Welcome to the Gameday Guide.

Every weekend during the college lacrosse season, USA Lacrosse Magazine staff will riff on the juiciest matchups, trendiest topics and biggest storylines.

Check out the rankings and TV listings for more.

Several fierce college lacrosse rivalries take center stage this weekend. They’re the kinds of games that come with hyphens attached to them.

Some, like Army-Navy and Michigan-Ohio State, have institutional enmity baked into them. They carry over from other sports and can be traced back as far as the late-19th century.

Others, like Virginia-Syracuse and Hopkins-Maryland, are more germane to our sport.

Regardless of the origin, rivalries rule. They’re what make sports worth watching. Enjoy the games.

GAMES TO WATCH
ALL TIMES EASTERN

GAME OF THE WEEK

No. 14 Brown at No. 11 Cornell

Brown’s resurgence combined with Cornell’s coming back to earth leads to this convergence of Ivy League teams in the contender-versus-pretender conversation. Were the Big Red, playing their third game in eight days when Army steamrolled them last week, just tired? Or did the Black Knights expose something in Cornell’s defense that the Bears likewise will look to exploit? Brown is playing with 2016-level swagger right now after consecutive top-10 wins over Penn and Yale.

BEST GAME NO ONE’S TALKING ABOUT

No. 18 Richmond at High Point

If you cobble together Gameday Guide posts by this author, they could be repackaged in a memoir entitled, “Confessions of a SoCon Fanboy.” But hey, I’m not the only one. Lacrosse Reference brainiac Zack Capozzi called it an “exotic conference from which ACC upsets seem to pour forth every spring.” It only gets more exciting as the stakes get higher. This is a rematch of the 2021 SoCon championship game won by High Point. Panthers attackman Asher Nolting is the country’s top scorer (75 points) and has registered at least one point in every single game of his career. He’s must-watch stuff. And while Jacksonville is currently in the catbird seat of the conference, not a single soul would be surprised to see either of these teams get hot and make a run into May.

UPSET WATCH

Navy at No. 13 Army

The Black Knights are in a prime letdown spot. They stood pat at No. 13 in the Nike/USA Lacrosse Top 20 but skyrocketed to No. 5 in the Inside Lacrosse media poll. The only problem with the hangover narrative, however, is that well, it’s Army-Navy. Moreover, the Midshipmen won last year’s matchup in Annapolis.

UNDER-THE-RADAR STARS

Vince D’Alto, Boston University

D’Alto (40 goals, 25 assists) does the heavy lifting in the BU offense. He ranks fifth nationally with 5.42 points per game but does not get nearly as much recognition as Nolting, Chris Gray (pour one out BU faithful), Brendan Nichtern or even Josh Zawada — the four players ahead of him.

Brayden Mayea, High Point

Hard to call a guy underrated when he’s made “SportsCenter” twice this season, but Mayea’s shot selection makes him more than just a top-10 highlight guy. No one picks his spots better, evidenced by the fact that the sophomore from Windsor, Ontario, leads all of Division I in shooting percentage (56.9 percent on 37-for-65 shooting).

Erik Peters, Princeton

A goalie has never won the Tewaaraton Award (on the men’s side, that is). And it’s not likely one breaks through this year. But there are three netminders among the 25 nominees released by the Tewaaraton Foundation on Thursday. Owen McElroy (Georgetown) and Colin Kirst (Rutgers) you knew. Both were preseason All-Americans. Did anyone see Peters coming on like he has? Princeton’s starter since midway through the 2019 season, he has at least 14 saves in five of 11 games this season and ranks seventh in the country in save percentage (57.8 percent).