This evening at 6 p.m., the latest biggest women’s lacrosse game in the history of civilization will take place as Northwestern travels to Anson Dorrance Field to take on North Carolina in a rematch of last year’s NCAA Division I women’s lacrosse final.
These are two quality programs: since 2005, only once did one or the other not make the Final Four. The teams have combined for 12 championships over the last 20 seasons and each of these teams have had an outsized influence on the way the game is played. Both head coaches, Jenny Levy and Kelly Amonte-Hiller, have served on the NCAA rules committee and have reshaped the game from a pastoral pastime played with wooden sticks on pastures with unlimited boundaries to a technological contest with space-age sticks, hard boundaries, and (yeep!) the occasional video referee decision.
Today, a lot of attention will be focused on a pair of Tewaaraton winners — Madison Taylor of Northwestern and Ashley Humphrey of North Carolina. Each of these players have the talent and ability to influence a game.
But both of these players are going to be opposed by defenders like UNC’s Brooklyn Walker-Welch and Sam Forrest, as well as Northwestern close defenders Kate Ratanaproeska, Madison Smith, and Jenika Cuocco.
I think a key to this game is which coach decides to throw a double at Taylor or Humphrey, and whether or not the defenders will be accumulating cards over the course of the game.
While one should expect a clean game when these two groups of players take the field, I get the feeling that someone may get sent off for an accumulation of yellows. Let’s see.