ANNAPOLIS, Md. — There’s nothing more spectacular than watching the underdogs hoist a national championship trophy over their heads.
Not that I think they were the underdogs.
I spent the entire weekend learning about the world of women’s lacrosse, where you don’t stand a chance if you’re not from the East Coast. I spent long periods of time listening to excuses from coaches about why their teams lost to a squad from the Midwest whose best attribute is that it has athletic players.
I heard coaches and players say that when it comes down to the Final Four, any team can win because there’s so much parity.
I’m sick of it.
The 2005 Northwestern women’s lacrosse team is the national champion for one reason: because they were so much better than everyone else.
They were perfect in every way. Top-ranked offense, top-ranked defense, perfect record.
“Anybody can win it,” Dartmouth coach Amy Patton said after Friday’s semifinal, after her team got whooped by NU. “When you get down to a final eight, anybody can win it at this point in women’s lacrosse.”
Uh, no. Maybe next year. But this year, there was one clear-cut winner.
That winner is a team that ranks up there as one of the greatest squads in NU history, up there with 1995 football and 1941 men’s fencing (the last team to win an NCAA championship).
And the story of the team that won NU’s second-ever NCAA team championship sounds like it was made for Hollywood.
As the Wildcats kept winning, East Coasters blamed it on an easy schedule, constantly calling for NU’s first loss. Then the Cats rolled into the Elite Eight and dominated three powerhouses on their way to the title: Princeton, last year’s runner-up; Dartmouth; and Virginia, the defending national champion.
Then there’s the fact that NU is in just its fourth season back as a varsity program. Nobody really thought the Cats would win a national championship after four years.
“To have this kind of success this quickly, I didn’t expect it,” NU athletic director Mark Murphy said. “Never in my wildest dreams did I think we would win a national championship in four years.”
Kathy and Lewie Amonte, parents of coach Kelly Amonte Hiller, agreed, even though their daughter has been called the “Michael Jordan of women’s lacrosse” for her playing days at Maryland.
“No, never,” they both said about thinking NU would win a title this soon.
But Tony Amonte, Kelly’s brother and an NHL player, had a little faith.
“I thought they were going to get to the Final Four last year,” he said.
Regardless, NU did it. The Cats dominated as they have all season, with the Goodyear blimp overhead and with a section of surprisingly loud NU fans in attendance.
One of those fans was 82-year-old Ted Baran, grandfather of sophomore defender Lindsay Finocchiaro.
“I’ll take lacrosse over all of the other sports any day, ” Baran told me before Sunday’s win.
You know what? Me too.
Sports editor Teddy Kider is a Medill sophomore. He can be reached at [email protected].
