In most recent years, you can mark your calendar as the Penn-Princeton game being the most important game in Ivy League women’s lacrosse.
The two conference heavyweights will meet on Wednesday night at historic Franklin Field in Philadelphia in a nationally-televised game on ESPNU.
But there’s a lot more going on in the Ivy League this year that just Penn and Princeton.
For starters, Cornell and Dartmouth share the league lead at 4-1 entering the week, with Penn and Princeton relegated to a tie for third, a half-game back at 3-1.
After letting a late lead slip away against Princeton last week, Dartmouth reestablished itself into the heart of the Ivy League picture with a 15-11 win at Penn on Saturday. The Big Green reentered the Nike/US Lacrosse Top 20 following the win, shooting up to No. 14 in the rankings.
Dartmouth has a Top 10 offense nationally – one that features five 20-goal scorers already and none of those five are team’s leading scorer. Senior Kellen D’Alleva came into the year with 21 career points, but has established herself as the Big Green’s playmaker. D’Alleva has 50 points on 16 goals and 34 assists. She had five assists in the win over Penn and is just five away from tying Dartmouth’s single-season record.
At least a temporary share of first place will be on the line when Dartmouth hosts Cornell on Saturday. Cornell began the season with nonconference losses to Villanova and Penn State by a combined three goals, but has quietly crept back into the Ivy League picture by taking care of business against the bottom half of the league. Cornell’s only league loss was a one-goal setback to Penn.
Since 2007, Penn has had at least a share of the Ivy League regular season title in every season except one — 2015 when Princeton won the title outright.
April 15, 2019 |
W/L |
Prev |
Next |
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|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Boston College | 15-0 | 1 | 4/16 vs. Yale |
| 2 | Maryland | 15-0 | 2 | 4/17 at Georgetown |
| 3 | North Carolina | 11-3 | 4 | 4/19 at Duke |
| 4 | Syracuse | 13-3 | 3 | 4/16 vs. Cornell |
| 5 | Northwestern | 9-4 | 5 | 4/18 vs. No. 8 Michigan |
| 6 | Notre Dame | 13-2 | 6 | 4/20 vs. No. 5 Northwestern |
| 7 | Virginia | 11-5 | 7 | 4/20 vs. Virginia Tech |
| 8 | Michigan | 14-1 | 10 | 4/18 at No. 6 Northwestern |
| 9 | James Madison | 12-3 | 11 | 4/19 vs. Elon |
| 10 | Penn | 9-3 | 8 | 4/17 vs. No. 11 Princeton |
| 11 | Princeton | 9-3 | 14 | 4/17 at No. 10 Penn |
| 12 | Loyola | 10-4 | 9 | 4/17 vs. Bucknell |
| 13 | Navy | 11-3 | 15 | 4/17 vs. American |
| 14 | Dartmouth | 8-4 | NR | 4/16 at Vermont |
| 15 | Denver | 11-2 | 18 | 4/19 vs. Marquette |
| 16 | Florida | 9-6 | 17 | 4/20 at Connecticut |
| 17 | Stony Brook | 10-4 | 19 | 4/19 vs. Binghamton |
| 18 | USC | 13-3 | 16 | 4/20 vs. Arizona State |
| 19 | Johns Hopkins | 10-5 | 13 | 4/19 vs. Penn State |
| 20 | Stanford | 11-4 | NR | 4/19 vs. Cal |
Also considered: Colorado, Duke, High Point, Hofstra, 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 (+3)
The loss to Brown is becoming a distant memory.
Princeton stretched its winning streak to four goals with an impressive midweek victory over Loyola and a Saturday win over Harvard. The Tigers blitzed Loyola with six straight goals to open the game and led by as many as eight goals. Against Harvard, Princeton took a little while longer to get going, but scored the first four goals of the second half to pull away from a 7-6 halftime lead.
At 9-3, including wins over Dartmouth, Florida, Loyola and Stony Brook, Princeton can give its resume and even bigger boost if it can knock off rival Penn on Wednesday.
Stony Brook (+2)
Before the season began, Stony Brook head coach Joe Spallina thought this might be his best team yet — keep in mind that the Seawolves lost the NCAA's all-time leading scorer (Kyle Ohlmiller) and goal scorer (Courtney Murphy) from last year's team.
The early results didn't bear that thought out, but the Seawolves are starting to pick up momentum. Stony Brook won three games last week, including wins over a pair of Top 20 foes in Johns Hopkins and USC.
The Seawolves have won six straight games and junior Ally Kennedy is continuing her emergence as a bona fide star. Kennedy had five goals in the win over USC and leads Stony Brook with 53 this season.
North Carolina (+1)
Weather delays had no effect on North Carolina, which looked extremely impressive in an 11-5 win over Syracuse. The game was delayed more than 30 minutes at the start and an additional 20+ minutes at halftime.
Sophomore goalie Taylor Moreno made 12 saves while holding the Orange to a season-low five goals. Moreno has a strong 55.4 save percentage for the 11-3 Tar Heels.
NOT
Johns Hopkins (-6)
A midweek loss to Stony Brook, coupled with Loyola's loss to Princeton sent the Blue Jays tumbling towards the bottom of the rankings this week. Hopkins' win over Loyola is its best victory of the season to date.
The Blue Jays host a dangerous Penn State squad on Friday night for a nationally-televised ESPNU game before closing the regular season next Saturday at No. 2 Maryland. Hopkins will host the Big 10 championship tournament from May 3-5, and the Penn State game is crucial if the Blue Jays want to be one of the four teams participating.
Loyola (-3)
The Greyhounds were beyond impressive in a 16-6 win over Patriot League rival Navy, but never got on track in Wednesday's 14-10 loss to Princeton.
Loyola will stay within the Patriot League the rest of the way, including likely hosting the league championship in early May, leading up to the NCAA tournament.
IN
Dartmouth
Dartmouth was in the Top 20 two weeks ago, fell out after a loss to Princeton, but Saturday's win over Penn has the Big Green back in at No. 14. Dartmouth is looking for its first Ivy League regular season championship since 2011when it shared the title with Penn
Stanford
The Cardinal have been hovering just outside the Top 20 for the majority of the season, but finds its way into the party following Friday's 13-12 win at Colorado. The 11-4 Cardinal are so close to being even higher. Three of Stanford's losses have come by a single goal - one to Denver and a pair of games to USC.
OUT
Duke
At times this season, Duke has hung with the very best teams in the country. Three of the Blue Devils' six losses have come by a single goal to teams ranked in this week's Top 10 — Syracuse, Northwestern and Penn.
But what the Blue Devils haven't done is post the big wins. Of Duke's nine wins, only one came against a team currently under consideration for the Top 20. That was a 11-10 overtime win against Virginia Tech in February when the Hokies were less than a minute away from running out the clock before Duke forced a late turnover and rallied for the dramatic win.
Duke hosts archrival North Carolina on Friday. The Blue Devils last win in the series came in 2014.
Colorado
Colorado went into Friday's gane against Stanford trying to do something it hasn't done all season — win three games in a row. A one-goal loss to the Cardinal left the Buffs unable to build momentum once again.
Colorado has some impressive wins this season — Stanford, USC and Virginia Tech — but hasn't been able to build off of the victories. Colorado will head to Oregon the next two weekends. The Buffs wrap up the regular season on Friday against the Ducks and will return the following weekend for the Pac-12 championship.