Yesterday, the No. 1 teams in Division I and Division II women’s lacrosse lost, knocking them off their perches at the top of coaches’ and media polls.
In Division I, it was North Carolina losing 13-9 at Northwester, its first regular-season defeat in more than a thousand days. And in Division II, Indianapolis lost to Regis University 14-12.
It’s not that often when two defending national champions, much less two that hold down the No. 1 ranking, lose on the same day.
But that’s the nature of the game of women’s lacrosse, where any team can win on any given day. But you can make the argument that the “any given day” trope is not well-proven in the postseason.
When you look at the history of Division I women’s lacrosse since 1990, exactly seven schools have won the tournament. And none of them are named Syracuse, which is a team that just about everyone is tapping for the D-1 title this year. In Division III, since 2010, five schools have won the titles on offer.
In all three NCAA divisions, the lack of parity has been on display. The domination of teams like Maryland, TCNJ, Northwestern, Adelphi, and Middlebury have manifested themselves every May. These are programs that have the institutional knowledge of how to win games, win tournaments, and win in the final two minutes of games.
A lot of this is because coaches have instilled winning traditions into generations of student-athletes. For successful programs, winning is a habit as well as a tradition. This is very difficult to do in stick-and-ball games such as field hockey and lacrosse, which are complex to learn and master but when careers in the sport span roughly from ages 14 to 21.
