The Boston College Eagles women’s lacrosse team, who just recently earned an at-large bid to the 2013 NCAA Tournament, are out as quickly as they got in. Playing in Syracuse, New York, the ladies lost in their first-round game against the Dartmouth Big Green, 11-8.

With the defeat, Boston College is now 1-11 all-time against Dartmouth in women’s lacrosse. The Eagles end their season with a 12-8 record. Furthermore, the women are now 0-2 in NCAA Tournament play in program history.

Boston College trailed most of the way, having led 2-1 early but losing the lead after a quick Dartmouth run from which they did not recover. Sophomore Covie Stanwick led the way for the Eagles, scoring five of BC’s eight goals. It was the fourth time this season she had reached the five-goal plateau. The other three Eagle goals came from Mikaela Rix, Moira Barry, and Sarah Mannelly.

Congratulations are in order for the Boston College Eagles women’s lacrosse team (not that there is an official men’s team from which to distinguish, but that is a matter which most of the BC blogosphere would be happy to discuss with you), who qualified for the 2013 NCAA Tournament on Sunday. It is their second berth in program history, with the previous having come in 2011.

The Eagles had a 12-7 record in the regular season and will get into the big lax dance as an at-large bid. Recently, Boston College made it as far as the Atlantic Coast Conference semifinals, falling to the North Carolina Tar Heels.

BC drew Dartmouth as their first-round matchup in Syracuse’s region. The Eagles and Big Green will face off at the Carrier Dome on Friday, May 10, at 4pm. The winner of that game will play Syracuse in the second round, with the victor moving on to the national quarterfinal round. The full tournament bracket is available here.

Boston College has only beaten Dartmouth once in eleven tries since the program’s inception, though few meetings have been recent.

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It’s not a crime to fail to repeat as national champions. The Boston College Eagles hockey team has done more than enough for itself and the fans since 2008 to earn respect and a “pass” for years like this when they don’t put it all together. What is not out of bounds is to point out that this particular Eagles team, in spite of its talent, did not in fact put it all together.

In early December, the Eagles led Providence, 3-2, with mere seconds to go in regulation. It was not just any game: Jerry York was moments away from winning his record-setting 925th game. Boston College then promptly gave up the game-tying goal and that contest ended all square at 3-3. It occurred to most BC fans then that the Eagles had entered their dreaded mid-season slump. January was up-and-down as it customarily is, but the expectation was that the Eagles would crank up another gear when “trophy season” started with the Beanpot and they’d find a way to sustain it through the early spring.

It never happened.

BC won three games in a row and bookended that short win streak by taking the Beanpot, which seemed like the end of the typical slump. The only problem was that the slump started again thereafter, and from the time they tied Providence until their season-ending loss to Union on Saturday night, BC was barely an above-.500 team at 11-10-4. The Eagles sustained two short win streaks of three games apiece, not winning four in a row since November.

Boston College only looked legitimately good early in the season, still riding the high of last season’s championship. Despite losing the season opener at Northeastern, BC followed that with ten wins in a row; looking back, if it wasn’t for that streak, this year might have been even less than expected.

The Eagles had injuries, losing players like Patch Alber and Kevin Hayes for any length of time while needing to replace the production lost by Chris Kreider, Brian Dumoulin, and Barry Almeida, amongst others. At times they did, and at times they didn’t. Hell, they even lost Jerry York to his retina issues several times over the course of the year. It seemed to have impacted the team more than we thought, though one cannot say these were the only reasons BC fell flat later in the year.

There was little rhyme or reason to BC hockey in the second half of the season. One weekend they’d drop nine goals on Northeastern in a single game and then get swept by a bad team like Maine the next. Consistency was not this team’s friend.

Seasons like this do have some value: they make you appreciate years like 2012 more. Winning 19 games in a row and blasting your way through other very good teams like they’re not even there to win a national title is extremely difficult to do. That could not have been expected this season, but it’s nevertheless disappointing when your team gets red-hot to end one season and is average in that same time frame the following year.

