The NCAA released its Academic Progress Report last week, and it should obviously come as no surprise that the Ivy League dominated the rankings. However, the order might be different from what you would expect.

The Ivies swept the top six spots on the national rankings, in the following order.

1. Yale (28 teams honored)

2. Dartmouth (24 teams honored)

3. Brown (21 teams honored)

4. Penn (20 teams honored)

5. Princeton (19 teams honored)

6. Harvard (18 teams honored)

Then, there’s a bit of a drop off…

t16. Cornell (11 sports honored)

20. Columbia (9 sports honored)

Of course, you have to take the report with a grain of salt, as a lot of the rankings depend on the number of sports a school has and fail to take into account understandable reasons for GPA differences (engineering major vs. history major; Engineering vs. Wharton vs. College, Hotel Management vs. School of Agriculture, etc.). The Academic Progress Report really serves no purpose for the Ivy League — the goal is to improve the LSU’s of the world — but it’s still interesting either way.

If you want to peruse Penn’s report, you can find the link here.

The NCAA Division I Women’s Lacrosse Tournament bracket was announced Monday evening, and Penn is the No. 2 seed and will face Colgate Sunday at 1pm. Over the next few days I’ll provide some analysis and team reactions to the draw. First up, Did the Quakers get shafted?
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Everyone’s heard of Selection Sunday when the March Madness bracket is announced. But how about Selection Monday?

Well for Division I Women’s Lacrosse teams the first Monday in May, not the third Sunday in March, is their big night to find out their seed and draw for the NCAA tournament.

And yesterday, the Penn team sat waiting inside the women’s basketball team’s locker room (apparently the only Athletics room that gets CBS’ CollegeSports TV) to hear who they’d be playing and what seed they’d gotten

In the end, the No. 1 Quakers discovered that despite their top national ranking, they had earned the second seed behind No. 2 Northwestern. They’ll play Colgate 1 pm Sunday at Franklin Field.

So did the team get shafted out of the No. 1 spot?

“We thought we’d be a one or a two seed” because of “our record and beating the then-No. 2 team and the team that was No. 1 throughout the whole season” coach Karin Brower said alluding to victories over Princeton and Northwestern, respectively. But “we’re happy to be in the top four. No matter where you are you have to play good teams.”

The players seemed a little more disgruntled, but they also realized that a two seed — the highest the team has ever received — is nothing to sneeze at.

“It was a little disappointing,” senior attack Allison Ambrozy said. “It would’ve been quite a thing to be number one. You know we’re number one in the rankings and we beat Northwestern, but having the two spot is not too bad.”

Looking at the two teams’ numbers, it’s not that surprising that the Wildcats got the higher seed. The Quakers do have the head-to-head factor, as they dispatched the Wildcats 11-7 on April 27 at Franklin Field. And they are currently ranked higher in the Inside Lacrosse Media Poll, albeit it by the smallest of margins (213 votes overall including six first-place selections vs. Northwestern’s 210 and four, respectively).

But besides those two (important) factors, Northwestern holds basically every other advantage. Northwestern is the three-time-defending National Champion, and while one would believe the tournament committee wouldn’t take into account past performance, it wouldn’t be a stretch of the imagination if that was an underlying factor. Looking at this year, the Wildcats do have a better overall record (17-1 vs 14-1) and those losses are significant as well. Penn lost to Stanford (12-8), who despite winning its conference and earning the 17th spot in the media poll, did not receive an at large bid (its conference, the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation, does not receive an automatic bid). Northwestern’s loss is to a top quality program, Penn.

Furthermore, the geeky numbers the selection committee looks at point to Northwestern’s edge. Just like other NCAA tournament committees, the women’s lacrosse one doesn’t openly admit what numbers it looks at and what weight it gives such numbers. However, laxpower.com has a composite summary of important statistics called the “Tournament Selection Index” that maps out seven different numerical values. The TSI then ranks all 85 NCAA D-I programs with the lowest score earning the No. 1 spot. Northwestern is first on that list with -15.75 (again the lower the better). Penn is fourth at -.60.

