Final Four Weekend

Memorial Day weekend is traditionally the weekend of the Final Four in men's and women's collegiate lacrosse. This year, I'm fortunate in having two of my alma maters competing for championships - one in the men's and one in the women's .

Last night, the Northwestern women kept their hopes for a fourpeat alive with a stirring win over Syracuse. After going into halftime with a slim one goal lead, the Wildcats came out roaring in the opening minutes of the second half, scoring the first nine goals of the second half on their way to a 16-8 win. The Cats will play Penn tomorrow night for the championship. Penn is the only team to defeat the Wildcats this year so in addition to the their fourth straight title, the Cats will have revenge on their minds.

Duke will be looking to finally put the "lacrosse case" behind them this weekend in the last go round for the fifth year seniors who had the season taken away from them a couple of years ago due to the Duke administration's fecklessness in the face of the Durham prosecutors persecution of the team. The Blue Devils face old foe John Hopkins in the semi-finals today, in a rematch of the 2005 and 2007 championship games, won each time by Hopkins. The other semi-final pits Syracuse against Virginia, with the championship game to be held on Monday. This is the year I expect the Devils to finally get over the hump, as the Devils should be able to replicate their earlier win over Hopkins when they defeated the Blue Jays 17-6 in the regular season. Duke's offense should be too much for Hopkins and either the Orange or the Cavs, delivering the Devils their first national championship and a fitting coda to the "lacrosse case" era.