Good morning. Here’s the latest from around the lacrosse world:
1. Yale fortified its hold on the No. 1 ranking in the Nike/US Lacrosse Division I Men’s Top 20 with its convincing win over Cornell, while Penn State’s grip on the top spot in the USILA coaches poll weakened a bit after the Nittany Lions were idle over the weekend. Penn State also remained atop the Inside Lacrosse media poll. Penn State, Duke, Yale and Maryland all received first-place votes.
2. Undefeated Notre Dame jumped 10 spots to No. 7 in the Nike/US Lacrosse Division I Women’s Top 20, bolstered by its first marquee win of the season, a 10-9 victory at Virginia. The top four teams — No. 1 Boston College, No. 2 Maryland, No. 3 North Carolina and No. 4 Syracuse — are identical across all three major national rankings. BC earned all 25 first-place votes in the IWLCA coaches poll, while Maryland siphoned off three of the 24 first-place votes in the Inside Lacrosse media poll.
3. Syracuse relocated its lacrosse games this weekend to local high schools to accommodate the NCAA women’s basketball tournament at the Carrier Dome and Lacrosse Twitter predictably took issue with the decision.
The Orange women will play Notre Dame at Christian Brothers Academy on Saturday. The men will play Duke at Cicero-North Syracuse High on Sunday.
4. The Buffalo Bandits clinched their first NLL playoff berth since 2016 against the team they met in the championship finals that season. Jack Goods recapped Week 14 and previews Week 15 in his weekly NLL notebook.
5. Yale’s Matt Brandau and Hofstra’s Alyssa Parrella earned Warrior/US Lacrosse Player of the Week and Brine/US Lacrosse Player of the Week honors as the week’s top performers in Division I men’s and women’s lacrosse, respectively.