The categories included are poll ranking, power rating, RPI, SOS, Quality Win Factor, Losses, and a Trend factor. (Read more about TSI here.) NU’s power rating is higher (first vs. sixth), NU’s RPI is higher (first vs. second), NU’s schedule is harder than Penn’s (fifth vs. 14th), and NU’s QWF is higher (first vs fifth).

So in the end, it’s not that surprising that Northwestern is the one seed and Penn is the two. But ironically, being No. 2 might actually help Penn. The NCAA does not seed the bottom half of the sixteen team bracket. Instead, the lower half is assigned to a top-eight seed depending on geography. Hence, just because Northwestern is the top seed doesn’t mean they get the easiest first round matchup. In fact, it appears Penn might have that advantage.

Colgate has the worst record of any NCAA participant with an 11-9 overall mark. Their power rating is ranked 44th vs Penn’s sixth-ranked one, and they give up over 13 goals a game vs Penn’s 6.00 (which leads the nation). At the same time, the Raiders have been to three of the last five NCAA tournaments, something Penn can’t claim (this is only its second since 1984).

Northwestern, meanwhile, gets a really tough first round draw. The closest team to them that’s unseeded is nationally-ranked No. 10 Notre Dame (12-6). The Fighting Irish probably were the best team to not get a top eight seed. Their power rating isn’t that much lower than NU’s (11 vs 1). However, the Wildcats did destroy the Irish April 9 16-2. So don’t go writing in that upset just yet.

Regardless, facing an easier first round opponent than the Wildcats is the silver lining for the Quakers’ two seed.

“I’d rather play Colgate than Notre Dame,” Ambrozy said. “And despite being No. 2, we might actually have an easier first two rounds. So No. 2, we can’t complain.”

Today the Women’s Lacrosse team beat Temple 15-2 on Senior Day at Franklin Field, shutting out the Owls (13-6) in the first half. The win puts the Quakers (14-1, 7-0 Ivy) in a great position going into the NCAA tournament, where they’re looking to grab the top seed overall. Since the DP won’t be publishing until May 16, my game updates in the last post and the following quotes with some commentary will serve as the game recap. You can also see a complete box score here.

Coach Karin Brower on Penn’s dominating performance: “We felt we wanted to come out strong and make a statement of how great we can be. I think they took that to heart. And it was senior day and the seniors stepped up and played great in the first half… By the end we had everybody in.”

Senior defender Tarah Kirnan on why the defense was untouchable: “[The Owls] were pretty good at cutting and assisted goals, so we just really had to work on defending those all week long… We just came out aggressive.”

Senior attack Rachel Manson on the Quakers’ motivation: “We were on a mission. We came out today and wanted to play like national champions. We wanted to improve our seeding, so we knew we had to put them away to do so. We really want that top seed.”

Brower on getting the team to focus and not look ahead to the NCAAs: “This game was about where we’re going to be seeded. If we had lost today we wouldn’t get a top four seed… We want to be a top four seed, so that’s our motivation.”

With a top four seed, the Quakers will be guaranteed home games for the first two rounds of the NCAAs. After that the the Final Four and National Championship games will be played at Towson University’s Johnny Unitas Stadium.

Manson on how the Temple game affects the Quakers’ seeding: “I’d say it was a really important game for us. Obviously beating [then No. 1] Northwestern last week was huge. But we couldn’t come out here and take Temple lightly. We needed to win to show people how good we are and to prove to ourselves how good we are.”

Kirnan on the same topic: “We wanted to win since we knew that everyone’s so skeptical about us getting a number one seed, that if we came out real strong and beat them by a large margin they wouldn’t be so skeptical. Getting the number one seed is our main goal.”

