The dust has settled after a wild weekend of conference tournament action, and a largest-ever field of 34 teams have their dancing shoes on for the NCAA Division III men’s lacrosse tournament, kicking off Tuesday with a pair of play-in contests before the first round Wednesday.
With a whopping 12 of the Nike/US Lacrosse Division III Top 20 teams falling in their conference tournaments, the bubble wound up being extremely tight this year, with only the cream of the crop able to claim a spot without a Pool A (automatic qualifier) or Pool B (independents and non-AQ conferences) berth.
Defending NCAA champion Salisbury, as expected, earned the No. 1 seed in the South, and will take on the winner of Misericordia/Lasell at home Wednesday. In the North, RIT took home the top seed as potential rivals for that honor, Bates and Cortland, both fell on Saturday.
Despite then-No. 1 Bates taking the loss in the NESCAC semifinals, the Bobcats were one of four teams from that conference to punch their tickets for the postseason, two more than any other conference in the country. Wesleyan took the AQ for the league, ending Middlebury’s Cinderella run at the postseason in the NESCAC championship game, while Amherst and Tufts both earned Pool C bids despite rocky finishes.
Five of the seven available Pool C bids (at-large teams from AQ conferences) went to the North bracket, as Cortland burst a bubble team’s hopes with its loss to Plattsburgh in the SUNYAC championship, and St. Lawrence earned its spot with a 15-2 record — both losses coming to RIT.
All three Pool B bids went to the South, as Illinois Wesleyan, Carthage, and Colorado College slot into that region, joined by AQ squads and Pool C entrants York and Lynchburg in the region.
The Favorite(s)
Salisbury and RIT
While the headline for the moment may be some of the unexpected AQ winners earning their spots over the weekend, there’s nothing unfamiliar about the teams holding the home field honors in their respective brackets.
The defending NCAA champion Sea Gulls have been outstanding all season, holding the No. 1 spot in the rankings for most of the spring, only giving way to Bates in April after falling to Cabrini in non-conference action. After that April 14 loss in OT, Salisbury was dominant in its CAC championship run, defeating Mary Washington 22-9 and then handing York a 15-5 loss in the tournament final. If there’s any opening game worry, it might be rust — the Sea Gulls haven’t played since April 29.
The Tigers would have had an argument for the top seed in the North before the weekend, but Middlebury’s ending of Bates’ unbeaten run in the NESCAC semifinals and Plattsburgh’s shocker of a win over a one-loss Cortland team cleared that picture up quite nicely in the RIT’s favor. Only Wesleyan, which stands at 17-1 after its NESCAC tournament title, could have earned the top spot, but the committee gave the home field to its New York branch of the bracket.
Last Team In
Lynchburg
If there was any real surprise in the bracket, it was the Hornets making it in after falling in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference championship game to Hampden-Sydney. With the South pulling all three Pool B entrants and so many no-brainer teams taking Pool C bids after unexpected conference tournament losses, there wasn’t much bubble to be had. Clearly the committee chose to reward Lynchburg, which played a tough non-conference schedule, including wins over Franklin & Marshall and York — the only team besides Salisbury to take down the Spartans in the regular season.
First Team Out
Dickinson
A lot of potentially deserving teams saw their bubbles burst, but Dickinson has the strongest justification for its hurt feelings as it packs up its gear for the long summer. According to the unofficial RPI tabulations by LaxPower, the Red Devils had the 13th-best RPI in Division III after all is said and done, and they hold a win over RIT. Unfortunately, their only other win over a tourney-bound team was early in the year against Cabrini, and they fell short against conference foes Franklin & Marshall and Gettysburg (twice).
Toughest Draw
St. Lawrence
Sunday was a tough day for the Saints. First, they fell in OT to RIT in the championship game of the Liberty League tournament, where a victory could have very well put them into that top seed in the North. Then, they got their bracket assignment, which features a potential quarterfinal rematch against the Tigers. They’ll only see that contest if they can get through a Cortland squad in the second round that could itself have been the No. 1 had it not been upset by Plattsburgh in the SUNYAC final on Saturday. And it would be unwise to take for granted a victory even in the first round against Montclair State. The Red Hawks played several ranked teams tight early in the season before sweeping to the Skyline crown.
Upset Alert
Nazareth vs. Stevenson
For much of the spring, things didn’t look all that rosy for the Golden Flyers. Some tough early-season non-conference contests went the other way, and it wasn’t until April 18th that Nazareth ended the day with a winning record. But the home stretch is all that matters right now, and the Flyers are coming in hot — having won six of their final seven, including OT victories over ranked Ithaca and Stevens teams in the Empire 8 tournament.
