Laxwomen Ranked, Invited to ECAC's

Yesterday was a kind day to the Harvard women's lacrosse team.

First off, the Crimson found out that it was ranked in the Brine Top 15 for the first time all year, making No. 12 Harvard the third-highest ranked Ivy team behind No. 4 Princeton and No. 11 Yale.

To cap off the day, Harvard then found out that the ECAC accepted the Crimson's bid for this weekend's tournament. Harvard (5-5, 3-3 Ivy) hoped to get invited to the four-team event, which is unrelated to the NCAA Tournament, to get more experience against talented teams.

Though the bid was appreciated, however, the seedings were not. Not only did no top-10 teams choose to go, but Harvard--the highest ranked team in the ECAC Tournament--isn't even the top seed. Unranked Lehigh has the first spot for some unknown reason, followed by Harvard, No. 13 Brown and Rutgers.

Since Lehigh has the top slot, the Engineers can host the Saturday-Sunday tournament if they wish. If they refuse, then the Crimson would have the option of hosting it.

Either way, Lehigh will play Rutgers and Harvard will battle Brown in a rematch of their mid-April game. The Crimson won that, 10-7 in Cambridge, breaking a five-game slide.

On Sunday, the two winners and possibly the two losers will face each other.

Wherever the games are played, Harvard will have a busy week. Today the team hosts New Hampshire in its last regular-season home game, and on Thursday Harvard travels to UMass in a remake of a snowed out game.