While the official and trademarked "March Madness" culminates in the very orderly coronation of the Duke basketball team this weekend in St. Petersburg, Florida, the actual madness this march has occurred outside the fabled hoop-shrines in Chapel Hill, Princeton and Georgetown. The unlikely and often shocking results of the first three weeks of play mark the start of a college lacrosse season that looks to be exciting and unpredictable until the end. In basketball, Duke just wins. Among the surprises of last weekend were Hopkins' comeback victory against Syracuse, Loyola's close call against Notre Dame, North Carolina's victory against Princeton, and Georgetown's easy win against UMBC. Let's start with the game at Homewood. Just like I said last week, this was a fight to the finish. Syracuse had a fast start, scoring the first two goals of the game in under a minute. They jumped to an 8-4 second quarter lead by virtue of 2 extra-man goals in less than a minute. Hopkins, coming off a beating at the hands of Loyola, would not give up. Despite the four-goal deficit, they came out for the third quarter a determined team. Final score: 12-10, Johns Hopkins. The Blue Jays simply dominated the second half, holding Syracuse to just 12 shots in that half and taking 18 in the third quarter alone. Syracuse needed an amazing 25-save performance from Goalie Rob Mulligan to keep the game close. This comeback win was nothing new this season. Hopkins also came back from an 8-3 deficit against Princeton. Duke beat Maryland a few weeks back 11-10 despite a 10-6 deficit at Byrd Stadium. You can never call a game over until the horn sounds. Georgetown burst to an early lead, 6-2 on Sunday against UMBC on the Potomac and never looked back winning 11-6 in the mud and rain. Georgetown seemed ready for the weather, while UMBC at times had trouble keeping up. "It's harder to defend in this type of surface than it is to run by people, so we just tried to run hard with the ball," said All-Lund team attackman Andy Flick, who had five goals for the Hoyas. Maybe UMBC was not as good as I thought, losing two games this past week (against good teams) but they still are very much in contention. Georgetown, however, is for real, and they have perhaps their biggest home game ever this weekend against #2 Duke. A win could be perhaps their best ever on campus, surpassing the 1997 win over Syracuse. Beating Duke is certainly an intimidating task, but the Hoyas are confident in facing the country's best team. "We got to play our defense. We'll try not to form our defense around what they do and instead make their offense adapt to us. It's just playing our same D," said Hoya defensive midfielder Roger Colbert. Call this a bold prediction, but my Hoyas will prevail in overtime. Much parity has developed in lacrosse, and there is no team that will cruise through the season unchallenged and win the championship like Princeton has done in recent years. Even Notre Dame, a team not ranked among the top 15, managed to give #1 Loyola a scare on the Greyhounds' home turf before falling by two goals. North Carolina, who seemed certain to miss the postseason after losses to Penn and Navy, beat defending three-time national champion and now 0-3 Princeton. The 1999 NCAA Lacrosse season is heating up, and there certainly will be some great games to see this weekend. I will be seeing top-ten USLIA powers Michigan, Tennessee, and Virginia Tech compete in Blacksburg. If you live in Southern Virginia or West Virginia, I invite you to join me. Among the many games in the Washtimore area on Saturday are Virginia at Hopkins, North Carolina at Maryland, and Duke at Georgetown. Syracuse will be in Towson on Sunday to play the untested Tigers. The Connecticut-Ohio State consolation hoops game does not start until 5:42 pm, giving you more than enough time to attend a 1 or 2 o'clock game. It may be your best chance this weekend for some real March madness. |
 Lund on Lacrosse By Peter Lund 3/24/99  Last week's column |