Brower on the suffocating defense, including goalkeeper Sarah Waxman: “Our defense is playing really well, and [Waxman] is our anchor. She came up with some saves, but they didn’t have a ton of shots. So you’ve definitely got to give credit to our defense. But she’s our rock back there.”

From 2:35 remaining in the first half against Northwestern until Temple’s Nicole Caniglia scored with 20:45 left in the second, Penn went an outstanding 71:50 without conceding a goal. And Waxman, a senior captain, did not concede either of Temple’s two goals, so she still has an active scoreless streak of 62:52.

Kirnan on the scoreless streak: “It’s so great. It makes us feel really good. Earlier in the season we needed to work on our team defense. But we’ve melded together. The past five games we’ve just been really strong. It’s great going into the tournament having this kind of confidence.”

In the last five games Penn has given up five, five, five, seven and two goals. Except for that seven which they gave up to Northwestern, those totals are below their NCAA-leading 6.00 goals-against average.

Manson on the superior defense: “Our defense is just unbelievable. I’m so lucky, the attack is so lucky that we get to practice against the top defense in the country every day. They push each other so hard. And they’ve just had two outstanding games in a row.”

Brower on Manson’s two goals and four assists: “She’s been the leader of our attack all year. She’s a very unselfish player. She did a fabulous job today.”

Although Manson led the team in points today, she was far from being the only productive Quaker. An astonishing 14 Penn players earned at least one point, as the Quakers got 15 goals on 14 assists.

Kirnan on the offense taking off pressure from the defense: “The attack controlled the ball pretty well today. They had some really good opportunities and had a high shooting percentage today. The fact that they had the ball down on [Temple’s] end was the game.”

The Quakers’ first five shots all were goals, and by the end of the afternoon the Quakers had scored 15 goals on 27 shots, 23 of which were on target.

Brower on the senior class: “I think all of our seniors did a great job all year. They’ve been great all year at leading our team by example.”

Kirnan on dominating on Senior Day: “We definitely wanted to come out and win after [the Senior Day] ceremony took almost half an hour. We were like ‘there’s no way we’re losing this now.’ We really wanted to win today since it’s technically our last home game… We just love this field, we love playing. So it’s good to end on a high note.”

And as the NCAA finalizes its 16-team tournament field before Monday night’s selection show, it’ll be hard pressed to ignore this high note for the Quakers.

FINAL PENN 15 TEMPLE 2

That was the most dominating game I’ve seen in my two years of covering Penn Women’s Lacrosse. I’ll throw up the postgame quotes later.

2:22 Penn 15 Temple 2

Sophomore Megan Smith gets her first goal of the year.

3:55 Penn 14 Temple 2

Temple scores again. As a friend of mine just mentioned, this is similar to Penn’s loss to Northwestern last year in the final four when they lost 12-2. NU just came out swinging and never looked behind, leading 8-0 at the break. In the sceond they did give up two goals, but they always looked in charge.

8:07 Penn 14 Temple 1

Rudloff scores off a Lombardo pass, although it was an ugly goal that only trickled in.

13:13 Penn 13 Temple 1

Junior Samantha Bird gets her second goal of the year off a Lehman assist.

18:36 Penn 12 Temple 1

Warren gets her second goal, this one off a free position shot. Manson almost got her fifth assist, but it was waved off since the penalty was called before the goal was scored.

20:45 Penn 11 Temple 1

Speaking of Szelest, the first shot she faces go past her to the lower left, as Temple is finally off the board. The scoreless streak is stopped at an astonishing 69:15.

24:52 Penn 11 Temple 0

Sophomore Bethany Warren scores off a Manson pass after the senior streaked down about 50 yards. That’s now Manson’s sixth point as she has four assists and two goals. Aftewards coach Karin Brower takes her out. Has she played her last regular season minutes? Also, Waxman was taken out during that stretch, and replaced by sophomore Emily Szelest.

