Moving on up

 

After the women’s lacrosse team beat Princeton 9-5 yesterday to clinch at least a share of the Ivy title I interviewed sophomore Ali DeLuca, seniors Sarah Waxman and Rachel Manson and coach Karin Brower. Unfortunately I couldn’t include all of their quotes in my recap due to limited space in the DP, so over the next couple of days I’ll post some material here to the Buzz. First up was THE RUN. Now, THE IMPACT ON THE RANKINGS

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With the win over previously undefeated Princeton, the women’s lacrosse team will look to move up in the rankings when next week’s polls come out Monday. Right now the Quakers (11-1, 6-0 Ivy) are No. 6 in both the Inside Lacrosse media poll and the IWLCA coaches’ poll.

After beating Princeton (10-1, 4-1), the consensus No. 2 team in the nation according to both polls, the question isn’t really whether or not they’ll move up, but the question is how many spots.

Well, it’s only certain they’ll move up if they win at home against Brown Saturday. But that shouldn’t be a problem for the Quakers. Brown (5-7, 2-3) has only beaten the bottom two teams in the Ivy League (Dartmouth and Columbia), and all of its non-conference wins are over mediocre America East teams (their best win is over 9-7 Sacred Heart).

Another certain thing is that it’ll be nearly impossible for the Quakers to surpass three-time defending national champion Northwestern and become the No. 1 team. The unanimous No. 1 Wildcats have won all 13 of their games, and even if they were to lose either of their games this weekend (home against No. 17 Johns Hopkins and No. 11 North Carolina), there’s a good chance a 13-1 Northwestern with only a loss to a top 20 team would still maintain the top spot.

The teams currently ahead of Penn are the same in both polls, although their order is different. In the media poll, the three, four and five slots are Maryland (12-1), Syracuse (11-2) and Virginia (11-3), respectively. In the coaches’ poll the Cavaliers and the Orange are switched.

While beating No. 2 would be the best win of the week barring a Northwestern upset, Penn is not the only top-six team to earn a quality win this week. The Terrapins did beat No. 8/9 Georgetown handily, 14-7, so unless the Terps lose to 4-12 Virginia Tech Saturday, they likely would claim the Tigers’ No. 2 spot.

Virginia also got a quality win, beating No. 12 George Mason by a decisive 12-3 margin.

Syracuse doesn’t have any quality wins this week, as they’ve only beaten 7-8 Colgate and play 6-8 Loyola (Md.) Saturday.

At a minimum, Princeton should drop to six, and Penn would move up to five. More likely, Penn would leap frog at least Syracuse, regardless of the Orange’s game at the Greyhounds. At the same time, on just the strength of beating an undefeated team at their place, it’s still possible the Quakers would jump as high as third or even second.

While the Quakers don’t analyze the rankings too much, they still believe their impressive win over Princeton warrants a jump in the polls.

“9-5, that’s a decisive win,” senior attack Rachel Manson said. “If we don’t move up in the polls, that’s laughable.”

Coach Karin Brower, who has repeated on several occasions that she doesn’t look at polls, still believes the team should move up, plain and simple.

“It’s black and white,” she said. “We should be No. 2.”

Last year Penn was in a similar situation late in the season. On April 2, the Quakers were ranked 12/11, and after beating No. 10 Penn State at Happy Valley they jumped to No. 6 in both polls on April 9. Then after beating No. 14 Dartmouth, they moved up to 5/3. Finally after beating No. 15 Princeton the Quakers earned the four spot from Inside Lacrosse and the second spot from the coaches.

More importantly than regular season rankings, however, is seeding in the national tournament. The top four seeds are guaranteed home games for the first two rounds of the sixteen team tournament. The Final Four and championship games are played at a predetermined spot (this year it’s at Towson; last year it was at Franklin Field).

Last year, after finishing the regular season ranked third by Inside Lacrosse and second by IWLCA, the Quakers did earn a top seed, drawing the four seed.

Just like with the regular season polls, this year’s Quakers believe that by beating Princeton and earning the Ivy League’s automatic bid they deserve a high seed.

“I think we’re going to have a really good seed for the tournament,” Manson said. “And I think this proves that last year wasn’t a fluke. We’re here every year to dominate the Ivies. This is the beginning of a dynasty.”

Next up: Players' reactions

UDPATE: Well only the minimum happened. The coaches' poll has yet to be released, but in the media poll, Penn only moved up a spot to number 5. Ahead of them are Northwestern, Maryland, Syracuse and Virginia, respectively. One reason for the little movement is that no team ahead of Penn lost. Also, looking at laxpower.com's power ratings, Penn is eighth, behind the above four teams as well as Duke, Boston University, and surprisingly Princeton. This last part is also surprising, since the Tigers not only lost to Penn last week, but also lost 13-12 to Dartmouth on Saturday. This probably hurt Penn's chances of leap frogging a team like Syracuse since their win over the Tigers was slightly diminished. I'll post the coaches' poll later today when it comes out.

Update 2: Although it didn't get updated until 8 am today, the IWLCA coaches' poll finally got updated and there's some good news for the Quakers (12-1).  The "more likely" scenario occurred here, as the Quakers jumped over 13-2 Syracuse and now are the No. 4 team behind Northwestern (15-0), Maryland (14-1) and Virginia (12-3). Syracuse (13-2) is No. 5, followed by Princeton (10-2) at No. 6, just like the media poll.

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