The Mustangs earned the home game with a 13-5 record, but have struggled against non-league foes this spring. Since March 28, Stevenson is 10-2, but both losses came in April against non-MAC Commonwealth opponents. The only NCAA tournament-bound team Stevenson defeated this spring was Lynchburg, back on St. Patrick’s Day.
Stevenson is 8-2 at home this season, so there’s no gimme here, but a hot team coming in against a foe that has struggled against its quality competition this season seems as good a pick as any for a potential first-round shocker.
Revenge Fuel
Potential York vs. Lynchburg Rematch in Round 2
Any coach worth his salt spends a good amount of time making sure their team is prepared for the task at hand, without looking ahead at the next potential opponent, and we’ll give York’s Brandon Childs the benefit of the doubt on that being a topic for this week’s practice. But the Spartans, if they can get by Morrisville State in the first round, might be hoping for another shot at Lynchburg over the weekend.
Way back on March 4, Evan Lombardo scored the game-winner in the second overtime as the Hornets capped a late comeback for a 9-8 victory on the Spartans’ home field. York led by two late before Lynchburg knotted things up, then couldn’t score the game winner on either a lengthy possession before the end of regulation or a pair of good looks in the first OT.
Players to Watch
Charlie Fay, Bates, Sr. A
In a season of firsts for Bates, Fay’s selection NESCAC Player of the Year set a new benchmark for the Bobcats. With 60 goals and 17 assists, Fay had 20 more tallies than his closest teammate, setting the school’s single-season record in its NESCAC semifinal loss to Middlebury. While far from a one-man show, Fay is the focal point of an offense that scored nearly 16.5 goals a game against a very tough schedule.
Will Nowesnick, Salisbury, Jr., D
Standing 6-foot-5 and with the range of a former LSM, Nowesnick has been all over the field for the Sea Gulls this spring, helping their defense hold opponents to 6.44 goals per game. A first-team All-CAC selection for the second straight year, Nowesnick led Salisbury with 38 caused turnovers and scooped 49 GBs.
Seth DeLisie, Nazareth, Sr., FO
Nazareth’s run to the tournament is due in no small part to DeLisie’s dominant showing at the X down the stretch, as the senior put together a monster 316-for-428 performance (that’s just shy of 74 percent) with 204 ground balls. In the Empire 8 tournament, DeLisie went 24-for-31 against Ithaca in the semifinals and then 20-for-24 against Stevens in the championship game, handing his team an enormous possession advantage in the pair of one-goal victories that brought them to the dance.
Don’t Be Surprised If…
There’s an All-NESCAC second-round pod.
Barring an upset in the first round of action, the four teams on the bottom half of the North Region will all hail from the NESCAC, as Bates, Amherst, Tufts and Wesleyan all host first-round contests Wednesday. If they hold serve on their home fields, the Bobcats will take on Amherst in Lewiston, while the Jumbos travel to Middletown to face the Cardinals.
You’ll Hear A Lot About…
How stacked the North is.
No offense to the teams that earned their bids in the South, but it’s likely the conversation in coming days is going to center around how many very good teams are vying for the trip to Foxborough in the North bracket. Part of this is for technical reasons — with all three Pool B berths going to the South, some deserving teams in that region just didn’t have the resumes to make it into the tournament.
Even among the road squads in the North, there is potential for some noise, from upstarts like Plattsburgh coming in off the win of a lifetime over Cortland to earn its first-ever NCAA tournament, to a Springfield team that only lost by four in its early-season contest against first-round foe Amherst, just a short jaunt up I-91.
Predictions
North Semifinal: St. Lawrence vs. Wesleyan
South Semifinal: Salisbury vs. York
It’s anybody’s game in this tournament, but if pressed, we’ll go with these four making it through the opening rounds.
In the North, it’s going to be New York vs. New England, as the Saints manage to make the third time a charm against RIT in the quarterfinals and Wesleyan continues its run in the NESCAC-dominated part of the bracket.
In the South, it’s CAC all over again — York can go on a revenge tour with a chance to defeat Lynchburg and then a relatively untested Denison squad to earn a third date against the Sea Gulls, who will have to get through a tough Cabrini and Franklin & Marshall team just to get back to the quarters.
Grading the Committee
B+
With all of the last-minute shifts to accommodate the unexpected results that came about in some of the conference tournaments, it’s difficult to see many different ways that the committee could have gone with their selections.
The only “unorthodox” move the committee pulled was dropping NEAC winner Morrisville State — nominally a North Region team — into the South bracket. For teams in the South without an AQ, that made it even tougher with a very narrow Pool C bubble, but teams like Gettysburg and Dickinson that missed the cut don’t really have anyone to blame but themselves. If you compare resumes against the Pool C teams that did earn bids, the North just had better cases to make.
What we’re left with is a field where there are very few easy games to call — and that’s great for the fans and the game itself. It should be an exciting May, particularly if this weekend’s conference tournament excitement is any indication.