there were some massive upsets, and the only overtime game of the weekend had the defending champs sweating it out on the road. The polls this week are going to get weird.
NCAA D1 Scoreboard – Wed, Fri, Sat PARITY!
Monday
19 Duke vs. Mercer 9
Tuesday
14 Villanova vs. Drexel 9
12 Fairfield vs. UMass Lowell 10
8 Georgetown vs. Mount St. Mary’s 11
14 Delaware vs. VMI 6
11 Massachusetts vs. Hartford 3
7 Wagner vs. Rutgers 15
19 Hofstra vs. NJIT 4
Wednesday
8 Loyola vs. Towson 10
16 Saint Joseph’s vs. St. John’s 8
Friday
6 Detroit vs. Bellarmine 7
13 Virginia vs. Syracuse 14
12 Ohio State vs. Marquette 8
Saturday
10 Robert Morris vs. Air Force 11
6 Hofstra vs. Georgetown 11
11 High Point vs. Marist 9
5 Lafayette vs. Army 14
12 Lehigh vs. Colgate 9
10 Mount St. Mary’s vs. Furman 8
9 Quinnipiac vs. NJIT 7
14 Towson vs. UMBC 6
11 Penn vs. Penn State 7
12 Albany vs. Cornell 8
15 Brown vs. Massachusetts 7
4 Bryant vs. Yale 14
6 Bucknell vs. Navy 13
8 Canisius vs. Boston U. 10
6 Dartmouth vs. Wagner 7
6 Fairfield vs. Stony Brook 9
12 Hobart vs. Binghamton 6
9 Holy Cross vs. Loyola 10
17 Johns Hopkins vs. Princeton 7
15 Michigan vs. Vermont 13
6 Monmouth vs. Rutgers 12
8 Sacred Heart vs. Providence 11
10 St. John’s vs. Siena 9
9 Saint Joseph’s vs. Drexel 10
12 UMass Lowell vs. Jacksonville 6
12 North Carolina vs. Denver 13 OT
4 Manhattan vs. Hartford 16
14 Harvard vs. Duke 9
13 Delaware vs. Villanova 23
9 Notre Dame vs. Maryland 4
6 VMI vs. Richmond 11
Sunday
8 Detroit vs. Marquette 10
9 Ohio State vs. Bellarmine 5
The Stat Freaks
Here’s the list of guys who really did something special. Now, either a TON of defenders had a great weekend, or I need to get pickier on my stats there. No offense, but it’s probably the latter. There even seems to be parity in the stats. Just look at all of the guys putting up ridiculous numbers below, and on both ends of the field!
Offense:
Hofstra’s Josh Byrne 3G, 4A, 5GB vs. NJIT
Delaware’s Ben Romagnoli 6G, 1A vs. VMI
Robert Morris’ Luke Laszkiewicz 7G vs. Air Force
Georgetown’s Matt Behrens 6GB, 1G, 1A vs. Hofstra
Georgetown’s Daniel Bucaro 5GB, 1CT, 3G, 1A vs. Hofstra
Army’s Cole Johnson 6G, 1A vs. Lafayette
Brown’s Bailey Tills 4G on 4 Shots vs. UMASS
Vermont’s Cam Milligan 3G, 4A vs. Michigan
Rutgers’ Christian Mazzone 3G on 3 shots, 6GB, 1 CT vs. Monmouth
Denver’s Connor Cannizzaro 3G, 2A, 6GB vs. UNC
Hartford’s Dylan Jinks 4G, 4A, 6GB vs. Manhattan
Villanova’s Devin McNamara 4G, 3A vs. Delaware
Villanova’s Jake Foccaro 5G, 3A vs. Delaware
Defense:
UMass’ Kyle Karaska 3GB, 4CT vs. Hartford
Hofstra’s Kris Clarke 14/19 (74%), 9GB vs. NJIT
Fairfield’s Will Fox 20/25 (80%) 9GB vs. UMass Lowell
‘Nova’s Luke Palmadesso 17/24 (71%) vs. Drexel
Duke’s Teddy Henderson 15/20 (75%), 1G vs. Mercer
Air Force’s Josh Radjenovich 20/25 (80%), 15GB, 1G vs. Robert Morris
High Point’s Jamie Piluso 18/23 (78%), 10GB vs. Marist
Army’s Dan Grabher 8/10 (80%), 5GB, 2G vs. Lafayette
Cornell’s Domenic Massimillian 19/24 (79%), 12GB vs. Albany
Brown’s Will Gurral 12/15 (80%), 5GB, 1G vs. UMASS
Yale’s John Reese 15/20 (75%) 9 GB vs. Bryant
Navy’s Brady Dove 15/21 (71%) 7GB vs. Bucknell
Dartmouth’s Don Stephan 12/17 (71%), 7GB, 1A vs. Wagner
Rutgers’ Alex Schoen 17/20 (85%) vs. Monmouth
St. Joseph’s Danny Manning 18/22 (82%) vs. Drexel
Jacksonville’s Hunter Forbes 20/25 (80%) 12GB vs. UMASS-Lowell
Denver’s Trevor Baptiste 21/28 (75%) vs. UNC
