After losing its first game of the season on Saturday, the Terrapin women’s lacrosse team fell to No. 3 in this week’s Inside Lacrosse top 20 poll.
The Tar Heels jumped past the Terps (12-1, 3-1 ACC) for the No. 2 spot in the country. Meanwhile, Northwestern sits at No. 1 as the lone undefeated team in women’s lacrosse right now. Most of this season, the Terps competed with the Wildcats for No. 1 votes, but since last week the voters unanimously chose Northwestern.
For the first time since mid-season last year, the Terps are not ranked No. 2. It’s fairly obvious to see why the Tar Heels received the nod instead of the Terps, as they won the head to head battle this weekend. But the overall body of work might say otherwise.
Without further ado, here’s my breakdown of the two teams:
No. 2 North Carolina Tar Heels (227 points Inside Lacrosse)
Top 10 wins – vs. No. 3 Penn 11-6; @ No. 7 Georgetown 13-6; vs. No. 2 Terps 13-9
Top 20 wins – vs. No. 11 Vanderbilt 12-6; @ No. 18 Boston College 15-6;
Goals per game – 188 (15.67 per game)
Goals allowed – 75 (6.25 per game)
Head to Head – Win, 13-9
Loss – @No. 8 Virginia, 13-12 in OT
No. 2 Terps (217 points)
Top 10 wins – @No. 5 Duke 17-4; vs. No. 19 UVA 11-5; vs. No. 8 Georgetown 20-11; vs. No. 8 Stanford 20-8; No. 7 Towson 12-10; @ No. 4 Penn 12-6
Top 20 wins – @No. 18 PSU 17-9; vs. No. 15 UNH 20-6; @ No. 20 JMU 8-7
Goals scored – 186 (14.31 per game)
Goals allowed – 96 (7.38 per game)
Head to Head – Loss, 13-9
Loss – @ No. 3 UNC, 13-9
Once again, that’s quite the resume for the Terps – six wins against top 10 opponents. But it’s also hard to ignore the head-to-head game this past weekend. Two factors though for that game – the Tar Heels played at home and it was on grass (turf is more of an advantage for the Terps).
Something else about this week’s top 20: Four ACC teams are in the top five (UNC, Terps, UVA, Duke in that order).
Chris Eckard is the Diamondback’s Terrapin women’s lacrosse beat reporter. He can be reached at ceckard@umdbk.com Follow him at twitter.com/ceckard.