I’m not sure if you have heard but Inside lacrosse’s rankings are almost completely fake news. I’m 100% sure that CNN and Huffington Post bought them out. They don’t consider the strength of the conference whatsoever, and given that the first Nescac team is ranked number 6, I think these guys haven’t watched a single game of D3 lacrosse in their lives. Here is my take on what the real rankings should look like.
20. Drew: Group of forklifts from Morris County. They might not be number one but they wheel and deal like crazy.
19. Endicott: Cam Fernandez is a beauty, these guys have a dub over Bowdoin even if it was a fluke. Only 1 loss to Union, but other than that, Bowdoin and Union were the only good teams these guys played.
18. Lynchburg: Solid team, lost to Hamilton. Not much else I can say.
17. CNU: Yeah they might be “good” but they really aren’t shit if they couldn’t even beat Williams this year. Williams had choked multiple times, but against their out of conference matchups they looked really good. Overall, they have some good players, but these guys can’t beat legit teams.
16. Trinity: It’s a travesty that Bo Page wasn’t rookie of the year. It's also a shame they couldn’t beat Wesleyan again and go further. They do have next year though, and I’m confident they’ll ball out. Until then, these guys are boozing through finals and throwing absolute ragers that are filled to the brim with great birds.
15. Williams: Guys couldn’t put it together this year. Had some great moments, but also choked like crazy. Highlights are victories of CNU, because that shows the rest of D3 how good the nescac really is.
14. Washington and Lee: Ugly losses to York, Randolph Macon, Stevenson, and CNU. Solid team, but not as good as IL says they are.
13. Stevens: Jersey grit. These guys wheel a criminal amount of birds, tear it up in the clubs of NYC while still steezing with the fake blondes from Bergen and Hudson county. Roll ducks.
12. Babson: These guys can ball, but they lost to Williams. Style makes matchups, but I think that now the nescac play has straightened out, these guys might not be totally relevant this year anymore.
11. Amherst: Hear me out, they beat Swarthmore, Gettysburg, and RPI. The libs at IL all had them ranked higher than nescac teams, but those teams still lost to what wasn’t even a top 5 team in the cac. These guys are proof IL and the committee is a shitshow, because I guarantee that if all the teams that made the Nescac tournament were given an at large, they could all have a chance at making a run.
10. Tufts: Their loss to hamilton is actually ugly as fuck. Given that they were almost behind the entire game, and at their home field against Hamilton, I can’t rank them any higher. They weren’t hungry and they didn’t want it like they did last year. Very disappointing.
9. Hamilton: Upset of the year, this group of nail guns does have the capacity to get it done. They beat Lynchburg (a good ODAC team), and in my opinion, most non-Nescac teams can’t beat these guys. These guys are hungry and will be looking to upset Wesleyan for another sick W.
8. Midd: Good team. Henry Tarr is a stud and is still on his cycle. Chill Bill Curtis and Russell Thorndyke are both underrated as fuck. I don’t think they’ll beat Bowdoin this weekend, but they won’t go down quietly. Victories over SLU, Amherst and Wesleyan show these guys can ball. They do have a few L’s on their record, but they might make an at large and are capable of a run.
7. Dickinson: A great centennial team, the loss to CNU was a complete fluke. Matt Thurston is a stallion, and watching Skyler Schluter facilitate is enough to get my johnson hard enough to have intercourse with my wife again. Big tilt against Gettysburg this weekend.
6. Union: Great team, beat almost all their nescac opponents except Tufts. Huge crew from Mass, I think these guys can make a tournament run.
5. Swarthmore: I remember I failed the pre-read at this place several years back, and goddamn it still fucking hurts. These guys are some of phillies biggest nail guns and have been munching box from the villanova tri delts, and the cute tatted up nature girls at Haverford for years because the birds at swarthmore look like dog vomit. They did lose to Amherst, which is why I’m not ranking them higher than number 5. The Gettysburg loss was another fluke, I saw Peter Toner putting K in the Swarthmore water cooler
4. RIT: These guys are really good. But I don’t think they can beat the best nescacs this year. Except for a few teams, they had a really easy schedule. The liberty league is stacked this year, but it might be fraudulent because SLU was supposed to be nasty until Middlebury bent them over and gaped them, and Midd isn’t even one of the best Nescac teams. The same goes for RPI, Amherst beat them without a ton of trouble.
3. Bowdoin: They have the nescac player of the year, the best FOGO, the best SSDM, and one of the most stacked defenses I’ve ever seen. On paper with the talent they have, they might be the best team in D3 lacrosse. I expect total faceoff dominance on Saturday from these guys, but it might still be a battle.
2. Wesleyan: The best team in the ‘cac this year, with a super potent offense. Everybody eats in Middletown, and the boys have been hitting the slopes consistently. DJ Dixon, CK Giancola, Jack Raba, Justin Hazard, Ben Burns, James Bailey, remember their names. These guys are super productive, and pretty much all of them can beat their matchup reliably and make a play. Almost reminiscent of Maryland's 2022 positionless offense.
Salisbury: I said this before but they’ve run a train on pretty much everyone this year, they’ll probably end up winning the natty back to back. These guys are all beauties, and arguably the best of the best, but I want to see these guys have one worthy opponent, and I’m hoping it’ll be a nescac team.
Pretty fucking dialed, the boys should be buzzing this weekend. Lots of booze, dreams will be crushed, careers will be ended, upsets might happen, and I can't wait to snort glass off of Naomi’s knockers and watch the yoff’s unfold.