The March Madness tournament may be coming to an end soon… but that madness isn’t going away for the sport of lacrosse anytime soon. We were gifted another weekend with some crazy upsets, and some big time conference and non-conference matchups. Let’s dive in…
Syracuse and Duke faced off in the Carrier Dome, where both teams were looking to get a bounce back win to get their seasons back on track. Syracuse playing behind their home crowd sure did give them a huge momentum boost for this game. The Orange look like a whole different program with the crowd behind them. It looked like Duke was not expecting Syracuse to be prepared on defense. No one on Duke waned to challenge their defender in the first half, and couldn’t get much going with an 8-4 half time score. Duke would manage to get the Syracuse lead to one goal, but ‘Cuse wouldn’t give up and pulled off the upset on #11 Duke in a 14-10 victory for the Orange. Syracuse looked like the better team for the entire game and it showed in the final score. Duke was more focused on catching up, and resorted to playing individual lacrosse instead of as a team, and they paid the price for it.
The #2 Princeton Tigers took a trip north to Connecticut to take on #14 Yale on Saturday, and we got another great Ivy League contest. The Tigers started out hot, going up 2-0 in the first five minutes of the game but Yale didn’t sit back, and went on to score two goals of their own in the next couple of minutes. Princeton was letting it fly out there, going up 4-2 at the end of the first quarter, but Yale took over the second quarter going up 7-5 to end the first half. Princeton came out and won the third quarter, scoring 5 goals to Yale’s 4 goals but it was still an 11-10 lead for the Bulldogs. Both teams were lighting up the net, shooting whenever they got the chance. Yale went on to win the game 14-12, and completed the March madness upset over Princeton.
Virginia hosted Notre Dame at Klockner Stadium for another ACC matchup where both teams were looking to get a big win over each other. The Cavaliers were firing on all cylinders Saturday, getting their offense in rhythm right from the first whistle. The team last week against Maryland was a big difference from the team this past weekend. Connor Shellenberger led the way for the Cavaliers with 3 goals and 2 assists in the 12-8 victory. Notre Dame hasn’t been able to get things rolling sitting at a 2-4 record right now.
Big Ten conference play got started this weekend as well with a trio of games taking place. Johns Hopkins had a home battle against Michigan in their conference opener. This was a big game for both teams. Hopkins needed the win to save their season from collapsing, and Michigan was looking to come out strong in conference after a solid start to the season. The Blue Jays tried switching up their offensive look a little bit, and it worked in their favor. This was a back and forth battle, showing us that both defenses need to get some work in, but Hopkins was able to pull away 15-12 to start 1-0 in conference play.
Ohio State took a trip to Rutgers for their opening conference game, and the Scarlet Knights took care of business. Rutgers won the game 18-7. After trailing 3-0 in the first quarter they bounced back and started running around the Buckeyes defense. Ohio State is a good team that just can’t string games together. Their recent record is W, L, W, L, W, L; they need to find some consistency if they want to stay alive for the Big Ten tournament.
Wrapping up the weekend was Penn State hosting the #1 Maryland Terapins. Pen State fought as much as they could in the beginning, but the Terps showed why they are the best once again and ended up winning 18-7.
We’ve got some more big conference matchups coming our way. Duke will be travelling down Tobacoo Road to take on Chris Gray and the UNC Tar Heels in what should be an incredible game. We also get Notre Dame hosting Syracuse, Yale vs Penn in an Ivy League showdown, and to wrap up the week on Sunday night we get Hopkins vs Rutgers at 7pm. Tune in and support your squad!
