April 26, 2007
Stonehill is going to participate in the 2007 NCAA D-2 women's lacrosse tournament. We know this.
Well, I'll qualify that slightly. Barring an upset bordering on the preposterous, the Skyhawks will play in the tourney. My confidence is bolstered by the fact Mike Daly's team is 14-0 and steamrolling opponents in the Northeast-10, but I can speak in concrete terms due to just one result.
Stonehill 12, Adelphi 11. In triple overtime.
Because there are just two NCAA bids for the North region, four berths overall, and no automatic qualifiers in D-2 women's lacrosse, the field is typically determined by just a handful of regular season games every year. Excluding the possibility of the aforementioned mind-boggling upset, the four teams for this year's tourney are already set: Stonehill, C.W. Post, West Chester and Lock Haven.
Adelphi, last year's national champion and the owner of an 11-2 record this spring, is out of the hunt simply because they finished second in the two games that really mattered on their schedule -- Post and Stonehill. Gannon carries the same burden in the South region after losing to Lock Haven and West Chester despite playing a brutal schedule.
For Daly, who saw his team excluded last year because he lost the two games he needed, there is both a sense of relief for his team and one of compassion for those squads who were edged out.
"It's kind of heartbreaking every year to see Gannon and one of the three North teams stay at home," he said. "Going straight to a final four is great, but it'd be even better to give more opportunities. Certainly the talent is there in both regions to expand the tournament.
"It's almost like you're trying to motivate your team for the entire season and they are only thinking about one game. Because in the back of their mind they think if they win they go; and if they lose they don't. It's a little unfair from that standpoint. Not many NCAA sports have that kind of pressure on one game in a season."
While it may not be much solace to the current student-athletes, there might be a flicker of light at the end of the tunnel. Daly, the former chair of the Division II Women's Lacrosse Committee, has tried to prod the NCAA into expanding the field and he has a sense there could be movement relatively soon.
Several years ago there was a proposal to increase the size of the D-2 tournament draw to six teams, but it was tabled because of budgetary constraints. It was a bitter pill to swallow considering D-2 field hockey, which has fewer teams than women's lacrosse, had a six-team field.
Now the plan is to expand the bracket to eight teams, hopefully in 2009, with four automatic qualifying conferences -- the East Coast, Northeast-10, PSAC and CVAC -- along with four at-large bids.
"It is something that is long overdue," said Daly, who is no longer on the committee. "We more than meet the criteria for the number of teams and the quality is there. I think it's time to provide other D-2 schools that championship opportunity.
"And it will legitimize us a little more. With four teams we don't get the exposure, which is just normal. If you invite more teams it adds more excitement for the whole tournament and gets us with the big girls and big boys, so to speak."
Contact Jac Coyne at jcoyne@uslacrosse.org.
