Last May, the University of North Carolina, The University of Tampa, and Middlebury College walked away with the three national championships on offer by the NCAA.
In the last 24 hours, all three teams made some loud statements about their intentions about repeating.
In women’s lacrosse, especially, we’ve seen year-over-year dominance by teams like Maryland, The College of New Jersey, Middlebury, Northwestern, and Adelphi. How is this so? Lacrosse has so many intricacies that if one team is able to find some sort of edge and recruit around it, the dominance of the program can outlast the dominance of one player.
Take, for instance, yesterday’s 17-10 win Tampa rolled out over previously undefeated Maryville in a meeting of Top 5 teams in Division II. Maryville had come into this interconference matchup unbeaten and had drawn level at 4-4 in the 17th minute of play.
Tampa would then score the next 10 goals of the game. It wasn’t the draw controls that killed the Saints; it was a combination of goaltending (Savvy Barbosa had 11 saves in the contest) and some midfield indiscipline on the part of Maryville. The Saints picked up five one-minute green card fouls which led to Tampa power plays.
Another team that got on a substantial run was North Carolina. The Tar Heels won a key ACC matchup with national championship condender Boston College with a 21-12 win at Anson Dorrance Field. The Tar Heels’ decisive 11-1 run in the game way by Tewaaraton Trophy-winner Chloe Humphrey. She scored eight goals and recorded three assists, all while directing the UNC attack like an orchestra conductor.
How good was the UNC attack? The Heels chased Shea Dolce, first-choice goaltender for the U.S. women’s national team, from the game. You had to expect Boston College, who came into yesterday’s game with a 5-4 record, to be keen to get a result from this contest, given how clustered the competition is for the eight berths in the ACC Tournament. But UNC laid a huge “no” on the proceedings.
UNC, the top team in all the land, has had experience in the past overwhelming a highly-touted league opponent, only to find the going more difficult in conference and NCAA play. It will be interesting to see what the rematches between these two sides will look like if they meet up.
You can say the same with Middlebury and Bates, who are conference rivals in the New England Small College Athletic Conference. The Panthers, your four-time consecutive NCAA Division III champs, are building on that legacy as well as the coaching wins total of Kate Livesay, who breached the 300-win barrier earlier this year.
Bates, despite winning only once in the last 15 meetings with Middlebury, played close to the champs all afternoon. Indeed, Middlebury’s largest lead was but four goals, and that vascillated from the 18th minute for the rest of the contest. The Bobcats held on with tenacity, pulling to within a goal of the lead on two occasions in the second half.
However, Middlebury was able to ride the hot hand of Caroline Adams, who scored a pair of late goals to secure the 11-8 result.
If these games are any indication, the rest of the women’s lacrosse world will have to do a lot to knock the three current titleholders off their thrones.