Athletic victory on special occasions only
Tonight, Northwestern’s women’s lacrosse team beat Duke 11-10 to advance to the national championship game for the second consecutive season. I can’t link you, because seemingly no one cares about women’s sports or a lacrosse team other than the Duke men’s team, but it was an absolutely stunning game. I’ve been to several games in person, and none of them were as electrifying as this constant see-saw between two titans.
(As an aside, the play-by-play on WNUR was handled ably by Louis Wertz, my awesome roommate. Congratulations, Lou.)
Last season, the Cats went undefeated and won the national championship. They were the first Northwestern team to win any national championship since 1941; as some of you will remember, we do not have a proud athletic history to draw on. At all. Especially in football, but even more generally. We have the only men’s basketball team to have a .500-or-better season not to be invited to the National Invitational Tournament, in its history. We have never played in an NCAA basketball tournament. Ever.
Until our women’s lacrosse team went on its wild streak in ‘05 our strongest sports teams were the very clubbiest of white-people sports, tennis and golf. These teams are individual sports, principally. We are not a team sport school, normally.
But we hit paydirt last season. The women became not only the first Northwestern team to win a national championship in 64 years, but also the first women’s lacrosse team from anywhere west of the Appalachians to win a national championship. It was electrifying. They were undefeated, and outscored their opponents 317-124 on the season. As I said, truly unreal.
This season, they lost their first game in two seasons playing Duke. It was a real heart-breaker, and it set their entire season back: They relinquished their No. 1 ranking, and it hurt them going into the tournament. Which they did, pretty handily.
Tonight was the night that they rolled over Duke, in a rematch. And, for the second time, my generation can cheer a Northwestern sport winning the biggest games.
Sunday afternoon I will be listening in, as we potentially clinch a second consecutive national title. Go Cats!
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