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Overtime Thrillers – NCAA D1 Rundown

This week saw a pretty large number of overtime thrillers, including some really important rivalries and key conference match ups. Cornell brought visiting Syracuse to extra time, as did Marquette with Notre Dame. The always classic Army versus Navy game needed more time, as did the final game of the weekend, in Johns Hopkins versus Penn State.  This doesn’t even bring in the number of close calls around the country as well.

Make sure you check out Connor’s poll to see his thoughts on some of these teams, and listen in to the In Your Face LaxCast for plenty more D1 men’s lacrosse coverage. Get ready for an awesome finish to this NCAA regular season!

Overtime Thrillers Scoreboard

Tuesday
13 Binghamton vs. Canisius 12
10 Cornell vs. Syracuse 9 OT
4 NJIT vs. Lafayette 12
11 Mount St. Mary’s vs. UMBC 14
13 Princeton vs. Lehigh 6
9 Stony Brook vs. Marist 10 OT

Wednesday
8 Notre Dame vs. Marquette 7 OT

Friday
14 Bucknell vs. Lafayette 7

Saturday
8 Marquette vs. Providence 7
10 Ohio State vs. Michigan 7
13 Air Force vs. VMI 3
10 Army vs. Navy 11 OT
6 Colgate vs. Holy Cross 12
17 Denver vs. St. John’s 10
14 High Point vs. Jacksonville 10
13 Loyola vs. Boston U. 12
8 Monmouth vs. Detroit 9
6 Mount St. Mary’s vs. Hobart 12
17 Quinnipiac vs. Canisius 9
7 Towson vs. Delaware 10
14 Brown vs. Yale 12
8 Fairfield vs. Massachusetts 6
15 Hartford vs. Siena 4
10 Marist vs. Manhattan 11 OT
12 Mercer vs. Furman 10
10 Saint Joseph’s vs. Bryant 9 OT
14 Vermont vs. UMBC 10
12 Lehigh vs. Cornell 13
7 Princeton vs. Dartmouth 3
14 Penn vs. Harvard 13
10 Richmond vs. Bellarmine 7
4 Drexel vs. Hofstra 10
13 Syracuse vs. North Carolina 7
11 Maryland vs. Rutgers 8
15 Stony Brook vs. UMass Lowell 7
16 Villanova vs. Georgetown 4
12 Albany vs. Binghamton 8
8 Sacred Heart vs. Wagner 11

Sunday
8 Virginia vs. Duke 14
11 Penn State vs. Johns Hopkins 12 OT

The D1 Stat Freaks

Freak of the week: While the list of scorers is pretty small this week, that doesn’t mean people weren’t putting up big numbers, it’s just that they were just a little under the 7 point threshold. If the limit were pushed down to 6 points, the list would be pretty big, but it’s not.

The one stat line that really jumped out at me this week was none other than Craig Chick of Lehigh. He would have made the list on just his 8 caused turnovers alone, but adding 10 ground balls on top of that is just flat out impressive.

Offense: The Cutoff here is a combined 7 goals and/or assists

Princeton’s Ryan Ambler 4G, 3A vs Lehigh
Villanova’s Jack Curran 3G, 4A vs. Georgetown
Quinnipiac’s Brian Feldman 7G vs. Canisius

Defense:  For here, you need 8 GBs, CTs, and/or points

Lehigh’s Craig Chick 8CT, 10 GB vs. Princeton
Cornell’s Tony Britton 5GB, 3CT vs. Syracuse
Notre Dame’s John Sexton 7GB, 2CT, 1G vs. Marquette
Marquette’s Liam Byrnes 8GB, 2CT, 1A vs. Notre Dame
Marquette’s Nicholas Eufrasio 7GB, 1CT vs. Notre Dame
UMBC’s Billy O’Hara 6GB, 1CT vs. Vermont
UNC’s Jack Rowlett 4GB, 4CT vs. Syracuse
Marist’s Ralph Faiella 4GB, 4CT vs. Manhattan
Brown’s Alec Tulett 7GB, 1CT, 1A vs. Yale
Yale’s Christopher Keating 6GB, 2CT vs. Brown
High Point’s Zack Price 6GB, 3CT vs. Jacksonville
VMI’s Kyle Walsh 5GB, 4CT vs. Air Force

Faceoffs: Greater than 70%, at least 10 attempts

Syracuse’s Ben Williams 18/22 vs. Cornell
Mt. St. Mary’s Mike Celmer 18/25 vs. UMBC
Stony Brook’s Jay Lindsay 14/19, 1G vs. Marist
Vermont’s Luc Leblanc 15/20 vs. UMBC
Hofstra’s Kris Clark 12/17 vs. Drexel
Villanova’s Luke Palmadesso 15/20 vs. Georgetown
Princeton’s Sam Bonafede 10/14 vs Dartmouth
Denver’s Trevor Baptiste 20/25 vs. St. John’s
Cornell’s Dom Massimillian 17/19 vs. Lehigh
Colgate’s Collin Orr 10/14 vs. Holy Cross