Halftime Penn 10 Temple 0

The half ends with Penn dominating, scoring .07 below its season average and shutting out the Owls. With the shutout half, Penn has now gone an incredible 62:35 without giving up a goal. That’s more than an entire game!

During the half a friend of mine was in the men’s room and heard the following conversation from two Temple fans:

-”Rough Game”

-”I didn’t think it would be so bad”

-”Well they’re not No. 1 for nothing”

2:19 Penn 10 Temple 0

Well I guess DeLuca liked scoring instead of assisting. She got her second goal of the game off an assist from Manson. With its next goal Penn will have passed its scoring average for the year.

3:44 Penn 9 Temple 0

DeLuca gets her first goal of the game in addition to her two assists.

8:42 Penn 8 Temple 0

Senior Allison Ambrozy off a junior Hannah Rudloff assist gives Penn its eighth unanswered goal, causing Temple coach Bonnie Rosen to sub in the backup goalie.

13:15 Penn 7 Temple 0

Sophomore Courtney Lube has scored two goals over the last seven minutes. A temple shot did go off the crossbar.

20:00 Penn 5 Temple 0

Sophomore Barb Seaman scores off a Manson assist. Although in the last four minutes Temple did get off their first couple of shots, all saves by goalkeeper Waxman or widely off target.

Lube from Manson

23:59 Penn 4 Temple 0
Manson scores, taking the lead over Lehman, this time with an assist from fellow senior Chelsea Kocis. Temple takes a timeout as their save percentage is still 0%.

25:35 Penn 3 Temple 0

Two different people get in yet again, as freshman Giulia Giordano keeps her hot streak going off a pass from junior Kaitlyn Lombardo. It’s now been three shots, three goals for the Quakers, and 0/0 for Temple.

26:28 Penn 2 Temple 0

And before I finished that last update Penn had scored yet again off senior Rachel Manson’s 26th goal with an assist to sophomore Ali DeLuca. Maybe Manson and Lehman will trade off goals to see who’ll lead the team in goals.

28:42 First Half Penn 1 Temple 0

Before I even finished typing the introduction, Penn had already scored off of senior Melissa Lehman’s team-leading 26th goal.

Welcome once again to Franklin Field for the Women’s Lacrosse team’s last regular season game, a non-conference tilt against 13-5 Temple. The No. 1 Quakers (13-1, 7-0 Ivy) are definitely the favorite in the this game, but Temple is no slouch, having won the A-10 Conference tournament, and the automatic bid to the NCAAs that comes with it. Nonetheless, this game is less important than either the win over then No. 1 Northwestern last Sunday, or the win at then No. 2 Princeton in mid April, so I probably won’t update as often as I did for those games. Nonetheless enjoy.

Welcome to Franklin Field where the No. 5 Quakers (12-1, 7-0 Ivy) will take on undefeated No. 1 Northwestern (15-0).

1st Half 23:51 Northwestern 1 Penn 0

The first six minutes are pretty even, but nine seconds into the seventh minute NU’s Meredith Frank gets an unassisted goal. just over

21:53 NU 1 Penn1

Penn ties it up with a shot by freshman Giulia Giordano. It came after a Rachel Manson pass.

21:44 NU 2 Penn 1

But literally 10 seconds later Northwestern goes the length of the field off the draw control and gets its second goal of the year.

18:04 NU 3 Penn 1
Northwestern works the ball around behind the net, and a quick pass from Hannah Nielsen sets up Frank for her second goal of the game.

16:38 NU 3 Penn 2

After Penn finally gets the ball back in NU territory, a few long range passes leads to a Courtney Lube goal off a sharp Kaitlyn Lombardo feed to right in front of the goal.

12:30 NU 3 Penn 2

Not much has happened since the last goal, although Penn’s Sarah Waxman made a couple of nice saves, including one on her knees.

