Inside Lacrosse News

Two teams who won national championships in Greenville, S.C., 12 months ago failed to lose a single game in 2013 en route to becoming back-to-back MCLA champions.

Colorado State will enter the 2014 season having won 30-straight games. Alex Smith remains undefeated as a head coach against Colorado while earning his second ring as head coach at CSU. Important to note that Flip Naumburg did not travel to nationals this year; it is quite possibly the first USLIA/MCLA Tournament that he has ever missed. One can not deny the unbelievable success that RMLC enjoyed this year, getting all three of their tournament teams into the final four. Colorado State’s last loss was to BYU in the 2012 regular season and all three of these powers will be joined in the DI ranks next year by the Division II runner-up Westminster.

The New York Lizards scored the first five goals of the game en route to a 14-8 win over the Ohio Machine, behind four goals and two assists from midfielder Stephen Berger, who was named Player of the Game. The win breaks a two game losing streak for the Lizards, bringing their record to 2-2 on the year, while the loss drops the Machine to 0-3 for the second straight season.

DENVER -- Five Outlaws had multiple-goal games in the Denver Outlaws’ (4-0) home opener Saturday, lifting them to a 20-7 victory against the Rochester Rattlers (1-3). Saturday’s contest marked the Outlaws’ 11th time scoring 20 or more goals in a game in franchise history.

The Boston Cannons beat the Chesapeake Bayhawks 15-14 earning their first win of the season in a nail biting back and forth match on Saturday night at Harvard Stadium. The Cannons earned their first win of the season in overtime with Player of the Game Ryan Boyle scoring the gamewinner and snapping the Bayhawks’ winning streak along the way.

In front of a crowd of 3,939 at Capitol One Field at Byrd Stadium, Cornell and Syracuse advanced to NCAA Championship Weekend in decidedly different fashions.

The Big Red got a dominating offensive performance and ran away from a sloppy Ohio State team, while ’Cuse jumped out to an early lead, hid offensively for better than three quarters as Yale battled back to take a 6-4 lead before reeling off three goals in the final 3:04 and holding on for the one-goal win.

Check out the reports from IL's staffers who were on the scene in College Park.

Garden City, N.Y. – Junior midfielder Andrew Chadderdon (Auburn, N.Y./Auburn) and sophomore attackman Kevin Kelly (Basking Ridge, N.J./Ridge) each scored five goals to lead the third-ranked and third-seeded Le Moyne College men's lacrosse team to a 16-13 win over fourth-ranked and top-seeded Adelphi University on Saturday afternoon in the semifinals of the NCAA Division II Championships at Motamed Field.

In-Game Blog/Box Score

COLLEGE PARK, Md. – Top seed Syracuse (15-3) scored three goals in the final 3 minutes and 4 seconds to rally for a 7-6 NCAA quarterfinal victory against Yale (12-5) at Maryland's Byrd Stadium on Saturday, May 18. The Orange advances to its 27th NCAA Final Four next weekend at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia.

ERIE, Pa.- For the second time in three years, the Mercyhurst men's lacrosse team will play for the NCAA Championship. The tale of how the Lakers advanced to the title game will echo throughout Tullio Field for years to come. Deven Alves scored with 2:56 left in overtime, giving #1 Mercyhurst an 18-17 win over #2 Limestone in a classic NCAA Tournament Semifinal Saturday afternoon.

IL High School Insider Joe Lombardi, the author of the “Lax with Joe” blog at LaxLessons.com, focuses on the New York/New Jersey/Connecticut tristate region. Joe, who is the primary author of the latest edition of “Lacrosse for Dummies,” which was released in 2010, is an analyst for the MSG Varsity television network. You can follow Joe Lombardi on Twitter @joe_lombardi.

While their NCAA Quarterfinal games were pretty much polar opposites, Yale and Ohio State both left Capital One Field at Byrd Stadium on Saturday with similar reactions to their disappointing results. Both teams can look back with pride on 2013 seasons in which they flew under the radar for much of the year, impressed a lot of fans and opponents, and can look ahead to bright futures with what returns.

We knew College Park would be all red early on Saturday afternoon, but it quickly turned Big Red as Cornell opened up an 11-3 halftime lead en route to a 16-6 win to advance to the NCAA Semifinals next Saturday at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, Pa. They'll play the winner of Duke-Notre Dame, which will be decided tomorrow at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis at 2:30 on ESPNU.

In-Game Blog/Box Score

COLLEGE PARK, Md. – The Cornell men's lacrosse team dominated in every facet of the game and advanced to the program's fourth NCAA Final Four in the last eight years with a 16-6 victory over No. 3 Ohio State on Saturday afternoon at Maryland's Byrd Stadium. The Big Red improved to 14-3, while OSU's season ends at 13-4.

Ken Stockmann has been breaking down Division III lacrosse all season. Here in his semifinal preview, he looks at the known quanitities on each team — and the under-the-radar players who might ultimately be the difference-makers.

 No matter the result, the story lines were plentiful. 

IL's Richard Bos covered Friday's MIAA B and C Conference championships, won by Saint Peter & Paul and Gerstell Academy respectively.

The Charlotte Hounds on Friday afternoon dropped a close game to the Hamilton Nationals, falling 16-15 in overtime at Ron Joyce Stadium in Hamilton, Ontario. Matt Dolente of the Nationals was named player of the game for tallying the game-winning goal.

The eve of the NCAA Tournament brings back one of my favorite features of the year, Anonymous Scouting Reports. Throughout the week, I've conducted interviews with more than a half-dozen coaches who, between them, have prepared for each of team in the field, and in some instances, both teams in a matchup.

With the promise that their names wouldn't be attached to their comments, here's some unvarnished opinion of what we might see this weekend.

CORNELL vs. No. 3 OHIO STATE

ESPN2, 12:30 p.m. Saturday

“Can Ohio State's D be good enough to stop Pannell? And can Cornell be good enough to keep Ohio State down? I think Ohio State is playing ridiculously well and they have a ton of mojo going. Ohio State has so much energy, and Cornell is Cornell. Here's the other thing — there's a pretty good chance Pannell's seen everything they're going to throw at him, so it's going to come down to how they execute, not how they scheme.”

One hundred and thirty years of history as an independent men’s lacrosse program is a lot, so Johns Hopkins hasn’t rushed a decision about joining a conference. On Friday, JHU announced that after two months of research and opinion-gathering, the seven-member Blue Ribbon Committee, co-chaired by Jerry Schnydman (’67) and Chris Watson (’05), unanimously recommended to Hopkins president Ronald J. Daniels that the men's lacrosse team should pursue conference affiliation.

BALTIMORE — US Lacrosse today announced the tryout process for the 2014 U.S. Men’s National Team, which will defend its gold medal at the 2014 Federation of International Lacrosse (FIL) World Championships on July 10-19, 2014, in Denver, Colo. Open applications will be available June 1, with tryouts to be held Aug. 30-Sept. 1 at Goucher College in Baltimore, Md.

In a letter to the University Friday, Johns Hopkins President Ronald J. Daniels announced that the men's lacrosse team would pursue conference affiliation after the completion of a committee's two-month exploration and subsequent recommendation of the issue. 

You can read the whole letter here.