There’s not much debate at the top of Nike/US Lacrosse Division I women’s rankings — Boston College and Maryland have clearly separated themselves at the very top. And, they only seem to be getting better each week.

Boston College took care of Notre Dame and Duke last week to run its record to 14-0 while Maryland easily cruised past a pair of Top 10 foes in Virginia and Michigan. The latter victory was Michigan’s first loss of the season, leaving Maryland (14-0) and Boston College as the last two remaining unbeaten squads.

Clearly entrenched in the No. 3 position for the time being is Syracuse, which is 13-2 with its two losses coming by a combined three goals to the aforementioned Boston College and Maryland.

Things begin to get more interesting from there.

Last week we had Notre Dame at No. 4, North Carolina at No. 5 and Northwestern at No. 6.

Notre Dame losing to Boston College was certainly not an upset, but North Carolina has moved back up to No. 4 this week based on its superior strength of schedule compared to Notre Dame, despite the Irish owning a 9-7 head-to-head win over the Tar Heels.

North Carolina owns a 4-3 record against teams ranked in this week’s Top 20, including a dominating 21-11 win over Northwestern.

Northwestern, which moved up to No. 5 this week, has a 3-3 record in Top 20 games, highlighted by a 17-13 victory over Penn. Northwestern has won five straight games and leads the country in scoring with 18.9 goals per game.

Notre Dame slips to No. 6 this week. The Irish have a strong 11-2 record, but their first seven games came against unranked foes. Notre Dame is just 2-2 in games against teams currently ranked.

That said, there’s chance for plenty of movement in the near future, particularly as it relates to Northwestern.

Northwestern hosts Maryland in a nationally-televised game Thursday night on the Big Ten Network. Syracuse visits North Carolina’s new stadium on Saturday, Michigan travels to Northwestern on April 18 and Notre Dame is less than two weeks away from hosting Northwestern on April 20.

Also considered: Dartmouth, Georgetown, High Point, Hofstra, Stanford, Virginia Tech

Nike/US Lacrosse Rankings

Division I Men | Division I Women
Division II Men | Division II Women
Division III Men | Division III Women

HOT

Princeton (+2)

After losing two straight games, Princeton righted the ship with a strong week. The Tigers beat Villanova 15-6 on Tuesday and then went on the road and snapped Dartmouth’s six-game winning streak with a 14-12 road win on Saturday.

Tess D’Orsi had five goals in the win and Kyla Sears came up huge with two goals and five assists. Sears tied the game at 12-12 7:39 to play, fought for a tough groundball and then fed Kathryn Hallett for the go-ahead goal with three minutes left and then assisted D’Orsi’s game-clinching goal with 1:02 left.

Loyola (+1)

Navy has been Loyola’s nemesis recently, upsetting the Greyhounds in the Patriot League championship game in 2017 and 2018.

Loyola won’t feel satisfied until it hosts the league championship trophy again, but the Greyhounds made the quite the statement with a 16-6 win over Navy on Saturday to take command of the league’s regular season race. The Greyhounds have won 48 straight Patriot League regular season contests.

Loyola travels to No. 14 Princeton on Wednesday for its final nonconference game of the season.

NOT

USC (-4)

USC had a chance to separate itself in the Pac-12 race, but up-and-down Colorado pulled out a 9-8 win in Los Angeles on Friday.

The Trojans are still atop the Pac-12 standings with an 8-1 league mark, but Colorado sits at 6-1 and the two schools split their regular season meetings. USC has a 13-2 record and has one final chance to make a statement out of the league when it plays at No. 19 Stony Brook on Sunday.

Michigan (-3)

The battle of two of the last three unbeaten teams started great for Michigan.  Maggie Kane scored just 33 seconds into its game at Maryland, but the red-hot Terps then scored the game’s next eight goals and cruised to a 14-3 win over the Wolverines.

Michigan is now 13-1 overall and hosts Rutgers in its final regular season home game of the season on Saturday.

IN

Colorado

Colorado has been a baffling team to try and figure out this season. The Buffs have yet to win more than two games in a row, but own convincing wins over Virginia Tech (17-6) and Stanford (20-13), but also lost by large margins to Florida (16-9) and Stony Brook (15-5).

Colorado kept itself alive in the Pac-12 regular season race with a 9-8 win over Los Angeles on Friday, avenging an earlier loss to the Trojans.

Colorado hosts Stanford and Cal this weekend and will look to push its current two-game winning streak to a season-best total.

OUT

Dartmouth

Down 9-5 at the half against Ivy League rival Princeton, Dartmouth rallied and led by a goal with under 10 minutes to play, but Princeton scored the game’s final three goals to post a 14-12 victory to snap the Big Green's six-game winning streak.

Dartmouth outshot Princeton 38-23 in the game, but Sam Fish made 11 big saves for the Tigers and the Big Green converted just 2-of-9 on free position shots.

Dartmouth could find itself right back in the rankings with a big opportunity at No. 8 Penn this weekend.