The Sunday Slide: April 16, 2023

I spent my Saturday afternoon at Ridley Athletic Complex. It was a (mostly) great afternoon, that is until the skies opened with 8:29 remaining in Loyola’s eventual 19-5 win over Army.

Weather is a sports reporter’s worst nightmare. I used to work in the newspaper world, where inclement weather is nightmare fuel. It’s different in a magazine-slash-digital space, but either way, rain delays aren’t fun.

Frankly, Loyola and Army didn’t need to play the last 8:29 (and thankfully they didn’t). I had seen enough. Shoutout to Army, which has been one of the season’s great stories, but Loyola is still very much in a league of its own when it comes to the Patriot League hierarchy.

The Greyhounds’ offense is DEEP. It was a blowout, so big stat totals are expected, but Loyola mostly spread the ball around evenly. Georgia Latch and Sydni Black are dangerous and adaptable, Chase Boyle doesn’t get enough credit and Jillian Wilson is criminally underrated. She legit might be the best all-around midfielder in the nation.

We forget just how good Loyola was a year ago, and even though the Greyhounds lost all-time program great Livy Rosenzweig (who is back as a volunteer coach, by the way) and Kaitlyn Larsson, Loyola might be just as good — if not better — than before.

Couple the Greyhounds’ consistency with a sudden cloud of confusion dampening the picture of teams outside the top six, and Loyola has a legit shot at making noise in the near future.

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS

I’m not sure anyone is stopping Syracuse. The Orange have proven themselves against virtually all of their main competition. (Circle Thursday’s game against Boston College if you haven’t yet for the final test.) This is all to say that yes, I recognize the strength of this incredible Northwestern team, too. It doesn’t matter what number Izzy Scane wears — the Wildcats are fantastic.

 In my humble opinion, Syracuse trumps them in two very important areas. Firstly, Delaney Sweitzer is the best goalie in the country right now. Beth Ann Mayer wrote about her last week. And secondly, for as good as Scane and Erin Coykendall are, Syracuse’s offense is a thing of beauty. It’s a six- or seven-player deep rotation of offensive assassins. Syracuse’s win over North Carolina on Saturday sealed it for me.

In the realm of 0-2 weeks, East Carolina actually had a pretty good one. ECU took North Carolina to the brink in an eventual 12-9 loss, and then ECU hung with perennial AAC favorite Florida in a 10-5 loss. Things are looking up in Greenville, North Carolina.

Speaking of the AAC, there’s officially a new sheriff in town. James Madison clinched the conference’s regular-season title by beating Cincinnati on Sunday, and the Dukes have been a welcome addition to a conference that usually just sends one team (Florida) to the NCAA tournament. James Madison, by the way, is a kinda-but-not-really dark horse Final Four team.

Midweek lacrosse strikes again. The victims this week were a trio of teams ranked in the Top 20.

• Rutgers has suffered through a nightmare season after two years of historic success. But the Scarlet Knights stepped up in their biggest game of the spring, beating Stony Brook 12-7. Cassidy Spilis had four goals, and Ellie Masera was held without a point. The big question now is whether or not Rutgers can earn an at-large berth into the NCAA tournament. At 6-7, the first step is reaching .500 to even be considered.

• By the same 12-7 score, Penn State downed a Maryland team that was red hot. Ashley Bowan made 10 saves to limit the Terps, who are hardly in a bad spot. Sometimes losing right before postseason play can serve as a motivator — and you best believe that Cathy Reese is going to use it to her advantage. But this win was in fact massive for Penn State, which probably all but locked up a trip to the dance.

• In a lesser-watched result, Johns Hopkins upset Michigan 14-7. Michigan has been uber-consistent, and Hopkins is now just 5-7 in Tim McCormack’s first year. There’s plenty of young talent on the Jays, and it was fun to see them put it together for a huge Big Ten win.

FUN WITH NUMBERS

1 • Person on Inside Lacrosse’s “Fan Picks” page (shoutout Chloe Bednar) who correctly predicted that Harvard would beat Yale. Twenty-seven folks chose Yale to win.

4 • That’s now four upset losses (depending on who you ask, I guess) suffered by Duke this season. The inconsistent Blue Devils have dropped games to Clemson, Yale, Virginia Tech and Louisville. The 14-13 Louisville loss happened Saturday afternoon.

10 • Goals scored by Allie Boyce — on 10 shots! — in Bucknell’s 20-11 win over American.

13 • The record number of single season wins for Marquette after beating a UConn team that looked to be on the NCAA tournament bubble. Marquette is now very much in that conversation, too.

56 • The very random number Izzy Scane wore in Saturday’s defeat of Ohio State. There really isn’t much story behind it. She said she accidentally left her normal No. 27 uniform at home.

TYRRELL WATCH

Meaghan Tyrrell is two points away from tying Katie Rowan for the most points in Syracuse history. That also means she is three from breaking the record, for all you non-mathematicians in the audience. Rowan notched 394 points from 2006-09. Tyrrell’s next game is against Boston College on Thursday at 7 p.m. Eastern.