Taylor Cummings is a three-time Tewaaraton Award winner, a member of the U.S. women’s national team, the inaugural Athletes Unlimited Lacrosse champion and the head coach at McDonogh (Md.). “Taylor’s Takes” is presented by Gait Lacrosse. Be legendary.
What a whirlwind last weekend’s lacrosse action turned out to be, but in the absolute best way possible. Women’s lacrosse fans had the opportunity to watch TWENTY-ONE highly competitive NCAA tournament games last weekend — something that just a few years ago would have never been possible. Of those 21 matches, 17 of my predictions from last week were correct, leaving my projected bracket still largely intact.
First round action kicked off Friday with 13 games throughout the day, and while there was some overlap from game to game, the spacing of these events in general was much better than in 2021. I only had to split screens for two games and have one on television on as opposed to the quadruple split like last year, so I will happily take it. We saw a few chalk victories on Friday, including big wins from Stony Brook over Drexel, Florida over Mercer, Loyola over Mount St. Mary’s and Northwestern over Central Michigan.
But we also witnessed a few games that were much tighter (or even more lopsided) than originally anticipated. Jacksonville came out firing on all cylinders and stunned a Stanford squad that looked a bit slow in every area on the field. Duke and Johns Hopkins went back and forth in College Park before the Blue Devils pulled away in the third quarter to secure a second-round game against Maryland on Sunday. Denver throttled Vermont, Michigan dominated Notre Dame and James Madison was steady in its victory over UConn, even in a downpour.
The biggest surprise of all on Friday was the Syracuse-Fairfield game, which came down to the final few minutes. Syracuse just barely squeaked by a Fairfield squad that played a methodical, disciplined game and had chances to win up until the final whistle. The Orange looked to be caught on their heels defensively. They had difficulty between the pipes and seemed surprised by the solid defense of Fairfield. They managed to get the win in the end, but it certainly wasn’t the prettiest lacrosse we’ve seen from Syracuse this season.
Moving forward to Sunday’s second round, the upset circus that many (including myself) thought would occur throughout the day simply did not happen. In some of the toughest second-round matches I’ve ever seen, I was truly impressed with the discipline and composure of all seeded teams on Sunday.
All eight seeded squads earned their way to quarterfinal action on Thursday with the closest margin of victory being three goals in the Northwestern-Michigan match.
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North Carolina put on an offensive clinic against Virginia from the opening whistle, and Loyola dismantled the James Madison zone with swift efficiency.
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Stony Brook’s defense looked simply impenetrable for much of the second half against Rutgers, while Syracuse had a full 60-minute battle with Princeton before freshman Olivia Adamson put the game out of reach for the Orange.
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Florida handled a Jacksonville team that was flying high from Friday’s win with relative ease with quick transition goals and a solid defensive game plan.
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Maryland dominated the draw even with Duke’s Maddie Jenner in the circle and used a 10-goal run to end the Blue Devils’ season.
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Despite a huge error from referees with one of the Eagles’ goals, Boston College kept Denver at bay by five with balanced scoring and a sound day in net from Rachel Hall.
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And in the last game of the day, Northwestern and Michigan threw punches back and forth until the Wildcats’ pure control in the draw circle became too much for the Wolverines to handle.
All eight seeds moving forward tells me is that the NCAA committee did their job well and was able to recognize the exceptional talent level of these elite teams. With each of these teams earning their way into the Elite Eight, we are in for an absolute treat come Thursday. Below are my predictions for these quarterfinal matchups!