With all the hoopla at the top of the rankings, I’m shifting gears in this Easter edition of The Sunday Slide.
Let’s take a look at the middle portion of the USA Lacrosse Division I Top 20 — at least the one we revealed on March 25.
While the top six or so teams continue reorder themselves as the season goes on, there are teams lurking that nobody wants to face come May. Let’s start with Florida.
The Gators are on an 11-game winning streak since dropping their first two. They’ve dropped 20 or more goals in eight of those games, with a grind-it-out overtime win over Maryland mixed in, too.
Florida came into 2024 rather quietly. Emma LoPinto transferred to Boston College, and all-time great goalie Sarah Reznick graduated to pursue her passion in nursing. The cupboard was far from bare, but there was a different vibe at Dizney.
Thirteen games into Florida’s season, it’s same old Gators. Now, it’s important to recognize that they haven’t exactly played juggernauts outside of Maryland and Princeton in this 11-game stretch. But can you fault a team for winning games in the manner you’d expect of a top team?
We’ll learn so much more about Florida on April 13 when its hosts James Madison.
Other mid-ranks teams I’m not sleeping on include Loyola, Johns Hopkins and Stony Brook. In a season when nobody wants to claim No. 1 and hold onto it, doesn’t it just seem right that another team will come from “nowhere” to win the whole thing?
I don’t know about you, but I think that would be pretty fun.
RANDOM OBSERVATIONS
Melissa Sconone is having a massive impact on Hofstra. I’ve long been a fan of Sconone’s for her work at North Carolina. Jenny Levy deployed her as something of a specialist, for lack of a better description, and she was a master at scoring to fire up the Tar Heels.
She’s much more than a specialist with the Pride. She’s a cornerstone of the offense in her graduate season. She has 22 goals and 20 assists, and her contributions vary by the game. She has a five-goal game and a seven-assist game. She’ll take the lead, or she’ll draw attention.
Either way, her role — exactly seven shots in each of the last seven games — has been consistent. It’s also been pivotal to Hofstra’s 4-0 start to CAA play after the Pride beat Towson this weekend.
