The Sunday Slide: April 28, 2024

It’s ticket-punching season.

Boston College played an outstanding defensive second half to thwart Syracuse’s attempt at winning an ACC championship for the first time since 2015, and with that, the first automatic bid to the NCAA tournament bid has been snagged.

Not that the Eagles needed it, of course. Nor did Syracuse. Both of those teams are still favorites to make long runs through May.

But ticket-punching season also means the end of the line for more and more teams as the days go by. Many seasons end with heads down, shoulders sulked.

That’s why I love this clip so much.

Xavier wasn’t playing for a conference title, and there weren’t playoff hopes on the line. It was a season-finale, non-conference matchup against a Denver team that, honestly, overmatched the Musketeers considerably. But the game was snowed out — good ol’ Colorado — and with no reason to reschedule, it was canceled.

The Musketeers struggled through a 4-11 season, but goalies Jada Brandon, Teegan Lannon and Marina Piszczor enjoyed the April blizzard and celebrated some of their final moments together this spring.

Xavier’s season didn’t end on its own terms. Mother Nature had other plans. But I love how the Musketeers made the best of the situation.

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS

One of the downsides of conference tournament season is the schedule. Weekday conference tournament games are played during the work day (which isn’t bad when you work in lacrosse, but it’s not great when you have a “real” job).

There are 10 tournament games on Thursday that start during the traditional 9-5 workday. There are four such games on Friday, too. There just has to be a better way to do this, both for the athletes’ families and for the general betterment of the women’s game.

I don’t like harping too much on broadcasters during the regular season. Oftentimes they are student journalists looking to hone their craft before pursuing a career in sports broadcasting. I’ve been there myself, which is why I try my best to be understanding of some awkward sentences and other broadcasting faux pas.

But the broadcasters in the Michigan-Johns Hopkins Big Ten quarterfinal really failed to capture the gravity of the moment in overtime. Bailey Cheetham scored the walk-off winner and fell hard to the turf in Ann Arbor, yet the commentators treated it as if it was just another goal.

Did they know the game was over?

I’ll pass the pen (keyboard?) over to my coworker, Paul Ohanian, with some Division II women’s action:

There were two upsets Sunday afternoon in Division II conference tournaments. In the Sunshine State championship game, second-seeded Tampa beat top-seeded Florida Southern 10-9, with Tampa goalie Alex Walling making two big stops in the final 90 seconds to preserve the win.

In the Great Lakes Valley Conference final, No. 19 UIndy upset third-ranked and top-seeded Maryville 17-10, handing the high-scoring Saints their first loss of the year and limiting them to their second-lowest scoring output of the season.

There are no automatic bids in Division II, but all four of the aforementioned teams are still likely to get bids to the 16-team NCAA tournament.

FUN WITH NUMBERS

2 • Upsets in the Big Ten quarterfinals, as Johns Hopkins beat Michigan and Rutgers beat Maryland.

13 • Wins for Siena in 2024, a single-season program record. Siena is moving on to the MAAC semifinals on Friday, May 3.

19 • Goals scored by Stonehill in its 19-14 win over Saint Francis, all coming from five scorers — Grace Murphy (five), Molly Mae Hughes (four), Lilly Leach (four), Natalie Coutu (three) and Sofia D’Agostino (three).

28 • Seconds between Rutgers and a trip to the semifinals, a brief span in which Sophia Cardello made two saves on Hannah Leubecker to ensure the Scarlet Knights’ season would continue.

238 (and counting) • Draw controls in 2024 by UMass’ Jordan Dean, a single-season NCAA Division I record. Maddie Jenner of Duke held the previous record with 233.