March 25, 2014 by Jesse Moskowitz in News, Recap with 3 comments
For a recap of DIII Easterns, check out the full tournament writeup. Elon went home with a tournament victory while the rest of the Atlantic Coast region looked very strong.
Southerns quietly featured a bracket with three of the better DIII teams in the nation. #18 Wake Forest finally earned a good win over #7 Carleton GOP, but continued their trend of losing to quality opponents. Their five losses at Southerns came by a total of 13 points. The losses include South Florida, Georgia College, UCLA, and St. Olaf. GOP looked like their usual selves, winning tough games against teams like Appalachian and Princeton. The perennial North Central contenders also lost close to Williams and both DIII opponents.
#13 Georgia College definitely proved they can play by taking down GOP and Wake Forest. They lost big to South Florida, but unless a Southeast challenger comes out of the woodwork, I’d bet my life savings that GCSU makes Nationals out of the South East.
#2 St. Olaf went 5-2 at Southerns with a nice win over Wake Forest. They fell to LSU and UT-Chattanooga. They should comfortably hold a bid for the NC.
At Spring Awakening, #3 Bentley looked really tough only losing to Brown in the finals and beating #10 Stevens Tech, Delaware, and Columbia. With an unimpressive showing from Middlebury and iffy results from Amherst, Bentley may be the favorite in New England. Stevens Tech didn’t meet lofty expectations in their first real showing. Close losses to Columbia, Bentley, and Delaware certainly aren’t unimpressive, but a signature win or two wouldn’t have hurt. Lehigh looked predictably tough as well. A close loss to Brown on Saturday morning and wins over Bowdoin, UNH, and Columbia prove their still a real Ohio Valley presence despite the hype of other newcomers.
Wisconsin-Parkside looked like an improved team at Music City Tune-Up, finishing 7-1 with a tournament victory. While there weren’t any wins against great competition, their consistency is promising.
At Huckbuddy Invite, WPI and Bryant both looked strong. They’re still levels away from the elite New England teams, but they certainly aren’t pushovers. A young RPI team continues to improve as well.