Boston College hockey will be back, hungrier and more focused. This year, they wore the targets on their backs and though they had a good season, they did not have anywhere near a great one. When the puck drops again in October, they’ll have to earn it back all over again, and if there’s anything we’ve learned about a Jerry York-coached team, it’s that they’ll be ready.

All good things must come to an end, and on Saturday night, that’s what happened to Boston College’s run as the defending national champions.

A new team will hoist the trophy this April, which was assured by BC’s 5-1 defeat in their regional semifinal game against the Union Dutchmen. Union will face Quinnipiac on Sunday to decide which team advances to the Frozen Four.

Boston College fell behind early and trailed 1-0 at the first intermission; this ballooned to 4-0 at the second intermission and ended up as a 5-1 loss. The Eagles narrowly avoided their only shutout loss of the season with a Johnny Gaudreau goal just inside of four minutes to go.

Both teams took seven penalties over the course of the game, but Boston College’s seemed to come at the most inopportune times — though perhaps that’s a function of them trailing almost the entire way. Even when the Eagles had power plays of their own, Union goalie Troy Grosenick repeatedly stood BC on their collective heads, robbing shot after shot. Union outshot Boston College by a 35-30 margin.

Between their Hockey East semifinal loss to Boston University and their regional semifinal loss to Union, the Eagles gave up six power play goals — three in each game. After having one of the best penalty kills in the nation almost all season long, BC’s defensive meltdown in “trophy season” was highly unusual and disappointing for those who have followed the team.

As Jerry York put it in the postgame, Union beat Boston College “fair and square.” Union was by far the better team on Saturday night and, in beating the defending champions in what was an hour away from being a home game, they earned their spot in the regional final. For BC, they will send off a senior class that won two national championships but saw bitter disappointment at the end.

Since the Eagles gave away what would have been Jerry York’s 925th win in December at Providence, a game which ended in a tie, BC finished 11-10-4. They were a thoroughly average team over the last several months of the season, so this result is not a terrible surprise, but it is nevertheless a sad ending for a talented team and senior class that accomplished so much.

If Friday is any indication of how Saturday will go, then the Boston College Eagles should feel a bit more comfortable. It doesn’t really work like that, but BC, playing their regional semifinal at 9pm tonight, would like to think so.

In the first day of 2013 NCAA Tournament action, Hockey East went 2-0 and is now guaranteed to get at least one team into the Frozen Four in Pittsburgh. BC will have to win two games to make it two Hockey East entries.

The very first game on Friday yielded a major upset. The Yale Bulldogs defeated the Minnesota Golden Gophers, the #2 overall seed in the tournament, 3-2 in overtime. Yale took a 2-0 lead into the second intermission but Minnesota stormed back to tie the game and send it to an extra period. Unfortunately for the Gophs, it lasted only nine seconds: Yale’s Jesse Root scored the game winner only a few moments into overtime to eliminate one of the top teams in the country.

Minnesota going one-and-done is a big deal, and not just because they were a 1-seed. This was a dangerous team that had a tremendous regular season, but sometimes all it takes is one clunker and everything you built is wasted. Minny losing opens the door for other teams to emerge, and could make the eventual champion’s path a little bit easier.

In that same region, North Dakota beat Niagara, 2-1. The Team Formerly Known As The Fighting Sioux™ fell behind 1-0 to the Purple Eagles and needed two goals in the third period to win it. Both came within one minute of each other and UND never looked back. They’ve got a realistic likelihood of beating Yale to reach the Frozen Four.

The Manchester region will produce a Hockey East team, and that was assured on Friday night. UMass-Lowell, the conference champions and #3 overall seed in the tournament, obliterated Wisconsin by a 6-1 score. On the bottom half of that bracket, at-large New Hampshire trailed Denver 2-1 after one but then scored four unanswered to claim a 5-2 victory.

