Saturday, May 19, 2007

Lacrosse News: NCAA, MDIA, ILF, CLA, MLL, NLL

--- NCAA --- NCAA Quarters, May 19-20… The elite eight play May 19-20 at Navy and Princeton. The games can be seen on ESPNU. The match-ups: (No. 1) DUKE vs. (No. 8) No. Carolina, (No. 5) Albany vs. (No. 4) CORNELL, (No. 3) HOPKINS vs. (No. 6) Georgetown, (No. 8) UMBC vs. (No. 15) Delaware… [The Final Four returns to Baltimore… Semis are May 26 on ESPN2, and the Final’s May 28 on ESPN]… Predictions: we’re sticking with DUKE to take it all. The Blue Devils dominated Providence in the opening round, 18-3… Your other opening round scores: No. Carolina beat Navy, 12-8, Albany over Loyola 19-10, Cornel crushed Towson, 14-6, Hopkins needed OT to beat Notre Dame, Georgetown also won in OT over Princeton, 9-8, UMBC beat Maryland 13-9, and Delaware upset No.2 Virgina 14-8.

--- MDIA ---MDIA Finals, May 19: (No. 1) BYU vs (No. 3) Oregon. We predicted from the outset Oregon would win this tourney, but BYU has looked impressive in the first three rounds… in the semis, BYU beat No. 5 ranked UCSB, 12-8, and the Ducks squeked by No. 2 ranked CSU, 9-8, to advance to Saturday’s final… The A division final goes live in Dallas, Texas under the lights at 7:30 PM Central … you can listen live via the web, but there’s no TV broadcast.

--- ILF ---ILF Indoor semis, May 18: Canada (3-0) vs. England; Iroquois Nationals (3-0) vs. USA. The Canadians have simply dominated this ILF Championship, outscoring their competition 25-1, 24-4, and most recently, 18-5 over the US. Prediction still: CANADA… The FINAL’s Sunday, May 20 at 2pm Halifax time.

--- CLA ---CLA underway, May 12: The Western Lacrosse Association (WLA) and Ontario Lacrosse Association (OLA) are where almost all the NLL players box it up for the Summer. And it’s solid, some say better lax than the NLL. We agree. This year’s Mann Cup is in BC, Sept. 7 – Sept. 15… And we’re predicting Peterborough to come out of the East, and Victoria to come outta the West, with the Shamrocks taking it, again! [Jr. A, where all the NLL draft-picks are coming from, are also hosting their championship in BC this year. The Minto will be held up in New West Aug. 25 – Sept. 1. Prediction: LAKERS]

--- MLL ---MLL underway, May 12: see the video streaming of all 60 regular season games by logging onto www.laxunited.com. In 2007, 10 MLL teams will once again play a 12-game schedule, including games against each of the nine opponents. Top-4 teams make playoffs… This is the league’s seventh season but league attendance is still lacking. To that, the MLL’s looking for marketing help. If you’re interested in getting involved, email Shaun May, MLL Director of Public Relations, at smay@majorleaguelacrosse.com. The MLL features teams in the following cities: EAST: Boston, Long Island, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Rochester, Washington. WEST: Chicago, Denver, LA, San Fran.

--- NLL ---NLL finished May, 12 - Rochester defeated Arizona, 13-11, to capture the 2007 NLL Championship.