(Before reading my preview for the Championship game, feel free to read my recap of the Final Four game).

The Penn women’s lacrosse team is an outstanding 33-3 in the last two seasons.

But that record is only the second-best one since the start of the 2007 campaign.

Instead Northwestern, who is an astonishing 41-2 in that span (and 82-3 over the last four years), has been the best team of the last two years.

So when these two squads face off for the NCAA championship tonight at 7 p.m. in Towson University’s Johnny Unitas Stadium, it clearly will be a matchup between the two most dominant teams of the last two years of women’s lacrosse.

Add to this the fact that three of the teams’ combined fives losses in that span have come at the hands of the other squad, and you get two teams that are chomping at the bit to face each other.

“Everything seems surreal,” Penn senior Allison Ambrozy said. “They are the one team that’s really blemished our success in the last few years. They’re the three time national champions. I wouldn’t want to play anyone else for the title.

“We’re so happy to play them again. Wouldn’t it be the greatest thing if we gave them their only two losses [of the season] like they did to us last year.

In the teams’ previous five matches, the No. 1 Wildcats (20-1) won four of them by a combined score of 55-20, including a 12-2 demolishing in last year’s Final Four at Franklin Field.

But the No. 2 Quakers (17-1) reversed the trend in the most recent game. The Quakers won 11-7 at home April 27, as the Penn defense shut out the Wildcats for the last 35 minutes of the game.

Beating Northwestern “definitely gives you confidence,” Penn coach Karin Brower said. “But they’re ready to avenge the loss. Yet it does give us confidence since not many teams have been able to beat them the last four years. ”

Despite beating the Wildcats the last time out, Penn still realizes Northwestern is favored tonight.

“I don’t think you feel the pressure,” Brower said. “We’re the underdogs, no question. We like being in this position.”

Ambrozy believes that tonight’s game will see a refocused Northwestern team ready to dish out some payback for its sole loss of the year.

“They’ll come out with a little bit more fire,” the midfielder said. “They haven’t been able to crack our defense. They’ll be more ready for that … I’m guessing they’re a little pissed off.”

Even if Northwestern was not the opponent, this would be a tremendously important game for the Penn team. In fact, this game might be the biggest game in the history of the Penn Athletics. If the Quakers were to win, it would be the first team NCAA title a Penn program has ever won.

“It’s amazing,” Ambrozy said. “It’s everything we’ve been looking forward to. It feels great. It’s a very rewarding thing.”

(NB: I’d just like to reemphasize what Andrew said yesterday. This game, in my opinion, is the biggest game in Penn Athletics history since the men’s basketball team faced Michigan State in the 1979 Final Four, if not of all time. So it clearly is a must-watch for any Penn fan. I know this is late notice, but tickets still remain. It’s about a two hour drive from Philadelphia to Towson (a Baltimore suburb), and only an hour-long one from D.C. If you cannot make it, CSTV will cover it, as will pennathletics.com on the radio and myself on this blog. Simply put, this is a huge game for Penn Athletics, so do your best to follow along.)

Tags: ncaa tournament, women's lacrosse

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 25th, 2008 at 3:49 pm and is filed under Lacrosse. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.