This evening, Army West Point’s women’s lacrosse team played perhaps its finest game against its service-academy rival Navy in a 12-11 triple-overtime win.
The game-winning goal came from an Annapolis native, Kathleen Sullivan. She cur and found herself in front of the Navy goaltender with enough time and room to fire a shot into the back hf the cage, sending the Army faithful assembled at the Ridley Athletic Complex into delight and delirium.
Army’s program is barely eight years old, but it now stands on the precipice of winning the Patriot League championship outright with a win on Saturday. Even if the Cadets lose the game to tournament host and No. 1 seed Loyola, a strong case can be made for this 14-2 team to get an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. West Point has wins over ranked teams like Rutgers, Jacksonville, and Navy, and only lost to Yale, another ranked team, by one goal. But Army has not played an ACC team this season and Rutgers is its only Big Ten foe.
This has led to a strength of schedule which is only 56th in the country, and a Ratings Percentage Index of 0.5736, which is the 24th best in Division I.
Numerically, it would be difficult for Army to make the Division I tournament but that could conclude with a win on Saturday. Given what I know about Michelle Tumolo and Katrina Dowd as coaches, nothing would surprise me.
