Weekend Review III

What a weekend! Good games and upsets all acrosse the Divisions. Some teams' questions were answered, while others' questions are just coming up.

Division 1 had some upsets but on Sunday Maryland rebounded with a solid win over Bryant after losing to UMBC for the 3rd straight time on Saturday. Nice to see a Division 1 team play back to back games and win the second one. UMBC just has Maryland's number, I guess. Again Maryland's offense was stagnant even though it is loaded with talent. Catalino and Yeatman are assets but can be liabilities as well as they tend to slow it down and make UMD a little one dimensional.

Brown beat Umass and is looking pretty good now with Jordan Burke leading the way in goal. I was surprised to see Duke knock off UNC as I thought this was UNC's year. Billy Bitter was contained [to some degree] and he is clearly the guy who needs to initiate and get things rolling if UNC is going to thrive. Hobart bested Gtown by 7 goals and is proving to be something of a Cinderella story considering they were a D3 program for a couple days last year. Look for Hobart to keep rolling because this is the season they need to make a statement to their alums and college board of trustees. Cuse beat the Hop in a relatively close one. Cuse keeps rolling while Hopkins looks better every time I see them. At first they seemed lost but have really been improving as a team and finding new guys to fill roles. Hofstra looked second-rate against Hopkins last week but really impressed with a hard-fought win against the Princeton Tigers. It was Princeton's first loss of the season but they certainly have the guns to compete with Cornell and Brown for the Ivy League title.

Division 2 is crazy this year. NYIT looks to be solid along with Post and LeMoyne but beyond that teams are all playing close games, losing to teams they shouldn't and then beating teams they shouldn't. shouldn't in this case means pretty much nothing so what I'm really saying is... the division is too close to call right now and other than the top 3-4 nothing is certain. Merrimack has only played one game where they beat Dowling 11-8. Mercyhurst lost to Lemoyne and it wasn't really close. LeMoyne-Post will tell us a lot next week.

Division 3 was a roller coaster this weekend. Bowdoin is 2-0 and looks good after beating Wesleyan last week and Trinity this week. Cortland and Salisbury look like clear 1 and 2 although Endicott and Stevenson have to be considered for the 2 spot at least. Gburg continues to disappoint with a loss to Haverford which is no cupcake game but one the Bullets in past years would be expected to win. Denison looks to prove the NCAC belongs with a win over Lburg. Roanoke, Tufts and Ithaca are undefeated, as-is W&L, WAC has one loss and Cabrini also has one loss. One of these teams will do big things and the others may fall by the wayside but who will emerge as a true contender for a NC won't emerge for a couple weeks yet. All of the doors are still open in D3 and almost anyone in the top 10 has a chance to dethrone SU... they just have to bring their A game.