The Sunday Slide: The Slimmest of Margins

The margins between teams this spring seem to be closer than ever.

It seems like we say that every year. Last spring, we waxed poetic about the litany of upsets that made putting together the USA Lacrosse Division I Women’s Top 20 a chore.

The upsets haven’t stopped, but this spring just feels like there are tighter games. This week alone (counting midweek games beginning Monday), 18 of the 97 games finished by a one-goal margin. That’s 18.6 percent.

And it’s not just the top teams going blow-for-blow against each other (though Syracuse and Stanford did that in an absolute thriller that finished in double overtime on Friday). Teams outside of the Top 20 have battled to beat ranked teams with some regularity.

Jacksonville entered Saturday 1-4 but beat No. 19 Navy 10-9 behind three goals (and the winner with 16 seconds left) from Shae Hagans. That’s potentially a season-defining win for the Dolphins.

Earlier in the week, Rutgers took down No. 16 Stony Brook 12-11 in overtime in Piscataway and held Isabella Caporuscio, the Seawolves’ leading scorer, without a goal. Rutgers will be rewarded Monday for its big win and its 5-2 start.

Then there was Duke’s one-goal win over Clemson for bragging rights in the second tier of the ACC. (That, by the way, is not an insult. Second-tier ACC teams are national contenders.) Five goals by Callie Hem and five assists by Eva Pronti lifted the Blue Devils, who got a goal from Mattie Shearer to win it inside the final minute.

While Boston College, North Carolina, Northwestern and Yale appear to be untouchable as of now, the rest of the field looks vulnerable in one way or another. More one-goal games, please.

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS

North Carolina and Temple played for the first time since 2007. The Tar Heels won 19-3 behind six goals from Chloe Humphrey, but this was about more than the matchup. Head coaches Jenny Levy and Bonnie Rosen played together at Virginia and won an NCAA championship in 1991. They were co-captains as seniors in 1992, too.

USC was bounced from the Top 20 pretty early this season, but the Women of Troy have done nothing but win since. That 18-6 loss to Stanford proved to be understandable after the Cardinal just kept winning. USC hasn’t had the most challenging schedule since its season opener, but a March 16 game at home against Johns Hopkins is a big litmus test.