BYU beat Grand Canyon last week and the week before Lindenwood beat BYU in this year's first forays in D1 Elite.
With 13 games finished up the league had just five more matchups left, and they are important ones. The key player here will be Central Washington, which has three games, against Life, Lindenwood, and BYU, and how those games go will settle how the seeds fall out for the semifinals.
Probably, the winner of Central vs BYU on March 16 will take the #3 seed and that will set up a semifinal at, mostly likely, Life. The #4 team will take on Lindenwood.
For their part, Lindenwood leads the pack by a significant margin. The Lions are 5-0 with three wins by more than 50 points. The closest two matches were against CWU and Life.
Led by the teeth-rattling tackles of Freda Tafuna, the smart ball distribution and space exploitation of Amy Brice, and the skills of Demi Allen Taina Tukuafu, Lindenwood has been pretty dominant, but they do remember being tested by the Wildcats 25-12 in Ellensburg.
"They caught us off-guard a bit," said Lindenwood Head Coach Trevor Locke. "They were definitely up for it and that's what you want. All of the teams are a little bit different. They test us in different ways. BYU came right at us and were very aggressive. That was a good challenge for us."
Still, Lindenwood is on top and probably favored to win it all. But, yes, they have to actually get the job done, and to do that they have to avoid looking past anyone.
