Duke coach Kerstin Kimel said she knew her team would face Northwestern at some point during the NCAA tournament. But she would not comment on how the seeding of teams forced this match-up in the semifinals.
Coaches from the other Final Four teams, Northwestern, Notre Dame and Dartmouth, fielded questions from the media during a teleconference on Tuesday morning.
Kimel, who led her team to a 16-2 regular season record, said the Blue Devils would not focus on their previous encounter with the Wildcats.
“I think probably the biggest thing is you take confidence from it,” Kimel said about Duke’s 16-10 defeat of NU on April 7. “It is more the experience of being in a really big game with an intense atmosphere that helps.”
Statistically, Duke and NU are the two best teams in the nation.
Duke is second to NU in both scoring offense and average winning margin. But NU is first in the nation with an average of 16.1 draw controls per game, while Duke is twenty-third with 12.6.
The chair of the NCAA women’s lacrosse committee, Sandra Taylor, would not field any questions from the media.
But NU coach Kelly Amonte Hiller was not afraid to express her dissatisfaction with the tournament seedings.
“It is a bit of a shame that we got put in the No. 4 seed,” Amonte Hiller said. “I think it is difficult to assess teams just on numbers and I think that is what the committee did instead of looking at the other factors.”
Amonte Hiller said those other factors, such as strength of schedule, are difficult to improve since many teams cannot afford the expense of traveling to the Midwest for games.
No matter the seedings, Duke and NU will face-off at 5 p.m. Friday in the first semifinal game hosted by Boston University.
Tewaaraton Trophy
This year’s Final Four will feature three of the five finalists for the Tewaaraton Trophy. The award is given to the nation’s best lacrosse player and is considered the Heisman Trophy of lacrosse.
Last year’s winner and 2006 finalist Katie Chrest, a Duke senior attacker, will be joined by two fellow finalists at the Final Four in Boston: NU junior midfielder Kristen Kjellman and Notre Dame senior attacker Crysti Foote.
Foote is ranked second in the nation averaging 3.9 goals and 6.1 points per game. Kjellman is sixth and fifth in those categories respectively averaging 3.6 goals and 4.9 points per game.
But Chrest has not had that type of offensive production. She is ranked No. 23 with an average of 4 points per game.
The coaches of these players all expressed how proud they were of their stars and that they were glad they were receiving the recognition they deserved.
Although these three Tewaaraton Trophy finalists will attempt to leave their mark on the Final Four, Dartmouth has the difficult task of stopping these offensive sparkplugs, beginning with Notre Dame’s Foote.
Dartmouth currently has the top-ranked scoring defense. They also lead the nation in causing turnovers, averaging 12.9 a game.
“For us defense starts whenever the other team has the ball, not just when they are in our zone,” Dartmouth coach Amy Patton said. “We have played against a lot of these top attackers, so I feel like it is really all about team defense.”
Dartmouth, which has an offense ranked No. 41 in the nation, averaging 10.9 goals per game, will look to keep its semifinal game as low scoring as possible.
That defensive effort will be led by the nation’s top goalie, senior Devon Willis. Willis has the best goals against average, allowing only 6.5 goals a game.
Sister Act
Notre Dame might be known for its sisters because of its Catholic background, but the lacrosse team is literally a sister act.
Featuring three sets of sisters, the Fighting Irish have relished their truly family-oriented team atmosphere.
“I think that the university itself kind of fosters that,” Notre Dame coach Tracy Coyne said about the number of siblings on her team. “It is a just a sibling type of institution. It has been great to have families involved.”
Foote and her sister Julie join Lauren and Meghan deMello, as well as Heather and Lindsey Ferguson on the Fighting Irish’s sibling-heavy squad.
Maryland Reunion
Three of the four head coaches in the Final Four played at Maryland before entering the coaching ranks.
Amonte Hiller won two national titles as a Terrapin from 1993-96. Coyne was also a part of one of those NCAA title runs with Amonte Hiller, playing from 1990-93.
Patton won a national championship with Maryland in 1986, before the NCAA’s all-time winningest coach Cindy Timchal took over the program in 1991. Timchal arrived at Maryland after coaching Northwestern for nine years.
Reach Steve Silver at [email protected].
