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Final lax polls

Email|Link|Comments (2) Posted by Chris Forsberg, Boston.com Staff June 24, 2008 07:51 AM

We're rolling out our final boys' and girls' lacrosse Top 20s of the 2008 season today. Check out both the boys' lacrosse and girls' lacrosse rankings below:

BOYS

1.	Duxbury			22-2	1
2.	Billerica		17-5	7
3.	St. John's Prep		18-3	3
4.	Medfield		21-4	2
5.	Walpole			21-1	4
6.	Xaverian		16-6	5
7.	Andover			14-6	6
8.	Scituate		16-6	15
9.	Reading			18-4	12
10.	Lexington		15-5	19
11.	Marshfield		16-6	-
12.	Winchester		16-6	-
13.	Needham			16-7	16
14.	Cohasset		13-5	20
15.	Dover-Sherborn		15-6	14
16.	North Andover		17-5	11
17.	Barnstable		17-4	13
18.	King Philip		20-2	17
19.	Arlington		16-4	-
20.	Lowell			14-7	10

Some quick thoughts: We're not sure you can really argue with the top 10 squads (though I'm sure we'll get some feedback). Billerica earned that No. 2 spot with its late-season play and by taking Duxbury to the wire in the championship game. St. John's Prep topped Medfield in overtime late in the regular season and that helped sort those two squads out. Some might argue that Scituate is a bit too high, but we think the Sailors earned a lofty spot with their late-season surge. All the teams in the back end of the top 20 really had their ups and downs during the season. Marshfield overcame some injuries to surge late, but we would have liked to have seen them against some other top competition. Some will argue that King Philip is too low, but that comes down to strength of schedule. We considered a pack of teams for No. 20, including BC High and Waltham, but we'll give Lowell the nod considering that, of the Raiders' seven losses, three came against Top 10 squads and two came out of state. Lowell also smacked Reading during the regular season.

GIRLS

1.	Westwood	24-0-1	1
2.	Framingham	22-2-1	3
3.	Wellesley	18-1-1	2
4.	Lincoln-Sudbury	21-2-0	4
5.	Needham		19-4-1	7
6.	Winchester	20-1-2	5
7.	King Philip	17-3-0	6
8.	Andover		17-6-0	8
9.	Acton-Boxboro	18-3-1	9
10.	Norwell		16-9-0	19
11.	North Andover	20-2-1	11
12.	Reading		14-5-2	14
13.	Lexington	18-4-0	15
14.	Duxbury		14-5-2	12
15.	Masconomet	14-4-0	13
16.	Weston		13-7-0	--
17.	Hingham		13-6-0	20
18.	Georgetown	13-6-0	--
19.	Sandwich	20-1-1	16
20.	Notre Dame	15-4-1	18

Some quick thoughts: We can hear the groans in Wellesley already. Yes, the Raiders defeated Framingham in a head-to-head battle back on April 7. But that was more than two months ago. If the teams met again later in the season, we believe the Flyers likely would have returned the favor. From what we saw, Westwood and Framingham were simply a cut above. Division 1, as a whole, however, was absolutely loaded and we reflected that in the top 5. Winchester, King Philip, and Andover sorted themselves out from regular-season play. Georgetown was tough to figure out. The Royals stormed to the Division 2 North final, but had also endured some questionable losses during the regular season, like a 13-8 defeat at the hands of a Manchester Essex squad that finished 6-8.

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2 comments so far...

I think you did a good job on the top 20. Wish i could say the same about your coverage this season. I mean you started of with all this great stuff and then nothing Duxbury and D2 south shore teams for the rest of the year.

As for All-scholastics, How could you possibly leave Andover's Brendan Hughes and Matt Rayner. You have a 2x All-American, point totals go down, but thats because you have teams putting two poles on him the entire game. I cant imagine that anyone who has seen Hughes play would argue that Bampus or any of the juniors selected take over the game nearly as much as he does. Rayner not only is one of the fasted kids Ive seen in years but hes is a ridiculous athlete and Co- league mvp with Melaugh (whom he shutdown to 1 assist twice) and is playing
football and Lax at Middlebury next year.

Forsberg's response:

Agreed, our coverage suffered once I got pulled off tournament coverage to assist with the Celtics' championship run. Wish it could have been timed better, but that's how things go in a town where pro sports are king. I think the Globe's school sports staff did a very nice job during tournament coverage.

As for All-Scholastics, there are extremely tough decisions each season. I'd give my left arm to have more space for deserving athletes.

Posted by Dave W June 24, 08 06:53 PM

I agree with your girls lax final poll except for Lincoln Sudbury at number 4. They absolutely do not deserve to be that high. Played in a weak league and played a very weak out of league schedule. It showed against Framingham which was the first top team they played in the playoffs.

Forsberg's response:

Interesting, L-S played five top 10 squads during the season and eight top 20 teams overall. While I agree that the DCL isn't the most rigid league top to bottom, there's certainly talent there in A-B and Weston (especially for a small school). Teams like Westford and Concord were tournament teams as well.

L-S's only losses came against Framingham (to me, no shame in that). In fact, the Warriors played the Flyers fairly tight the first game (16-11), but clearly Framingham was on another level by the end of the season (which is a shame there was no Wellesley rematch for the Flyers).

I gave L-S points for beating King Philip (a game I saw and L-S very much dominated, even if it was one of KP's worst showings).

You can certainly make the case for Winchester and/or Needham ahead of L-S, but with no head-to-head matchups to go upon, that's hard to predict. Those three teams were very, very similar in strength to me. We could fairly call them 4A, 4B, and 4C.

Posted by acearl June 24, 08 07:38 PM