Feb. 26, 2007

Ah, February. It's a month for the heavyweights in collegiate lacrosse to stretch their legs, work on special teams, and pad the scoring stats before the meat of the schedule in March. Typically, the closest margin of victory that second and third tier programs can muster against the Big Dogs is a weather postponement.

Not this year. February has forced national champions and highly-ranked squads to sit up and take notice. February is not just for blowouts any more.

The first harbinger of a frantic February occurred last weekend when a feisty, if not mediocre, Drexel team stunned defending champion and then-No. 1 Virginia in Charlottesville, 11-10. Northwestern, the two-time champs on the women's side, lost on the same day, albeit to a talented fourth-ranked UNC team on the road.

The overdogs were put on notice again this weekend with four ranked men's teams losing to lower, or unranked, squads. No. 2 Johns Hopkins, seemingly primed to step into the top spot, was tipped by 19th-ranked Albany out of the America East, 8-7. Unranked Army stifled No. 5 Syracuse on Friday night, 8-6, while unranked Hofstra beat No. 11 UMass by the same score on Saturday. UNC, nowhere to be found in the poll, proved too much for No. 10 Denver.

And there were plenty of near misses. It took overtime for UMBC (ranked 16th) to beat Brown and Villanova stayed surprisingly close to Penn (18th).

On the women's side, 12th-ranked James Madison cruised past No. 8 Georgetown, unranked Rutgers beat Cornell (11th), and UMass won the battle of the Bay State over Boston University (15th). In terms of close calls, Notre Dame (5th) needed overtime to beat Stanford (16th) while Dartmouth (6th) edged Syracuse (17th) by the narrowest of margins.

Even the lower divisions were not immune. Paul Cantabene and his Villa Julie squad provided Cortland -- the third-ranked and defending national champions -- a rude February welcome by beating the Red Dragons, 10-9. New York Tech, the No. 3 in men's D2, beat Notre Dame de Namur by just a goal.

Today, Sunday, holds the promise of even more stunners. We know at least three ranked teams will take a loss in men's D1. Five ranked women's teams will also play today, including the Top 3.

There have been plenty of blow-outs this month, the kind of result we've come to expect in February. But this is a new year, and this month is acting a little bit differently. If the Big Dogs believe February triumphs are a foregone conclusion, they will be slightly Lesser Dogs by March.

Contact Jac Coyne at jcoyne@uslacrosse.org.