Northwestern University Athletics
Three-Time Defending National Champs Announce 2008 Schedule
11/13/2007 12:00:00 AM | Women's Lacrosse
Nov. 13, 2007
2008 Schedule
EVANSTON, Ill. -- Northwestern's three-time defending national champion women's lacrosse team has announced its 2008 schedule. This season's slate features eight contests against NCAA tournament teams from a year ago and 13 matches against teams that finished in the top-20 of the final 2007 Inside Lacrosse poll. NU will play eight regular season home matches and will host the ALC Tournament at Lakeside Field May 2-4.
"This is an amazing year for us because we have a new facility," head coach Kelly Amonte Hiller said. "We can't wait to host half our games there. The the opportunity to host the ALC Tournament is a huge advantage and privilege as well"
This year's NCAA finals will be hosted by Towson University in Towson, Md., May 23 and 25. First round and quarterfinal dates are May 11 and 17, respectively, at campus sites.
"We are very excited about the 2008 season," Amonte Hiller said. "I think our conference will be very strong this year and we continue to have a strong non conference schedule. We're really excited to get started."
Northwestern opens the season with three-straight road contests with the season opener coming on Feb. 17 at California in Berkeley. After a week's break, the Wildcats will head to the opposite side of the country to play at Rutgers on Feb. 24. The 'Cats will finish the season-opening road trip on Feb. 26 at Hofstra.
The three-time defending champs will break in their new facility at 4 p.m. Friday, March 7, against Duquesne. The 'Cats finish their opening home weekend against Boston -- an NCAA tournament participant from a year ago -- on March 9.
After opening the ALC slate at Ohio State on March 14, the Wildcats return home to face UMass at 1 p.m. Sunday, March 16. Northwestern will then travel to Syracuse to take on the Orange, a team the Wildcats defeated in the quarterfinals of the 2007 NCAA tournament.
After their second trip to the East Coast, the 'Cats will return home for a pair of contests against Georgetown and Vanderbilt on March 28 and 30, respectively. NU will face Georgetown, who finished last season ranked No. 10, in their first night contest at Lakeside Field with a 7 p.m. start. Vanderbilt was an NCAA tournament team in 2007 and the Wildcats topped the Commodores by a 20-2 score in the second game of last season.
In a much-anticipated match up, the Wildcats will head to Durham, N.C., for a meeting with the Duke Blue Devils at noon on April 6. Duke, who finished with a national ranking of No. 6, fell in the semifinals of the NCAA tournament last season.
NU returns home to face Notre Dame at 6 p.m. on April 9, before heading to Penn State for an 11 a.m. CT contest on April 13.
The Wildcats will close the regular season with three-straight matches against NCAA tournament teams from 2007. The 'Cats will host Johns Hopkins at 7 p.m. Friday, April 18, before taking on North Carolina at 1 p.m. Sunday, April 20. The regular season will conclude with a road match at Penn -- the team the Wildcats defeated in the semifinals of the NCAA tournament last year -- at 1 p.m. Sunday, April 27.
Lakeside Field will be home to the ALC Tournament on Fri.-Sun., May 2-4, before the NCAA tournament begins at campus sites on May 11.
En route to a third-straight national title in 2007, the Wildcats set NCAA single-season records with 529 points, 361 goals, 168 assists and a 16.4 goals-per game average. Last year, NU captured it's third-straight women's lacrosse national championship. The Wildcats became only the second team in NCAA Division I women's lacrosse history to accomplish that feat.