Goalies:  Greater than 70%

Stony Brook’s Brandon Maciejewski 5/7 vs. Marist
Hobart’s Jackson Brown 13/18 vs. Ms. St. Mary’s
Fairfield’s Tyler Behring 19/25 vs. UMASS
Princeton’s Tyler Blaisdell 15/18 vs. Dartmouth
Hartford’s Ryan Vandeford 12/15 vs. Siena
Air Force’s Doug Gouchoe 7/9 vs. VMI

The Big Upsets and Surprises

  • The biggest upset to start the week was Cornell topping the Orange in OT. Syracuse had their chances to ice the win, but just couldn’t convert. Credit goes to the Big Red, who scored with one of the smallest shooting windows you’ll see.
  • On that same day, Marist’s win over Stony Brook was another surprising OT match. It wasn’t the hyper-local rivalry of Syracuse and Cornell, but it was not a long bus ride for a mid-week game. Marist has been somewhat puzzling coming back from their NCAA tournament appearance a year ago, and this win just adds to the confusion. They opened their season with a 4OT loss to Air Force, have had close games with many average teams, and have now had six total games go into OT. They won over a good Stony Brook team on Tuesday, then lost in OT on Saturday to a struggling (understatement of the year?) Manhattan squad. The Red Foxes will obviously need an automatic qualifier to make the NCAA again, and if they make it, they could either get blown out by 10, or win by 2. I’m not really sure which one yet. Stony Brook really did not need a loss like this. Their only two losses prior to this were Albany and Brown, which are respectable losses to have. This is not a good one to have on their resume if they don’t win the America East over Albany.
  • In a great battle of the Midwest, Marquette took Notre Dame into overtime, but could not pull off the upset. This game may raise some question marks about the Irish for some, but it’s not one that I’m too concerned about. More than anything, I really take away from this game how impressive Marquette is so quickly. They are still a very young program, so to see them take a Notre Dame team that has been stellar all year into OT is a great sign that they can push for the Big East title.
  • The Army/Navy game absolutely lived up to the billing. When those two institutions face off, it will be intense no matter what the sport is. When you add in that the winner likely would get the regular season crown in the Patriot league, it was just icing on the cake. Navy came out on top and secured the top seed in the Patriot League tournament for the second year in a row. Even if Loyola tops Army next week, Navy gets the head to head. With the volatility in the country this year, I don’t think they HAVE to win the Patriot tourney, but doing so would likely give them a home game. This is also assuming they beat Maryland on upset Tuesday, followed by Sacred Heart later in the week.
  • Providence’s one point loss to Marquette is just heartbreaking for the Friars. They are on the cusp on really breaking through in the Big East. With the exception of Georgetown, they have beaten everyone they should have, and have been pretty close to everyone else. They close out with the toughest part of their schedule, facing Brown AND Denver this week, the Villanova to close out their regular season. One win in the stretch would be good, two would turns some heads, and three would drop some jaws.
  • Loyola also eked out a late win over BU to secure a good seed in the Patriot tournament. BU has made quite a bit of noise this year, and a win over Loyola would have amplified that greatly.  With six teams getting invites into the league tournament, BU should be in, but they need to win it all to have a prayer at playing in the NCAA.
  • In what was the most impactful game this weekend in terms of rankings go, the Ivy League matchup between Yale and Brown lived up to the lofty expectations. Both are great teams, but their styles are very different. Not too surprisingly, it turned into a high scoring affair. With Brown pulling away at the end to lock up the win and what should be hosting rights to the league tournament. They still have to beat Cornell and Dartmouth to get there, but they are officially in the driver’s seat.
  • The last time North Carolina went up to Syracuse, it was a dramatic double overtime fight and one of the best games I’ve ever watched from start to finish. Just like then, Syracuse was fighting for their ACC tournament life and needed a win to get in. This game did not have the drama this time around and Syracuse dominated time of possession, face-offs, shots, and nearly everything else en route to their win. It was a win that Orange fans were waiting for and addressed many of their recent problems. The fun part about this all too is that it likely means these teams will have a rematch in the ACC tournament against this year. In 2015, Syracuse won a bruiser of a game, avenging their regular season loss to the Tar Heels. Now we might see if the roles will reverse.
  • The other game that had ACC tournament implications on the line was Virginia vs. Duke. Virginia just had to win to be in, but could not pull it off.  They kept the game tight for the whole first half, but Duke took over after halftime. The loss means UVA is once again outside of the ACC main event as they have been since Syracuse and Notre Dame joined the conference. They will get a game against Brown, but barring the unexplainable, their season will be over after that.

Conference Comparison

Conference

Record

%

# of Teams

ACC

28-14

.667

5

Big Ten

32-20

.615

6

Ivy

28-20

.583

7

Patriot

25-22

.532

9

Big East

26-23

.531

6

Colonial

29-26

.527

6

America East

27-27

.500

7

Northeast

27-28

.491

7

Southern

22-34

.393

8

MAAC

14-31

.311

7

Once again, there was almost no change in the lineup here this week.  The only changes were: 1) the America East climbing to .500 while 2) the NE dropped due to Mount St. Mary’s loss to UMBC.

Seeing how close a few of these conferences are as a whole only underscores how important it will be to do well in and/or win the conference tournament.  There are only a few “locks” for at-large NCAA bids, so any losses by those teams may really complicate the selection process in a few weeks.