U20 Eagle Jozy Gessner leads Colorado State to Westerns.

BYU's Kristi Jackson looked strong against UNM earlier in the season.

UVA trounched East Carolina 50-0 in a friendly.

Caitlin Wiliams and UNC have a long road back to Nationals. (Andy Mead photo)

With the exception of the South, league play has finished throughout women's DI college, and the playoff picture is coming into focus. The Northeast and Midwest decided their national representatives in the fall, and so far only the Brown v Michigan game has been etched onto paper. The rest of their fellow Round of 16-bound compatriots eagerly await for their opponents to emerge from territorial qualifiers.

On March 26, Texas A&M, Colorado, Colorado State and New Mexico (ranked in that order) head to Norman, Okla., vying for the West's two seeds to nationals. Texas A&M returned from the Savannah St. Patrick's tournament last weekend with a championship title, beating a strong Clemson side 10-5 in the final. They will face UNM, which dropped a 35-12 game to CU on Sunday, and get the nod for a final's berth.

The Colorado vs Colorado State semifinal is assured to be a barnburner, but CU has a little more momentum following the season's end, seeing as CSU lost to Air Force, who hadn't won a game all season, 10-5 two weekends ago. But nothing can calm the rivalry that exists between the two Colorado schools, and with full rosters back intact, the fight to the West final will be intense.

We're tentatively picking Texas A&M and Colorado to book their tickets to Blaine, Minn., where the West will contest its first round at nationals. Whichever West team finishes second has the unfortunate task of facing Army, while the West champion will see the Mid-Atlantic's #3 team.

MARFU contests its quarterfinals on April 2, and three of the matches should go quite easily to the top-ranked teams: Navy over James Madison, Penn State over Virginia Tech, and Virginia over Princeton. The fourth quarterfinal, however, will be a toughy between Maryland and West Chester. Each team has been hustling through its friendly preseason in preparation.

Maryland is getting its fair share of field time, and played well against eventual Virginia Women's Invitational champion North Carolina, narrowly losing 11-10 during pool play, but then struggled against UVA (46-0) in the semis. Last weekend, the Terps rallied with a 25-10 over Mary Washington, a quality DII team, and then the A side played against a mixture of DC Furies, MD Stingers and Chesapeake players for 40 minutes, tying 20-all.

"It was a hard, strong match and was great for my players to experience the fast pace of the women's game," Maryland coach Pamela Gouws said. "We play UVA this weekend and we needed this 40-minute period to get my players in the fast-paced mindset."

WCU warmed up against DII's Temple and won handily 63-0. The Golden Rams have lined up Indiana (Penn.) and Princeton before MARFU quarterfinals.

MARFU sends three teams to nationals, and there's no reason to expect that the top-ranked teams won't return to the big show. The Mid-Atlantic's three seeds are all ranked in the nation's top seven. Assuming Penn State wins MARFU, they'll see Midwest #2 seed Northern Iowa. As mentioned, MARFU #3 plays the Western champion, and MARFU #2 sees Pacific Coast #3.

The Pacific Coast contests its play-ins on April 1-2, as BYU, Davis, California and Oregon battle for the third and fourth seeds to regional playoffs; Stanford and Davis have already earned their spots. BYU is the heavy favorite and will see California in the play-in semifinal, while Chico State and Oregon play in the other. CSU gets a slight advantage against Oregon considering the team's weighty league season and comparative scores against mutual opponent Oregon State.

Playing averages, we should see Stanford play Chico State on April 15 in one Pac Coast semi and BYU and Davis in the other. CSU gave the Cardinal a run for their money during league, losing only 17-5. With BYU favored over UCD, one of the year's best games should occur between Stanford and BYU for the Pacific Coast Championship. Pac gets three seeds, so the third place match should be good as well; Chico and Davis tied 17-all in their league match. Whichever team loses in the Pacific Coast final will play Dartmouth in Ohio; whichever team wins will play UCLA in Blaine, Minn.

UCLA must rue the outcome of its league season. The Bruins split games with UC San Diego in Southern California and since the territory fields only four teams, there are no playoffs, simply rankings. San Diego banked two extra bonus points and was awareded So Cal #1 seed. UCLA worked incredibly hard to secure the #6 seed for Southern California at nationals, and those benefits now go to UCSD, who will play the South #1 seed in Blaine. With a Stanford/BYU game on its horizon, UCLA likely won't see past the round of 16 in 2011.

So which South team will San Diego have the pleasure of playing in the first round? The first step in deciding will come in early April when the play-ins occur. The second-place teams - UNC, Georgia, Florida - will battle for the fourth South semifinal seed, and join conference winners East Carolina, Clemson and Central Florida. UNC is favored to win the playins, considering it has traditionally done well against its Southern opponents (the Tar Heels beat Clemson 50-0 in mid November), but the South semis are another story. ECU has beat UNC twice in league play; Central Florida has been crushing opponents under Raoul Besse's tutelage; and according to Clemson coach Mike May, he's leading one of the strongest squads he's coached in years. To say the least, if UNC wants to return to nab the lone seed to nationals, the road there will be very difficult.