Fellas;

Salisbury has to play these early season over-glorified scrimmages for one simple reason...because of the Automatic Qualifier system they had to join a conference with an Automatic Bid. The Conference they joined happens to include such lacrosse forces as Mary Washington and Catholic.
It was smart for Salisbury to join the Conference because if and when they do have an "off" year, they can still make the tourney if they aren't ranked high as long as they win their conference. By 2001 only four at-large bids will be given out in D3 lacrosse which means that it will be tough to gain one. Salisbury joined a conference they will surely win on an annual basis to cover their rear-ends, which was the smart thing to do.
Give them some credit, they scheduled the easier games early to get them out of the way even though one miraculous upset will ruin their chances at an Automatic Bid and drop them to #9 or #10 in the rankings. Had Catholic stunned Salisbury it would possibly have killed the Sea Gulls' season. I'd always schedule league games (regardless of how strong the opponent is) after a couple of scrimmages and games to get the kinks out. They didn't.
It sucks they have to play in such a Conference, in fact I think the AQ system sucks in general!!!!! A number of non-deserving teams will get bids and a bunch of ranked teams will be left out. If they want AQ's in D3, they should expand the field to 24 teams or something to make sure all of the deserving teams get in along with the conference champs. Under this system, we'll probably see a top-10 miss out on the tourney every year!!!!!
Also, the reality is that by 2010, Salisbury will be the modern-day Hobart in D3. So it doesn't matter who they face. I'd love to see Salisbury play Hopkins like Hobart used to play Syracuse but because of the criteria for post-season play that will never happen. But in any case, it doesn't matter who they play early on, there are only two or three teams that can run with them anyway. Everybody else is going to get crushed.