The River Hawks of UMass-Lowell have never made a Division I Frozen Four since moving up from D-II thirty years ago; Dick Umile’s New Hampshire Wildcats have not been to the grand finale since 2003.

Friday was not a great day for the WCHA, which saw one team advance (North Dakota) and three earn a trip back home. Hockey East did all it could do by going 2-0, but give it up for the ECHA’s Yale for pulling off the day’s biggest stunner.

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Boston College men’s hockey begins what they hope is their march to another national championship tomorrow night in Providence. Thing is, there are 15 other teams hoping to do exactly the same thing, and this time, the Eagles have some question marks. It would, in fact, be easy to say that there are questions about all of the teams in the field as there is no one dominant team on a blistering win streak like BC was last season.

The following are the top four things we are going to learn from the upcoming 2013 NCAA Hockey Tournament; as for the answers to these questions, we’ll all find out together:

1. Does Boston College hockey have a second gear this season?

It’s a valid question, and one about which we’ve now wondered for months. BC hasn’t exactly been hot since the winter break, and though they definitely deserve their decent spot in the field, they have not strung together a long line of crushing performances. One day they’ll look terrible, and the next, they’ll put seven goals on the board. While BC is capable of winning their region, this year, nobody knows what exactly we’re going to get out of them, and as of yet, they have not “kicked it into high gear.”

2. Is Hockey East champion UMass-Lowell the real deal?

UML got a tough region, but they did win a difficult conference in the regular season and the tournament. There’s no guarantee they’re even escaping the first round as Wisconsin is a tough out, but if they get to Pittsburgh by beating the teams they’ll have to beat, they’re going to be very dangerous.

3. Is Quinnipiac really the best team in this field?

Some aren’t even sure Quinnipiac is the best team in BC’s region, let alone the best team overall, but that’s where they are and they’ve got the record to back it up. Could they be to college hockey what Notre Dame was to football this season? As in, the team with the best record who “earned” their spot but isn’t as experienced and wilts against the top competition? It’s possible, and we won’t have to wait long to find out.

4. Could Minnesota be heading for a hockey championship sweep?

We all saw what Minnesota did to BC earlier this season; putting that aside, they are absolutely capable of winning a national championship. The women’s team recently beat BC to do it, and the way the bracket is established, the men’s teams could meet for all the marbles as well. Nobody is going to be surprised if they win, but nothing is easy in this tournament.

The Eagles’ draw is the 3-seed Union. Their game will take place on Saturday night at 9pm; it will be televised on ESPNU.

The top overall seed, Quinnipiac, is located in this region. The Bobcats will face the Canisius Golden Griffins in their first-round game.

The complete draw is as follows; commentary will be featured on Monday morning:

At last, we’ve reached the Final Four. If you’ve followed the rest of Soaring to Glory’s bracket, you will not see any current ACC teams there, but you will see a future one in the #1 Louisville Cardinals. Other teams we’ve put in Atlanta are the #1 Indiana Hoosiers, #2 Ohio State Buckeyes, and #3 Florida Gators.

Who will win? You’re asking the wrong guy, but I can guess.

Jump into the madness with FanSided’s college network on Twitter using the hashtag #FSMadness.

The following are the picks for the Final Four and National Championship in the 2013 NCAA Tournament:

Finally, the West Region in 2013. There are two future ACC teams here, Notre Dame and Pittsburgh, but no current ACC teams.

Jump into the madness with FanSided’s college network on Twitter using the hashtag #FSMadness.

The following are the picks for the West Region in the 2013 NCAA Tournament:

Now we move to the East region of the NCAA Tournament bracket in 2013. Two (current) ACC teams are in this region: #2 Miami and #8 NC State. The Hurricanes are the ACC champions while NC State was merely predicted to be in the preseason poll. Miami has a clear shot at the Elite 8, while the Wolfpack will have much more work to do as an 8-seed.

Jump into the madness with FanSided’s college network on Twitter using the hashtag #FSMadness.

The following are the picks for the East Region in the 2013 NCAA Tournament: