Tomorrow is a landmark event in the history of sports television. Oh, sure, there have been plenty of women’s lacrosse games that have hit the airwaves since the first televised game 23 years ago this week when the local Baltimore ABC affiliate showed the inaugural game between Maryland and Johns Hopkins.
There have been plenty of watershed moments, with the finals of Corrigan Sports Enterprises age-group tournaments being shown on ESPNU, and in 2021, there were dueling “national championship” tournaments for loosely-disguised scholastic teams being held in Farmington, Conn. and Columbia, Md. And, of course, full coverage of the NCAA Division I women’s tournament last year and similar coverage for 2023.
But never has there been a full-on scholastic girls’ lacrosse game on nationwide TV. Until now.
For, at the appointed hour tomorrow, Olney Good Counsel (Md.) from the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference will travel north to take on the Interscholastic Athletic Association of Maryland representative Owings Mills McDonogh (Md.) in a tilt of two of the favorites to win their respective leagues.
The Falcons have had a rough opening to their season, losing against some pretty strong sides — Towson Notre Dame Prep (Md.), Delray American Heritage (Fla.), Washington Georgetown Visitation (D.C.), and Charlottesville St. Anne’s-Belfield (Va.). The current WCAC titlists are 11-4.
McDonogh, a team of great tradition and excellence, did not make the IAAM final last year, but they seem on course to try to reclaim its former glory when it won 198 straight games, a streak lasting nearly a decade. The Eagles have only lost to Georgetown Visitation and are 12-1 on the season entering today.
It should be an interesting intersectional game, called by professional announcers. I hope it is the first of many to come.
