Have a look at the latest NCAA Division I women’s lacrosse rankings.
Sure, these may not mean a whole lot when it comes to seeding for the NCAA Tournament, but it is a conversation-starter.
So, let’s talk about the fourth-ranked team in America. That school is Yale.
The Elis have had a rich history in the last five decades since the team gained varsity status. The first season was a six-game undefeated campaign. Yale’s second coach was Richard Kentwell, who would go on to develop today’s most successful youth field hockey club, the W.C. Eagles.
The team’s sixth head coach, Amanda O’Leary, has been coaching the University of Florida team since 2008.
The current Yale coach, Erica (LaGrow) Bamford, is part of the O’Leary coaching tree, but in a roundabout way. Bamford was O’Leary’s assistant at Florida for seven years before migrating to Yale in time for the 2016 season.
One year ago, Yale had a dream season, claiming their first outright Ivy League regular-season title, then winning the Ivy League Tournament. The Bulldogs then would beat Binghamton and Johns Hopkins in the NCAA Tournament before running smack into Syracuse in the quarterfinal round.
This year, Bamford and Yale have been on a tear. The team sent a message in an opening-day win over Michigan, which had been America’s dark-horse pick to join Boston College, Syracuse, and Northwestern in the Final Four this year. After three 10-goal wins, Yale beat a good Rutgers side 12-6 last weekend.
There are going to be a number of opportunities for Yale to build its resume for the 2025 Division I tournament. I think the two most important games on the schedule are the Saturday/Wednesday sequence of games beginning with a March 29th game against Princeton, then an April 2nd hosting date with Syracuse.
Though Yale may hold the No. 4 ranking this week, I think it will be difficult for the team to win its way into the NCAA Tournament if it does not win the league. That’s because the schedule has only two Top 10 teams the rest of the way — No. 8 Stanford and No. 5 Syracuse. We’ll see how well the Elis do in terms of building its way in the Ratings Percentage Index.