The crowd is pretty big, I would say the largest women’s lacrosse game turnout I’ve seen save the final four. I’d say upwards of 1,000. I guess Penn athletics’ bobblehead promotion worked. Included in the crowd is the Penn Band, making its second W. Lax appearance this year.

Surprisingly there’s a lot of NU fans. Whether bandwagon or actual Wildcat fans it’s hard to tell, but they do have a handful of players from the Md-NY corridor, so it’s not inconceivable some parents would make the trek to West Philly.

10:46 NU 3 Penn 3

A crisp, sharp pass from Lombardo right to the center of the crease (just like the last one) gives senior Rachel Manson the Quakers’ tying goal. So far the biggest positive has been Lombardo’s passes.

9:52 NU 4 Penn 3

Off a free position shot Alex Bowen drives to the goal, feigns running past it, turns around and puts the Wildcats back on top.

9:17 NU 4 Penn 4

Off a free position shot senior Melissa Lehman rips a shot from pretty far out that goes straight to the upper right corner of the goal. And we have another tied game. Let’s see if Penn can finally take a lead.

7:04 NU 4 Penn 4

Yet again Lombardo has a crisp pass to the middle, but the ensuing shot is saved by NU goalkeeper Morgan Lathrop, leading one fan to say “Now that’s a save!”

6:15 NU 5 Penn 4

Northwestern gets yet another goal Frank off a Nielsen assist.

4:30 NU 6 Penn 4

Bowen gets her second goal, after running around the front of the Quakers D and ripping a shot to the upper left corner. NU was very patient on that possession, passing the ball around several times before Bowen’s run in front of the goal.

2:37 NU 7 Penn 4

Penn gets a penalty for decking a Wildcat player right before she’d shoot. On the ensuing free position shot Bowen wings a hard shot right at the goal, and Waxman is unable to save it. Ok I’ll take responsibility for jinxing the Quakers after saying “let’s see if Penn can finally take a lead” when it was 4-4

Something finally goes right for Penn, as Waxman gets a high save. Penn’s charging down the field and with :37 left gets its fifth goal of the game, this time from Lombardo off a Manson assist.

0:00 NU 7 Penn 5

With zeros showing on the clock, the refs huddle to see if there was a foul before the clock expired. They put a second back give a free position shot to NU who then proceeds to… get saved by Waxman.

Well this half was significantly better than either of the ones against NU last year. In the first game, at Evanston, Ill,, March 9, the Quakers were down 6-3 and even worse, it was 8-0 at the break in the last year’s final four at Franklin Field. The number one thing Penn has to do is keep up the offense. While they were able to hang with NU for most of the half, they couldn’t string enough goals together to take the lead. While keeping up the Wildcats certainly is an improvement from last year, they need to do more if they want to finally beat NU for the first time in five tries.

Penn athletics has really gone all out today. The jumbotron on the west scoreboard actually has video (first regular season Lax game I’ve seen that at). They also actually had some halftime entertainment other than the Penn Band as two teams of young girls played lacrosse on the field.

Second half 29:17 NU 7 Penn 5
Melissa Lehman goes the length of the field, but her one-on-one shot hits the crossbar. Manson recovers and Penn’s still on the offensive.

28:32 NU 7 Penn 6

Less than a minute later on the same possession Allison Ambrozy takes a pass and wings it into the goal. And Penn is within one.

27:19 NU 7 Penn 7

A Giordano shot is nicely saved by Lanthrop at 27:39 , but less than 30 seconds later senior Chelsea Kocis ties it up with a goal at 27:19.

26:29 NU 7 Penn 8

Giordano gets her second goal and Penn is leading Northwestern for the first time since their lone win against the Wildcats in 2003.

24:00 NU 7 Penn 9

Kocis scores yet again, this time off a free position shot, and Penn is up by two. I’m surprised NU coach Kelly Amonte Hiller hasn’t taken one of her two timeouts. I know if I was the University of Maryland grad I certainly would take one to stop the Quakers’ increasing momentum and confidence.

