College Lacrosse Schedule for April 5, 2014

This feels right:

Here are your three highlights for today:

• Half-Dozen Potential HAMS: The computer machine isn't always right, but it's seeing six games today -- Marist at Detroit; Duke at Notre Dame; Lafayette at Holy Cross; Vermont at Stony Brook (!!!); Penn State at Drexel; and Rutgers at Princeton -- that are 50-50 games in fuction. The best part of these games, with the exception of the Scarlet Knights visiting the Tigers, is that they're conference games, putting extra juice on the field and making Earth a great place to live (until the robots come and wipe us all out). There's only one ranked-ranked matchup in this group, but that doesn't necessarily mitigate the possibility that these games could explode right in your face.
• Bryant at St. Joseph's: It's a battle of the NEC's lone unbeaten teams in league play, but the game is something more than that: Can the Hawks establish themselves as a legitimate threat to the Bulldogs' conference title aspirations? Bryant has won its two conference dates -- home to Hobart and away to Sacred Heart -- by an average of eight goals. If St. Joseph's can put some hurt on the Bulldogs today on Hawk Hill, the nature of the NEC changes somewhat. An NEC with competition at the top makes the league a more interesting product as the season reaches its apex.
• Colgate at Lehigh: I don't even with this thing. After today, Lehigh will have just one conference date remaining on its schedule -- a trip to archrival Lafayette; Colgate will close its Patriot League schedule with home dates against Holy Cross and Army. The two teams are hanging around the same position on the conference table, and today's meeting -- given their spots in the standings and what's left on their schedules -- carries incredible weight outside of mere national poll rankings: Each are angling to avoid that nasty four-five quarterfinals game in the expanded Patriot League Tournament.

Here's Saturday's full schedule. If there are errors, please let me know. I'll fix/populate links to live stats and video as the day progresses (if necessary).

This is your open thread for Saturday. I ordered 50 mozzarella sticks for supper last night but only ate 15. People will be around to yak about whatever is tickling their fancy.

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