Good morning. Before we get to the latest from around the lacrosse world, here's a look at this week's #DIALEDIN The Show:
1. No. 16 Princeton showed some true grit in a 13-12 win at No. 17 Penn State yesterday. Despite winning just one first half draw, the Tigers trailed by just three at the half and then turned things around in the second half.
Princeton won 9-of-13 draws in the second half and freshman goalie Sam Fish helped spark the turnaround. The Tigers were trailing 6-1 when she entered the game, and then outscored the Nittany Lions 12-6 from that point on. Fish, who had made just four saves in limited action, made 11 saves to key the victory.
2. If the past weekend didn't shake up the top of the Nike/US Lacrosse men's rankings, did it provide some separation? Particularly No. 1 Albany, which demolished previously unbeaten Vermont.
Jakob Patterson had a career-high seven goals as Albany beat previously unbeaten Vermont 21-5 on Saturday, preserving its No. 1 ranking.
3. Consider this past week the calm before the storm. There were only two upsets all week involving Top 20 teams in the Nike/US Lacrosse women's rankings - Loyola beating Virginia and High Point beating Notre Dame - but chaos could be just around the corner.
No. 2 James Madison goes on the road to No. 9 Virginia and No. 3 Maryland this week. Maryland hosts No. 7 Penn before that. No. 6 North Carolina heads to No. 4 Boston College on Saturday. And those are just some of the big games in what could be a major reshuffling of the rankings.
4. In the women's Division III rankings, Wesleyan knocked off No. 1 TCNJ 7-6, but ran into a brick wall with Middlebury, which beat the Cardinals. That was enought to move the 5-0 Panthers to No. 1 this week. The other No. 1's in our small college rankings stayed the same: Merrmick (MD2), RIT (MD3) and Florida Southern (WD2).
A look at the major-college and junior-college polls released on Monday:
5. North Carolina's Ela Hazar and Rutgers' Jules Heningburg were named the national players of the week. Hazar had a school record eight assists in the Tar Heels 18-13 win over Northwestern to earn Brine Player of the Week honors. She also became the school's all-time leader with 98.
What a week for Heningburg, this week's Warrior Player of the Week. On Wednesday, he had the game-winning goal against Lehigh and followed that up with six goals and two assists in the Scarlet Knights monumental 14-10 win over Syracuse.
6. The NLL season has just six weekends left, but a logjam at the East has everything still up for grabs.