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UMBC Limestone lacrosse scrimmage
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College Lacrosse Weekend Preview!

It’s still only February, but that doesn’t mean the lacrosse action isn’t already going strong, because it is.  I originally thought the first D1 game wasn’t until next weekend (Army – UMass) but I guess I was wrong!  According to Laxpower, Detroit travels to Delaware THIS WEEKEND to play the first D1 game of the year.  Delaware has to be favored, but Detroit has been improving year after year, so there are no guarantees in this game.  I like Delaware here, but I expect it to be a close contest, or that I’ll be wrong!

DII NCAA kicks of with Rollings heading to Mars Hill on February 9th.  DIII starts off with two games on February 11th when Mary Washington travels to Virginia Wesleyan, and Randolph-Macon heads to York.

UMBC Limestone lacrosse scrimmage
Limestone - UMBC scrimmage action via 24SevenLax!

On the MCLA side of things, the action is REALLY flying already, and a ton of interesting teams are already in full swing. Clemson is looking to have a big year in 2012 and they head to North Carolina State on Friday. The next day they travel to East Carolina.  Road Trip!  LSU also has a HUGE early season game with Alabama, and that should be a good litmus test to see where BOTH of those programs now sit.  The big time SELC action continues with  Mississippi at Georgia, and out of conference foe Northeastern heads South to play Vanderbilt at Alabama.

Over on the left coast, St. Mary’s (CA) heads to CSU Fullerton, UNLV will play at, and probably be destroyed by, Chapman and USC heads to UCLA.  Is it just me or is that the earliest rivalry game EVER?  LSU-Bama is also this weekend, so it’s a tough call.  LSU-Bama would have taken the honors but their game last week was rained out.  In the northern part of the left coast, Willamette will head to Portland State and since we know guys on, and from, both of the programs, we can’t wait to see the results!!!

Almost unbelievably, ALL of the MCLA action described above takes place on FRIDAY.  We have two more days of games to report on still?  Wow.  There IS a lot of lax already!

Carthage (D-III) will scrimmage/play at Grand Valley State, and I’m sure this will only add to the ever present NCAA/MCLA debate.  Was it a game?  It was listed on Laxpower!  But not for Carthage… here we go again.  Ithaca-Chapman all over again?  A bigger game, with real implications, is Dayton at Tennessee Wesleyan.  It will be interesting to see how Dayton starts out.

Florida State heads to Central Florida for what should be an AWESOME early game.  And NCAA DII Florida Tech will travel to Miami for some scrimmage play.  NCAA DII Tampa does the same as the head to UFlorida.  In the SELC, Mississippi will play at Georgia Tech and Northeastern will continue their Southern swing vs. Louisiana State (played at Alabama).  Tennessee, a program on the rise, travels to Auburn, and this is a big statement game for both teams.

Rice will play on the road against Texas State, and Texas State is looking to have a big year as well.  If they want to be taken seriously, a convincing win here would do a lot for them.  SMU (who we hope will go D1 soon!) plays at Texas Tech, and TCU heads to North Texas.

But I’ve saved the most amazing/impressive/crazy schedule of games for last.  Just to make sure you’ve read to the end of the post.  Vanderbilt will be at Alabama ALL weekend, and they’ll be playing a LOT of lacrosse.  As I mentioned above, they will take on Northeastern (out of Boston) on Friday, and then play again on Saturday at 2pm against Alabama.  Oh wait, I forgot to mention that at 11am, ALSO on Saturday, Vandy will take on LSU.  So Vanderbilt plays 3 games in 2 days, and two of those games start within 3 hours of each other.  WOW, WOW, WOW.  That’s dedication, holmes.

On Sunday there is EVEN MORE action going down, and Clemson will scrimmage High Point’s (NCAA D1) ’13 Varsity team, and I have no idea what that means.  But it sounds cool.  Tennessee will do a similar thing with Mercer (NCAA D1) in Georgia.  Good for these new programs to connect to big, local state schools.  Smart move.

The big game on Sunday though has to be Georgia traveling to Kennesaw State.  KS came out nowhere last week and beat Georgia Tech 9-2.  I am really curious to see if they can keep that up against UGA!  The UC Santa Cruz – Santa Clara game also has the potential for excellence.  Can’t wait to hear about it all!