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Some have contended that scoring is down in men's Division I lacrosse this season. The assertions have been made in the context of observations of (allegedly more) slow, deliberate play — which many argue is boring, bad for the game, etc. It is, of course, easy to site specific examples. However, isolated examples do not by themselves a trend make. We took the scores for men's and women's divisions I, II, and III for the 2000, 2001, and 2002 seasons and examined both average scoring and high-margin score differentials. The two graphs below show the scoring trends by division for men's and women's teams over the last three years. For all three men's divisions, scoring (avg. total goals per game) has consistently decreased. The decline is just under 1½ goals per game in Division I (and over 2 goals per game in D-II and about 1.3 in D-III). Even the drop in D-III may be more than meets the eye: With about 800 games in that division, that represents about 100 fewer goals in 2002 than in 2000. The situation for women's lacrosse is strikingly different. As the second graph shows, scoring in all three divisions dipped in 2001 and rebounded in 2002, though not quite to 2000 levels in Divisions I and III.  
Another issue that arises periodically is high goal differentials (i.e., "running up the score") and the occasional concern that some teams may try to produce wide margins of victory to enhance their rankings and/or post-season chances. The graphs below show that score differentials of 20 or more goals are neither common nor rare. "Rare" does, however, describe the situation in men's Division I, where almost no games in 2001 and 2002 were decided by such a large margin. (Most of high-differential games in 2000 were associated with one team.) In men's Division III, there has been a very slight decline in high-margin games, and about 1 game in 20 is that lopsided. In the women's divisions, the percentage of games with 20+ goal margins is smaller (about 1 game in 25 in Division III and much less elsewhere). However, the percentage is on the rise. This situation may well be attributable to the rapid growth of women's teams and the relatively weak performance of most of the new teams until they get established and have an opportunity to bring in several recruiting classes.  
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