21:54 NU 7 Penn 10

In this recent stretch NU has been fouling a lot, clearly a sign the players are frustrated. Well it doesn’t help them, as Giordano sprints around the goal and rips a shot from an awkward angle into the net. Her hat trick goal gives Penn a three goal lead.

This ties NU’s largest deficit of the season, although the other two times they were down by three was either at halftime or in the first. The 10 goals are tied for the fourth highest total the Wildcats have given up this year.

12:36 NU 7 Penn 10

Waxman gets a nice save, just the second shot of the half for NU. And in honor of Waxman the Penn Band is singing a version of “Dayman” from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia with the lyrics: “Waxman. Fighter of Northwestern. Keeper of the goal.”

The Quakers are being uber patient on offense, trying to waste as much clock as possible. Penn’s Tarah Kirnan gets a key groundball after Penn almost gives up a turnover.

7:51 NU 7 Penn 11

Ambrozy shoots high, and it gets saved, but she after it gets knocked around it goes in. Maybe I saw it wrong though, since Manson is given an assist.

6:00 NU 7 Penn 11

A Kocis shot hits the post.

4:42 NU 7 Penn 11

NU misses a free position shot, leading to the same fan who shouted “now that’s a save” to say “Oh My God!”

0:00 NU 7 Penn 11

Well Penn has done it. They’ve beaten the formerly undefeated, three-time national Champion Northwestern Wildcats of 36 game wining streak fame, and a 92-5 record over four plus seasons. This has got to be the Penn athletics highlight of the year so far.

Not too much to report out there in Ivy basketball country, but on Thursday Dick “Hoops” Weiss, writing for the New York Daily News, had a few Ivy points of interests in his “Hoops on Hoops” blog.

First, as stated in a brief in Friday’s DP, John Gallagher has been hired as an assistant coach to Glen Miller. But in addition to reporting on that, Weiss says that the Quakers are interested in Larry Loughery, a former St. Joseph’s Prep player who recently transferred to Academy of the New Church in Bryn Athyn.

Update:  Loughery is coming to Penn

He also notes that Columbia hosted a Sports Ethics Symposium, but put Weiss and fellow NY Daily news columnist Pat Plunkett on the wait list despite sending out publicity emails. I wonder how that event compared to the one Columbia hosted a few years back called “A Culture of Losing.”

The last Ivy note is about Cornell coach Steve Donahue. There was a lot of talk about Brown’s coach Craig Robinson leaving, and in the end he did go to Oregon State. But Donahue has also gotten some coaching buzz after leading the Big Red to their first Ivy title since 1988. While not reporting any rumors, Weiss himself believes Bucknell might be a good fit for Donahue because it offers scholarships and Cornell has yet to expand its financial aid like some of the other Ivy schools have.

It would have been nice if the Quakers had at least taken their faint hopes of winning the Gehrig Division crown back to Meiklejohn Stadium for Sunday’s doubleheader. But according to this scoreboard, they dropped the first of their four-game set with Columbia, 5-4, which clinches the Division title outright for the Lions. Penn needed to win all four to stay in the hunt. Now they have three more games to go, all of them somewhat moot.

For a team with seven sophomores and freshmen and no seniors in the 10-man rotation, Villanova will look a bit different in the next couple of years.

The Wildcats had been as busy as any other college team last week. On Wednesday, Villanova lost one of the biggest recruits of the year to Memphis in Tyreke Evans.

This came days after Villanova landed a big transfer in Duke freshman Taylor King, and then two days later lost freshman guard Malcolm Grant to Miami.

In 9.7 minutes per game, the 6-foot-6 forward averaged 5.5 points and 2.0 rebounds for the Blue Devils. For the Wildcats, Grant averaged a similar 12.7 minutes per game and 5.6 points, but started four times and shot 47 percent from beyond the arc.

