Most programs would be forced to stand in awe of Northwestern’s run of five consecutive NCAA titles and seven straight championship game appearances. Don’t count Maryland as one of those schools.
The Terrapins, after all, won seven consecutive championships from 1995-2001 and defeated the Wildcats 13-11 in last season’s championship game. Now, the two programs meet again, as NU looks to exact revenge for last year’s humiliation.
The Cats led 6-0 in the 2010 NCAA Championship game, but the Terrapins scored seven goals in a row at the end of the first half overlapping into the beginning of the second half to take a lead that would ultimately, with the exception of a brief tie, last until the final whistle.
The match is rife with talent as NU boasts Player of the Year candidate Shannon Smith, who scored four goals to help NU defeat North Carolina 11-10 in its semifinal matchup. Smith now has 82 goals on the season. But Maryland has a couple of Tewaaraton Trophy candidates of its own in Sarah Mollison and Katie Scharzmann, who each scored four goals to help the Terrapins dispose of Duke 14-8 in the other semifinal match.
“We have to play our game, we have to play together as a team and we have to come up with possessions,” coach Kelly Amonte Hiller said. “Maryland is very explosive offensively so we have to make sure we can clamp down defensively and come up with some stops.”
Maryland is now 97-10 under fifth-year head coach Cathy Reese, a feat that has hardly gone unnoticed by Amonte Hiller, who played alongside Reese when she was on the Terrapins.
“She seemed to get better every game,” Amonte Hiller said. “When the Final Four rolled around, there was Cathy Reese scoring big points for us and making huge plays for us. She kind of had ice in her veins and her team definitely exemplifies those characteristics.”
Now, the two storied programs go head-to-head in an effort to determine which program will be lacrosse’s contemporary ruling dynasty.
<iframe src=”http://www.coveritlive.
