Game of the Week: Salisbury at Stevenson

DIII lacrosse could be thrown for a loop if Salisbury falls to Stevenson in the CAC championship, as a loss would most likely keep the Gulls from defending their national championship in the NCAA tournament. Furthermore, the Gulls have never lost a CAC championship since the conference's inception. I have been hesitant to declare the end of an era of Salisbury dominance, but a loss Saturday would make such claims pretty difficult to refute.

However, the Maroon and Gold faithful can rest easy because Swank thinks the Gulls are about to unleash an unholy storm on the Mustangs. Admittedly, this begs the question of why? Why should anyone expect Salisbury to turn it around in the midst of a dissapointing season? For me, it seems obvious. There is an incredible amount pride in the Salisbury program, both from alumni and current players. Need proof? Just take a look at this. This pride instills a work ethic in every player and makes each of them accountable to a far higher standard than any other program in the nation. The Salisbury swagger, a direct result of the aforementioned pride and so prevalent in the past, has been nowhere to be seen this year. Fortunately for the Gulls, after dropping an embarassing game to St. Mary's, something seems to have clicked. Their unmitigated annihilation of those same Seahawks in the CAC semifinals gave me all the confidence I need in picking the Gulls this weekend. With the season on the line, I expect Salisbury will handle their business Sunday and take down Stevenson. Some games are about matchups, X's and O's and statistics. This one is all about the intangibles of a great program.

Hamilton College Will Join the NESCAC

Per the official NESCAC website, Hamilton will become a full-playing member of the NESCAC for the 2011-2012 academic year. In addition to men's lacrosse, they will be a full-fledged member for the 27 other NESCAC sponsored sports.

http://www.nescac.com/news/2008-09/Hamilton_041609

In some ways, this move makes sense. Hamilton is already a member of the NESCAC for 21 of the conference's 28 sports. Hamilton will undoubtedly receive a bump in prestige by being able to call themselves a member of the exclusive NESCAC club.

As a NESCAC lacrosse purist, however, I am dismayed by this move. Hamilton has not had a winning season in 3 years (including this one) and have bad losses to Roger Williams (beaten soundly by Conn in the preseason), RPI (doubled up by Midd) and McDaniel (Conn lost by 1 in OT). Forcing the top teams in the NESCAC to play a bad team like Hamilton hurts their SOS and limits their ability to play out of conference games against top opponents. Who can Midd be expected to drop from a very challenging schedule? The same goes for Bowdoin and to some degree Tufts. The other teams should have no problem dumping a weaker opponent for Hamilton, but I am still wary of lowering the overall quality of a conference that is definitely the best in the nation this year.