Hartford’s Dylan Protesto 14/16 (88%) vs. Manhattan
Goalies:
Hofstra’s Jack Concannon 75% vs. NJIT
Towson’s Tyler White 16 saves vs. Loyola
Ohio State’s Tom Carey 16 saves vs. Marquette
Marist’s Brian Corrigan 17 saves vs. High Point
NJIT’s Nick Marzullo 16 saves vs. Quinnipiac
Albany’s Blaze Riorden 18 saves (69%) vs. Cornell
Princeton’s Tyler Blaisdell 20 saves vs. Hopkins
Michigan’s Gerald Logan 18 saves vs. Vermont
Manhattan’s Michael Zingaro 19 saves vs. Hartford
The Big Upsets and Surprises
Towson for a second straight season took down one of their big name, highly ranked neighbors in Loyola early in the season. The Tigers used their stout defense to hold the Loyola starting attack to an abysmal 2 for 20 shooting as a unit. I had this labeled as the upset of the week, until…
Harvard beat Duke. Harvard had beaten all three of their previous opponents in overtime prior to facing Duke at Hofstra. Their other opponents are a combined 5-9, including a winless Holy Cross. Against Duke, the Crimson controlled nearly the entire game and won by five points, 14-9. Makes sense.
Villanova put up a ridiculous 23 goals against Delaware. This is the same Delaware that held Navy to five goals. Nov has scored 12 against Harvard, 19 against Penn State, 14 against Drexel and now 23 against Delaware. If they didn’t have your attention already, they should now.
Denver staged a terrific comeback down in Chapel Hill against North Carolina. UNC showed they really can play like the team we all want them to be, but Denver also showed why they’re the defending champs. This will be a tough team to stop this year.
Hopkins scored a terrific win over Princeton 17-7. The headline going into the game was Princeton missing Zach Currier due to a one game suspension. Currier’s a huge part of that team, but not a 10 goal deficit part.
Remember the previously mentioned 0-5 Holy Cross? They took Loyola down to the wire at home in Worcester 9-10. After winning this game last year, that would have been a monumental upset again for the revamped program. Loyola is creating a few question marks around their team.
A slipping Navy topped a surging Bucknell 13-6 because that’s what the Patriot League does.
In a series as even as it can get (wins, points, etc.), Syracuse topped UVA in Virginia to take start off ACC play with a bang. Neither team played very consistent, but it was a great game to watch down to the last minute. Both have plenty to work on going forward.
After rising quickly in the national conversation, Hofstra took a beating by Georgetown. They did get onto the SportCenter Top 10 though, which is nice.
ICYMI: Here’s that Josh Byrne goal for @HofstraMLAX… in the running for best of the weekend. #SCtop10 pic.twitter.com/327feH2Vi1
— Travis Eldridge (@tgeldrid) March 5, 2016
Conference Comparison
Here is where we are keeping track of how the conferences stack up against each other. This will help quite a bit as conferences start cannibalizing themselves through the season (I’m looking directly at you, Patriot League).
While it was a rough week for the ACC (Duke, UNC & Virginia all lost), at least UVA’s loss was in conference. The Patriot League overtook the Ivy for third after Dartmouth, Princeton, and Cornell lost. The Colonial leapfrogged the Southern after another good weekend overall, but everyone else stayed the same.
Lacrosse All Stars -