Grant played a significant role in the beginning of the season for Villanova, but gradually he fell out of favor with Jay Wright. After dropping 22 points in a 64-63 win over Pitt, Grant played zero minutes in the NCAA Tournament (against Clemson, Siena and Kansas), and one in the two games in the Big East Tournament.

After the women’s lacrosse team beat Princeton 9-5 yesterday to clinch at least a share of the Ivy title I interviewed sophomore Ali DeLuca, seniors Sarah Waxman and Rachel Manson and coach Karin Brower. Unfortunately I couldn’t include all of their quotes in my recap due to limited space in the DP, so over the next couple of days I’ll post some material here to the Buzz. First up was THE RUN. Second was THE IMPACT ON THE RANKINGS. Lastly here is PLAYERS’ REACTIONS.

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Upon winning their second straight Ivy League title, the women’s lacrosse team was quite ecstatic. Despite their experience winning the league last year, the Quakers still had a very emotional response to clinching the league yet again.

“Oh my god, this is the most amazing feeling ever” sophomore attack Ali DeLuca said.

Even senior Sarah Waxman, last year’s All-American goalkeeper who leads the nation this year with a 6.23 goals-against-average, was quite emotional. After the game she barely could contain the tears, tears of joy.

“I am weeping; my emotions are all over the place,” Waxman said. “I’m speechless… This is the happiest day of my whole life, I’ll never forget it ever.

“We’re one of the hardest working teams here at this school. This means so much to the senior class, who’ve put so much into this truly believing we can turn this program around. I don’t know enough words to explain this.”

Waxman’s classmate and co-captain Rachel Manson also was quite flabbergasted after winning. While I interviewed her she literally was at a loss of words saying, “I can’t even think or concentrate right now. It feels amazing.”

Beating Princeton at Princeton — for the first time in 22 years — for the Ivy League title made the win even more remarkable for the team. This was especially true of DeLuca, who is a native New Jerseyan.

“It’s weird coming here,” said DeLuca, who hails from nearby Hillsborough, N.J. “We scrimmaged here in the fall, but I’ve never actually played in Princeton’s stadium. I remember coming here in high school and watching Princeton games. So it was an amazing feeling just to be able to play in this stadium and win here.”

UPDATE: THE QUAKERS JUST BEAT BROWN 12-5, AND NOW ARE OFFICIALLY IVY LEAGUE CHAMPIONS WITH A RECORD OF 12-1, 7-0 IVY.

After the women’s lacrosse team beat Princeton 9-5 yesterday to clinch at least a share of the Ivy title I interviewed sophomore Ali DeLuca, seniors Sarah Waxman and Rachel Manson and coach Karin Brower. Unfortunately I couldn’t include all of their quotes in my recap due to limited space in the DP, so over the next couple of days I’ll post some material here to the Buzz. First up was THE RUN. Now, THE IMPACT ON THE RANKINGS

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With the win over previously undefeated Princeton, the women’s lacrosse team will look to move up in the rankings when next week’s polls come out Monday. Right now the Quakers (11-1, 6-0 Ivy) are No. 6 in both the Inside Lacrosse media poll and the IWLCA coaches’ poll.

After beating Princeton (10-1, 4-1), the consensus No. 2 team in the nation according to both polls, the question isn’t really whether or not they’ll move up, but the question is how many spots.

Well, it’s only certain they’ll move up if they win at home against Brown Saturday. But that shouldn’t be a problem for the Quakers. Brown (5-7, 2-3) has only beaten the bottom two teams in the Ivy League (Dartmouth and Columbia), and all of its non-conference wins are over mediocre America East teams (their best win is over 9-7 Sacred Heart).

Another certain thing is that it’ll be nearly impossible for the Quakers to surpass three-time defending national champion Northwestern and become the No. 1 team. The unanimous No. 1 Wildcats have won all 13 of their games, and even if they were to lose either of their games this weekend (home against No. 17 Johns Hopkins and No. 11 North Carolina), there’s a good chance a 13-1 Northwestern with only a loss to a top 20 team would still maintain the top spot.

