The dynastic Northwestern women’s lacrosse team will make history by playing at Wrigley Field during a season in which the Wildcats surprisingly have something in common with the ballpark’s usual home team:
Losing.
Call it wilt by association.
Of course, what constitutes losing has a significantly different meaning for the Cubs than for the Wildcats, who have won seven NCAA titles in the past nine seasons.
The Cubs haven’t won the baseball equivalent of a national title in what seems like nine generations.
Northwestern takes a 9-5 record and two-game losing streak into Saturday night’s matchup with USC (7 p.m., BTN), the first lacrosse game at Wrigley Field. That is two more losses than in any season since 2003, the second year of coach Kelly Amonte Hiller’s revival of a Northwestern program that had been reduced to club status for a decade.
Amonte Hiller’s teams have attracted so much acclaim, they also were invited to play the first lacrosse games at Cowboys Stadium and the Los Angeles Coliseum and the first women’s lacrosse game at the Patriots’ Gillette Stadium.
And they have been so successful that going into the regular-season finale just four wins over .500 seems shocking.
The Wildcats, No. 5 in this week’s coaches poll, have four one-goal losses, and their strength of schedule ranks first in Division I. They have beaten six teams ranked in the top 15, including No. 4 North Carolina, which had been the unbeaten No.1 before losing to Northwestern three weeks ago.
Northwestern’s struggles have been exacerbated by losing two top offensive players for the season. Sophomore Christina Esposito played just five games before knee problems sidelined her. Classmate Kaleigh Craig, tied for the team lead in goals, sustained a lower-body injury two games ago.
USC (8-7) is a second-year program coached by Lindsey Munday, an All-America attacker on Amonte Hiller’s first two NCAA champions. Another former Wildcats scoring machine, Hilary Bowen, joined Munday’s staff this season as offensive coordinator.
The Trojans ended a three-game losing streak Sunday with an upset of No. 17 Stanford.
The Wildcats almost certainly need to beat USC and win next week’s American Lacrosse Conference tournament to have any shot at a top-four seed in the NCAA tournament, which brings home-field advantage in the first two rounds.