After almost four months…only four teams remain.
After a thrilling regular season, the NCAA tournament has more than lived up to expectations. The first round was fairly chalky, but chaos erupted across the nation in the second round. Three seeded teams lost before the quarterfinals, and two seeded teams that DID advance did so by only a one-goal margin. Titanic clashes occurred in the quarterfinals, but only four teams remained by the time the dust settled. The four highest-seeded teams will duke it out in Foxborough next weekend for the national championship. What a time to be alive! Here’s the penultimate edition of Top Ten Talk.
1. North Carolina (20-0, 9-0 ACC)
Movement: none
Last Week: W vs. No. 14 Clemson 18-9, W vs. No. 8 Princeton 19-10
This Week: vs. No. 4 Florida, TBD (NCAA championship game)
The Tar Heels’ offense continues to look utterly unstoppable. North Carolina has attempted 89 shots through two tournament games, a mark nearly nine shots per game above the team’s regular-season pace. Ashley Humphrey has been sensational as the driver of this offensive Ferrari, with her 12 postseason dimes making her the new NCAA Division I all-time leader in career assists. She’s now at 250 for her career, while her younger sister Chloe is at 106 points for the season (sixth-most in school history). Good luck stopping this sister act.
2. Northwestern (18-2, 8-0 B1G)
Movement: none
Last Week: W vs. No. 13 Michigan 15-7, W vs. No. 12 Penn 17-12
This Week: vs. No. 3 Boston College, TBD (NCAA championship game)
Madison Taylor continued her rampage through the record books last week with two masterpieces. After scoring 10 goals against Michigan, Taylor put up six against a stingy Penn defense. The 16 goals have pushed Taylor past every single-season scoring record in the book — Northwestern’s, the Big Ten’s, and the NCAA’s (previously held by High Point’s Abby Hormes). Taylor is now at 105 goals on the season, with at least one more game to pad that total. Meanwhile, after a career-high 15 draw controls against Penn, Sam Smith is now just eight away from 450 for her career. Taylor and Smith combined for just eight draw controls in the Wildcats’ crushing loss to Boston College to end last season. They’ve got a great chance to exact revenge on Friday.
3. Boston College (19-2, 8-1 ACC)
Movement: none
Last Week: W vs. No. 19 Stony Brook 10-7, W vs. No. 7 Yale 18-11
This Week: vs. No. 2 Northwestern, TBD (NCAA championship game)
The NCAA Tournament has been a tale of two games for the defending champions. The Eagles opened up a 6-0 lead on Stony Brook midway through the second quarter, and most observers (including myself) assumed a running clock was imminent. Instead, Stony Brook cut the lead to 8-6 early in the fourth quarter before running out of gas in the final five minutes. Then, against Yale (a top-five scoring defense, just like Stony Brook), Boston College put up 18 goals. I don’t really know what to expect from the offense, but I do know Shea Dolce has nine or more saves in six straight games. If she’s on her game, this Eagles team is difficult to beat no matter what it gets from the offense.
4. Florida (20-2, 5-0 Big 12)
Movement: none
Last Week: W vs. Mercer 18-6, W vs. No. 10 Stanford 13-12 F/2OT, W vs. No. 15 Duke 11-9
This Week: vs. No. 1 North Carolina, TBD (NCAA championship game)
The winning streak rolls on! The only team with a longer winning streak than the Gators’ 17 games is North Carolina, their opponent on Friday. Without the first-round bye, Florida had to dig deep to get here. In a bruising second-round matchup, the Gators barely survived a massively underseeded Stanford team thanks to a Kaitlyn Davies masterclass. After scoring just one goal a season ago, Davies is now up to 50 this season — five of which came against Stanford. Duke was able to erase Davies, but that allowed for five other Gators to score multiple goals. Turning an 11-2 third-quarter lead into an 11-9 game for the final five minutes isn’t ideal, but the last time the Gators’ defense gave up over 12 goals was March 12. They’ll be a tough puzzle for North Carolina to solve.
5. Yale (16-4, 5-2 Ivy)
Movement: none
Last Week: W vs. Albany 12-9, W vs. No. 19 Syracuse 9-8, L at No. 3 Boston College 11-18
This Week: none
A spectacular season from the Bulldogs came to an end at the hands of a ferocious Boston College offense, but the run to get to that game is still worth celebrating. Yale was down 3-0 to Albany after 15 minutes and down 8-6 early in the fourth, but erupted for six goals in the final frame to get a huge momentum win. Against Syracuse, the Bulldogs again trailed in the fourth quarter but gutted out a win thanks to some clutch goals from Jenna Collignon. Collignon’s hat trick against Syracuse also gave her 211 career goals, a new Yale record. Collignon went out strongly, as her senior class’s 55 victories are the highest total in school history.