The teams currently ahead of Penn are the same in both polls, although their order is different. In the media poll, the three, four and five slots are Maryland (12-1), Syracuse (11-2) and Virginia (11-3), respectively. In the coaches’ poll the Cavaliers and the Orange are switched.

While beating No. 2 would be the best win of the week barring a Northwestern upset, Penn is not the only top-six team to earn a quality win this week. The Terrapins did beat No. 8/9 Georgetown handily, 14-7, so unless the Terps lose to 4-12 Virginia Tech Saturday, they likely would claim the Tigers’ No. 2 spot.

Virginia also got a quality win, beating No. 12 George Mason by a decisive 12-3 margin.

Syracuse doesn’t have any quality wins this week, as they’ve only beaten 7-8 Colgate and play 6-8 Loyola (Md.) Saturday.

At a minimum, Princeton should drop to six, and Penn would move up to five. More likely, Penn would leap frog at least Syracuse, regardless of the Orange’s game at the Greyhounds. At the same time, on just the strength of beating an undefeated team at their place, it’s still possible the Quakers would jump as high as third or even second.

While the Quakers don’t analyze the rankings too much, they still believe their impressive win over Princeton warrants a jump in the polls.

“9-5, that’s a decisive win,” senior attack Rachel Manson said. “If we don’t move up in the polls, that’s laughable.”

Coach Karin Brower, who has repeated on several occasions that she doesn’t look at polls, still believes the team should move up, plain and simple.

“It’s black and white,” she said. “We should be No. 2.”

Last year Penn was in a similar situation late in the season. On April 2, the Quakers were ranked 12/11, and after beating No. 10 Penn State at Happy Valley they jumped to No. 6 in both polls on April 9. Then after beating No. 14 Dartmouth, they moved up to 5/3. Finally after beating No. 15 Princeton the Quakers earned the four spot from Inside Lacrosse and the second spot from the coaches.

More importantly than regular season rankings, however, is seeding in the national tournament. The top four seeds are guaranteed home games for the first two rounds of the sixteen team tournament. The Final Four and championship games are played at a predetermined spot (this year it’s at Towson; last year it was at Franklin Field).

Last year, after finishing the regular season ranked third by Inside Lacrosse and second by IWLCA, the Quakers did earn a top seed, drawing the four seed.

Just like with the regular season polls, this year’s Quakers believe that by beating Princeton and earning the Ivy League’s automatic bid they deserve a high seed.

“I think we’re going to have a really good seed for the tournament,” Manson said. “And I think this proves that last year wasn’t a fluke. We’re here every year to dominate the Ivies. This is the beginning of a dynasty.”

Next up: Players’ reactions

UDPATE: Well only the minimum happened. The coaches’ poll has yet to be released, but in the media poll, Penn only moved up a spot to number 5. Ahead of them are Northwestern, Maryland, Syracuse and Virginia, respectively. One reason for the little movement is that no team ahead of Penn lost. Also, looking at laxpower.com’s power ratings, Penn is eighth, behind the above four teams as well as Duke, Boston University, and surprisingly Princeton. This last part is also surprising, since the Tigers not only lost to Penn last week, but also lost 13-12 to Dartmouth on Saturday. This probably hurt Penn’s chances of leap frogging a team like Syracuse since their win over the Tigers was slightly diminished. I’ll post the coaches’ poll later today when it comes out.

Update 2: Although it didn’t get updated until 8 am today, the IWLCA coaches’ poll finally got updated and there’s some good news for the Quakers (12-1).  The “more likely” scenario occurred here, as the Quakers jumped over 13-2 Syracuse and now are the No. 4 team behind Northwestern (15-0), Maryland (14-1) and Virginia (12-3). Syracuse (13-2) is No. 5, followed by Princeton (10-2) at No. 6, just like the media poll.