February 14, 2013 by Charlie Eisenhood in Other, Rankings with 4 comments
This week’s edition of the Ultiworld College Power Rankings is now live.
Here’s a look at the big movers after the first big weekend of action on the East Coast in Div. 1 at the Queen City Tune Up and the first exclusive Div. III (Open) tournament.
D-I OPEN
– North Carolina (#7) moves up a notch after a strong performance at their home tournament, Queen City Tune Up. They looked polished and impressive, with top 25 wins over Ohio and Harvard.
– Ohio (#12) lacked the depth and legs they needed to take down UNC, but looked strong behind the outstanding play of Mitch Cihon and Connor Haley. They move up 6 slots on the back of good wins over Harvard, Georgia, and Penn State.
– Harvard (#13) jumps to the top of the New England leader boards with a big quarterfinals victory of Tufts at QCTU, where they shut out their crosstown rivals in the second half. Redline also put up the best game of the weekend on UNC in a 15-11 loss (they led at half 8-6), and lost by just one to Ohio. They were the biggest movers of the weekend, jumping eight spots.
– Where Harvard rose, Tufts (#18) fell. Tufts is now 0-3 against Harvard on the season, going back to the Fall season. They are still a very strong team, but they have work to do to get back on top in the New England region.
– Penn State (#24) came into QCTU as the seventh seed, but finished fourth after an impressive weekend. Although they lost on universe to Michigan in pool play, they won the pool and advanced to semifinals with a quarters win over Cincinnati (11-9). They lost by just two to Ohio, before getting blown out by Harvard in the third place game. Considering their only Sunday losses came to ranked teams, Penn State finds their way into the top 25.
– Michigan fell all the out of the top 25 after a poor showing at QCTU, where they missed the championship bracket before losing to Appalachian State on Sunday. They do have some big athletes, but they need to learn to use them better to notch wins against good teams. If they can learn to play better zone O, they’ll find themselves back in the top 25 soon.
D-I WOMEN’S
– Iowa State (#7) moves up three slots on the back of an undefeated weekend at the Queen City Tune Up. Although they had close games all day on Sunday, they used their experience and depth to notch wins, despite missing one of their top playmakers, Jess Langr, for the weekend. They are the team to beat in the North Central.
– Carleton (#9) flies from unranked straight into the top 10 after the most impressive weekend from any team in the country. Coming in as the 13 seed, Syzygy — led by handler Anna Reed — rolled through the competition with easy wins over everyone until a universe point loss in the finals to Iowa State. Despite missing the College Championships last year, this team is poised to make a deep run this year.
– North Carolina (#12), other than Carleton, saw the biggest jump in the rankings this week. Despite a loss to Michigan (#25) in pool play, Pleiades won their pool and beat Tufts by six in quarterfinals before losing by three to eventual champions Iowa State in semifinals. They took fourth after a loss to Iowa (#10).
– Virginia (#22) stumbled ten spots after a rough Sunday, going 1-2 with losses to Wisconsin (#14) and North Carolina – Wilmington (#21). They did notch quality wins over Ohio State (#16) and Florida State (#17) on Saturday. There’s a lot of parity in the middle of the rankings.
– Pittsburgh (#23) joins the top 25 this week with wins over Florida (#24) and UNC-W. They also played close against Iowa State and Ohio State, but got blown out by Carleton and Wisconsin. The inconsistency may be a byproduct of rust at an early spring tournament.
D-III OPEN
– Puget Sound (#1) showed that they are the team to beat this year after going 6-0 against the country’s top DIII teams at the DIII Warmup.
– Claremont (#2), the home team, silenced the doubters this weekend, posting two wins over Carleton GOP (#3), one over Amherst (#17), and one over Connecticut College (#23) on route to a second place finish.
– St. John’s (#5) fifth-place finish with losses to Puget Sound and GOP is very respectable for a team playing without two of their top players.
– Rice (#8) gets the edge over Pacific Lutheran (#10) for their ability to keep things close with Puget Sound in their first (and fresh-legged) matchup. Pacific Lutheran played well all weekend but it will be interesting to see how a windy tournament will affect their huck-happy offense.
– Amherst (#17) jumps into the top 25 after universe losses to GOP and Pacific Lutheran as well as a close win over Connecticut College. All of this was done playing with about eleven men and without their captain on Sunday.
– Connecticut College (#23) also jumps from unranked into the top 25 after a universe point loss to Claremont and close losses to PLU and Amherst. They also only had thirteen men this weekend.
D-III WOMEN’S
Not much movement this week, but Swarthmore (#3) jumps high into the rankings thanks to their finals appearance at the Queen City Tune Up Open last weekend. Last year, Swarthmore attended DI regionals, but let us know that they are definitely playing DIII this year.