6. Maryland (15-6, 7-1 B1G)
Movement: none
Last Week: W vs. Fairfield 16-7, L vs. No. 12 Penn 10-11 F/2OT
This Week: none
Wow. For whatever reason, the Terrapins just couldn’t solve Penn this year. Maryland’s offense got sloppy at the worst possible time. They committed 24 turnovers, including 16 after halftime, and put up only 21 shots. The turnover number is the highest for Maryland this season, and only the third time this year the team has committed at least 20 giveaways. In fact, 24 turnovers is the most Maryland has committed in a game since at least 2017 (which is as far back as game-by-game stats on the athletics website go). This loss is going to hurt for a while, especially when you consider that Penn scored the tying goal with just two seconds on the clock.
7. Virginia (12-7, 5-4 ACC)
Movement: none
Last Week: W vs. LIU 20-6, L vs. No. 15 Duke 9-17
This Week: none
The early exit for Virginia isn’t exactly shocking, but the way it happened was. The Cavaliers are a top-30 scoring offense and dominated LIU, but just got stuck in the mud against Duke. It’s not as though the Blue Devils are some dynamite defensive unit, either: Duke is 32nd in scoring defense, while LIU is 10th. The main issue in the loss for Virginia was ball control: Duke won the draw battle 19-11 and outshot the Cavaliers 33-19. On the bright side, sophomore midfielder Kate Galica will be a problem for the ACC for a while. She put up seven goals and 19 draw controls in the two tournament games.
8. Princeton (16-4, 6-1 Ivy)
Movement: none
Last Week: W vs. No. 23 UMass 19-10, W at No. 9 Johns Hopkins 18-12, L at No. 1 North Carolina 10-19
This Week: none
The Tigers’ run was stonewalled by North Carolina, but what a run it was. Princeton showcased its top-10 scoring offense with aplomb throughout the tournament, scoring at least seven goals in five of the six halves it played. The Tigers made the NCAA Quarterfinals for the first time since 2019 thanks to players like McKenzie Blake, who holds the Ivy League record for goals in a season with 89 (including 16 in the three tournament games). Blake shattered a record that had stood since 1982, but the team as a whole was a scoring machine. With 308 goals this season, the Tigers broke their own Ivy League record of 291 goals in a single campaign, set during their 2002 title run. The ending may have been bitter, but the season as a whole was sweet.
9. Johns Hopkins (13-7, 5-3 B1G)
Movement: none
Last Week: W vs. Liberty 21-11, L vs. No. 8 Princeton 12-18
This Week: none
The defensive struggles that plagued the Blue Jays all season came back to bite them in a big way in their second-round loss. Princeton took just 26 shots on goal, but converted 18 of them. Meanwhile, Hopkins struggled offensively, giving Princeton 25 clearing opportunities while forcing only 17 stops themselves. A six-goal loss despite an edge in the draw circle is tough to swallow, but Hopkins couldn’t really win the 50-50 balls. On the bright side, Ashley Mackin returned for the NCAA tournament and closed out her stellar career in style. She scored 11 goals in the two tournament games — an impressive feat, especially since she had missed the previous month.
10. Stanford (15-6, 7-2 ACC)
Movement: none
Last Week: W vs. No. 22 Denver 10-4, L vs. No. 4 Florida 12-13 F/2OT
This Week: none
What a rude draw for a top-10 squad. After getting a motivated and experienced Denver squad in the first round, Stanford had to play a Florida team that’s hotter than any team in the country not named North Carolina. Meanwhile, Penn (a team that is notably two spots below the Cardinal in the IWLCA rankings) got a first-round matchup against Army and then a second-round clash with Maryland. The NCAA needs to stop determining regions by geography alone, because it hurts teams like Stanford (and even Penn) while benefiting the top tier of teams that don’t need the extra advantage. Even with the deck stacked against them, the Cardinal were still inches away from forcing triple overtime. It was a great season that should be remembered fondly.
Honorable Mentions: Penn (upset Maryland, gave Northwestern a very strong fight), Duke (toppled James Madison and Virginia, almost beat Florida), Syracuse (took Yale to the limit)