(Photo by Jodi Vosika)

by Jac Coyne | MCLA.us

LA CROSSE, Wis. – We’re a week away from April. It's when things get serious in races for conference playoffs and championships.

Let’s see where we’re at with the standings.

Atlantic Lacrosse Conference (ALC)
Division I
At 2-0 in their respective subdivisions so far, Liberty and Virginia Tech are the frontrunners for the first-round bye and a spot in the semifinals at the Lynchburg City Stadium. Not terribly surprising.

The race for the final four spots will be entertaining. West Virginia and NC State have a slight inside track, but everything is essentially up for grabs in both subdivisions.

Division II
UNC-Charlotte and Wake Forest are looking solid to move on to the conference tournament out of the North, but nothing is clinched yet. The South competition finishes off the season.

RESULTS: FRIDAY | SATURDAY | SUNDAY

Continental Lacrosse Conference (CLC)
Division I
We’re just one game into the season – New Hampshire is in the lead! – so nothing to report here. Four of the five teams make the tournament, so it’ll probably be dramatic.

Division II
Everything appears to be running through Rhode Island at this point, but the race for the other three spots could be hectic.

Lone Star Alliance (LSA)
Division I
Eight of the 12 teams in the LSA make the playoffs and no one is mathematically eliminated as of yet. You’d probably be safe putting Missouri and Kansas in from the North and LSU and SMU in from the South. The remaining four is still fluid. Safe to say the South is still the more strenuous division.

Division II
There has been some attrition on the D-II side of the LSA that has muddied the original playoff structure (that included four subdivisions). Suffice it to say that the tourney will be played at SMU, but the D-II title goes through Missouri State.

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Pacific Northwest Collegiate Lacrosse League (PNCLL)
Division I
The way Boise State and Fraser are playing, you’d assume the Broncos and Clan are through, so it’s a battle for the remaining two slots to Lake Oswego.

Division II
Montana is in already, and if Western Washington can tame Central Washington next weekend, the Vikings will also be in out of the North. In the South, Northwest Nazarene and College of Idaho will be on the other half of the draw. Their battle on April 22 will determine seeding.

Rocky Mountain Lacrosse Conference (RMLC)
Division I
Like the CLC, it’s a five-team race for four spots and way to early to tell. Utah has a loss, which puts a little bit of pressure on the Utes.

Division II
Montana State, Utah State and Air Force are in the driver’s seat for three of the four bids but still enough time – and games – left in the RMLC’s odd league format to reshuffle the deck.

SouthEastern Lacrosse Conference (SELC)
Division I
Georgia Tech is the only team officially qualified for the conference tournament, but we’re getting a pretty good shape about how this six-team playoff will look like. One more win for South Carolina and the champs are going to be in the mix. No one else in the conference wants that.

Division II
Way too early to predict anything other than a dogfight. The brutal part of the South race is a ranked team isn’t going to make the conference playoffs. If North Florida knocks off Kennesaw on Tax Day, it’ll go to tiebreakers in the North.

Southwestern Lacrosse Conference (SLC)
Division I
San Diego State strengthened its bonafides for the conference tournament with a win over Arizona on Sunday, but there are still seven teams in the hunt for four spots, and UCLA can be a huge spoiler down the stretch. Going to be a lot of desperate lacrosse to grab a bid.

Division II
The top two spots in each subdivision appear to be settled, but the race for the third spots will be intriguing. San Diego and Loyola Marymount are in a good spot, but you never know.

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Upper Midwest Lacrosse Conference (UMLC)
Division I
It’s been a rough non-conference schedule for the UMLC squads, as only Illinois has an overall winning record at this point. The battle between Indiana, Purdue and Miami (Ohio) in the East subdivision should be good drama.

Division II
It’s a tale of two subdivisions. The East played a three-way this past weekend in Allendale to determine the seeding for the conference playoffs. The results: 1. Grand Valley; 2. North Dakota State; 3. Dayton.

In the west, the seeding process will commence on Friday with St. John’s facing Minn.-Duluth, but won’t wrap up until late April.

Western Conference Lacrosse League (WCLL)
Division I
With six of the eight teams qualifying for the conference playoffs, every team is just trying to stay out of the cellar. And guess what? We won’t know for another month because, for the most part, the WCLL backloads its league schedule.

Division II
One would assume Saint Mary’s, Chico and UC Davis are in good spots right now, so it’s a race for the last entry. Tough to predict at this point.

Most impressive win this week? #mcla23
— 2023 MCLA National Tourney (@MCLA_Tournament) March 27, 2023

MY TOP FIVES
Division I
1. Liberty (9-1) – Road trip locks up a conference tourney berth.
2. Florida (10-1) – Tidy little weekend with a handy pair of victories.
3. San Diego State (7-0) – Big road hurdle cleared for the undefeated ‘Tecs.
4. Georgia (9-1) – Dawgs avoid a trap game loss to JMU to set up hatefulness.
5. Utah Valley (8-1) – Couple of ranked games to pad the resume this week.

Division II
1. Rhode Island (8-1) – Not much left on the schedule, unfortunately.
2. Cal State San Marcos (6-1) – Have every phase of the game cooking.
3. Wake Forest (8-1) – Deacs answered a bunch of questions this weekend.
4. Florida Gulf Coast (6-0) – Impressive performance in win over Charlotte.
5. Montana State (7-1) – Two-week recovery before the showdown with USU.

SLIDES & RIDES
- A little surprised Chapman thumped UC Santa Barbara so handily. Gauchos have lost four of their last five…Florida State losing to Auburn is a second-straight setback for the Seminoles. Colorado and Florida won’t be an easy finish to the season…Ole Miss snapped its seven-game skid to start the season by sweeping Oklahoma and Oklahoma State…Virginia Tech bounced back from the South Carolina loss with a comfy conference win over Tenneessee.

- We’re not used to seeing Brigham Young with three losses before April, but that’s the price of playing a decent schedule. And to be fair, two of the losses have come by a lone goal. BYU has played the most diverse schedule (eight of the nine conferences accounted for) this year, which should get them some credit. Fortunately, they have plenty of quality games left to push them back up the charts.

- Wake Forest has now defeated Florida Atlantic and Kennesaw this spring. That’s good news for the ALC when the committee puts the league up against the SELC for at-large selections. On the flip side, Florida Gulf Coast subduing UNC-Charlotte is a big chip for the SELC. Both feel like two-bid leagues at this point…nice win for Maine over UMass-Dartmouth.