Good morning. Here’s the latest from around the lacrosse world:
1. The third time proved to be the charm for the High Point women, who Wednesday ran away from then-No. 20 Notre Dame in the second half for a 13-7 win. The Panthers, whose 4-2 start highlights this week's college women's notebook, scored their first upset of a Nike/US Lacrosse Top 20 opponent after near misses against North Carolina and James Madison earlier this season.
The win also represented High Point's third straight since a 13-11 home loss to the Dukes Feb. 24. The Panthers endured another nailbiter in their next outing, except they earned a 14-13 overtime win over Elon in an effort coach Lyndsey Boswell pointed to as a turning point.
2. There were no nailbiters on yesterday's NCAA Division I women's schedule, though there was some intrigue in New Haven, Conn.
Yale led No. 4 Boston College, 5-3, early in the second half, and the game was tied at 9 as the clock dropped under eight minutes. That's when Dempsey Arsenault scored a player-up goal for the Eagles with 7:39 to play. She then converted a pass from Sam Apuzzo just 46 seconds later, and BC netted two more to finish off the Bulldogs, 13-9, for its program-record 11th straight win.
The Eagles side-stepped a look-ahead loss — No. 6 North Carolina visits Saturday — thanks in part to Sam Apuzzo, who scored three straight goals in 2:25 of playing time to turn a 7-6 deficit into a 9-7 lead. Olivia Market and Vanessa Yu responded for Yale within 56 seconds of each other. The Bulldogs fell to 6-2, but they joined Nike/US Lacrosse Top 20 teams Notre Dame and USC in holding BC to just 13 goals.
Elsewhere, No. 10 Syracuse held Cornell scoreless for 29:19 in a 14-7 road defeat of the Big Red, and Liberty used a 9-2 scoring run to extend its best start ever (6-2) with a 15-5 road win at Arizona State, sending the Sun Devils to their fourth straight loss.
3. Yesterday's Division I men's schedule included slightly more drama. Slightly. This happened:
Of course he did! Morgan Cheek drops a program-record 13 points and @HarvardMLax scores the last 7 goals to top @TerrierMLAX pic.twitter.com/PIIQSU5uiP
— US Lacrosse Magazine (@USLacrosseMag) March 21, 2018
No. 18 Harvard rallied from an 18-12 deficit with seven minutes to play to edge visiting Boston University, 19-18 in overtime, behind Morgan Cheek's game-winning goal and program record 13 points. Cheek scored five goals and passed out eight assists to break the mark shared by two Crimson players. He joined with Joe Lang (4G, 5A) and Kyle Anderson (7G, 1A) to produce 30 total points, a school single-game mark for a starting attack line.
The improbable comeback included four straight goals by Anderson in a 4:24 span. Steven Cuccurullo won the faceoff after Anderson's final marker, and Cheek fed Lang for the equalizer with 48 seconds left in regulation.
Cheek's overtime winner, which followed the last of Cuccurullo's 20 faceoff wins, bitterly sent the Terriers to their straight loss and overshadowed a program-record performance by one of their own. Freshman Chris Gray set BU marks with eight assists and 10 points, one week after tying the previous point record with seven. The two-time US Lacrosse All-American from Shoreham-Wading River (N.Y.) High leads all NCAA rookies with 16 goals and 25 assists.
Down I-95 and on a turf field inside a “seasonal air structure,” No. 12 Penn survived No. 20 Bucknell, 9-8, when Simon Mathias scored on a diving shot with just two seconds left.
Mathias' sixth point broke the game's seventh tie, but he likely only had that opportunity because the Bison called timeout after a Quaker shot went wide with nine seconds to play. Possession was awarded to Penn, which was placed on a stall warning with 36 seconds left. Because Bucknell called timeout while on defense, the shot clock was reset, allowing Mathias more time to get to the front of the cage and net the winner over goalie Christian Kilpstein.
Adam Goldner scored four goals to lead Penn, while Connor O'Hara registered a hat trick for the Bison.
Another matchup of Nike/US Lacrosse Top 20 teams saw No. 14 Lehigh hit the road and torch a stingy No. 13 Hofstra defense in a 13-8 win. In defeating the Pride for the first time ever, the Mountain Hawks scored four more goals than any previous Hofstra foe had this season. Two 5-0 runs, including one that began with the game knotted at 8, carried Lehigh.
4. From the March issue, the brilliance of Ben Reeves has No. 6 Yale hoping to get past the first round of the NCAA tournament. The two-time Tewaaraton Award finalist will lead the Bulldogs into an important Ivy League game Saturday at home against Princeton.
5. While much of the Northeast Region hasn't started yet (and may not soon as another significant storm hits the area today), there's been enough high school action to affect the Nike/US Lacrosse National Top 25 rankings. A loss by Landon (Md.) and two more wins by Culver (Ind.) has the Eagles as the new No. 1 on the boys' side. McDonogh (Md.) remains No. 1 on the girls' side, and Glenelg Country (Md.) has started 2-0 to debut at No. 20 this week.
The Brine/US Lacrosse High School Girls' Players of the Week were released yesterday. The regional honorees include Caitlyn Wurzburger of American Heritage-Delray (Fla.), who tallied 10 goals and added 15 assists in three games to earn South Region award.