NCAA Regional Rankings  |  Rankings Data (PDF)
 
INDIANAPOLIS – The Slippery Rock University women's lacrosse team was ranked No. 2 in the Atlantic Region when the first ranked-order list of NCAA Regional Rankings were announced Wednesday by the Division II Women's Lacrosse Committee.
 
The NCAA Regional Rankings are the only rankings that matter when it comes to determining which teams from each region will qualify for the National Championship Tournament. Qualification for the tournament includes automatic bids for the champion of each conference that is eligible with the rest of the field being filled by at-large selections.
 
The Atlantic Region postseason field will be made up of six total teams from the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference, the Mountain East Conference and the South Atlantic Conference with each conference's champion earning an automatic bid. The other three bids will be chosen by the selection committee using criteria that includes overall win-loss record, in-region win-loss record, weighted strength of schedule, wins against teams with records above .500, the rating performance index (RPI) and performance indicator (PI) scores, and the results of head-to-head competition.
 
Slippery Rock is currently in a comfortable position to earn a second straight trip to the national playoffs after qualifying last spring for the first time in program history. The Rock went on to knock off undefeated top seed West Chester to win the Atlantic Region title and advance to the national semifinals. SRU has carried that momentum into this year and is one of just three undefeated teams in the country with one week left in the regular season, joining East Stroudsburg and current national No. 1 ranked Flagler.
 
The PSAC owns the top four positions in the list announced Wednesday with East Stroudsburg, West Chester and Kutztown representing the Eastern Division and Slippery Rock representing the West. The SAC has three teams on the list with Wingate, Lenoir-Rhyne and Anderson (S.C.), while the MEC has one team in Frostburg State.
 
Wednesday's rankings do not include games played this week and the data used for the rankings was compiled after last weekend's games, meaning none of the PSAC games from Wednesday were included in the data (SRU and ESU both remained undefeated with ranked wins).
 
Entering this week, The Rock owned the No. 1 performance indicator score in the region at 17.133, which ranked ahead of East Stroudsburg at 16.688. The Warriors had the No. 1 RPI score in the region at .663 with Slippery Rock ranking fourth in that metric at .647. There is very little separating the two teams in the metrics with ESU currently owning a .547 strength of schedule to SRU's .537 and both teams owning 6-0 records against teams with above .500 records.
 
Slippery Rock is in the regional rankings for the fourth straight year and just the fifth season since SRU brought the sport back in 2007.
 
The Rock have already locked up the PSAC West title and the No. 1 seed in the upcoming PSAC Playoffs. SRU will close the regular season Saturday with a noon game at Lock Haven before hosting Shippensburg in the PSAC quarterfinal round next Tuesday. A win in that game would give SRU hosting rights for the PSAC semifinals next Friday and title game next Sunday.  
 
A look at this week's regional rankings can be found below.
 
NCAA REGIONAL RANKINGS – April 22 *
Second set – Next set will be published April 29

Rank	School	W-L	SOS	RPI	NCAA PI
1	East Stroudsburg	16-0	.547	.663	16.688
2	SLIPPERY ROCK	15-0	.537	.647	17.133
3	West Chester	13-2	.571	.655	15.933
4	Kutztown	9-5	.615	.627	14.357
5	Wingate	13-3	.570	.629	15.750
6	Frostburg State	12-3	.534	.599	14.333
7	Lenoir-Rhyne	9-6	.569	.566	13.733
8	Anderson (S.C)	10-6	.559	.570	13.750

 * Data only includes games through April 19




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