Soft Pretzel Logic

When the final horn sounded, as the thunder and lightning that took place on the field prepared to give way to the real thing that shook the heavens over University City, neither head coach seemed particularly inclined to come out and state the obvious about what they had just seen.

Northwestern's coach, self-effacing but well aware of the game's history, wouldn't dare say it. Virginia's coach, a more veteran observer of the game, came closer but never quite got there either.

Tonight, Franklin Field bore witness to the arrival of another women's lacrosse dynasty.

After 60 minutes of play that served as a tremendous advertisement for all that is both great and maddening about the sport, the Wildcats stormed the field and hoisted their third straight NCAA championship in the air.

The final score was 15-13, the highest-scoring game in NCAA Tournament history. And unlike the previous record, -- a 14-13 win by Maryland over Georgetown which cemented that team's seventh straight tile and an even loftier place in the record books -- this one didn't require three overtimes.

There was drama from the start to the end. With the majority of the fans in the championship game-record crowd of 6,075 rooting for Virginia, the Cavaliers opened the game by scoring twice in the first 91 seconds of play. But Northwestern was unfazed, and promptly rolled off seven straight goals over the next 14:41.

The fourth was the best of the bunch. Wildcats star Kristen Kjellman picked up a bounce pass (which is a rather difficult thing to pull off in lacrosse) and fired it about 20 yards right into the stick of freshman Katrina Dowd, who was ready at the edge of the crease on the goalkeeper's right side and slammed the ball into the net.

Dowd ended the night with a hat trick, quite the accomplishment for any player in a championship game but even more so for a freshman.

Virginia was stuck in neutral at halftime, having scored three times from free position shots to trail, 11-6. Nonetheless, the first half was everything that people who have believed in lacrosse for far longer than I have love to see in the game.

They say the sport combines the best aspects of soccer and hockey, and tonight you could see why -- lots of pace, crisp passing, great movement by players with and without the ball (especially attackers cutting across the crease to receive passes and shoot) and two teams that used the full width and length of the field to build attacks.

And given Virginia's big comeback two days earlier against Duke, no one dared believe the game was over yet.

The second half had a lot more drama, but a lot less action. Virgina supplied the drama, electrifying the crowd by coming back from 12-7 down to 12-11 with 21:44 to play in the game thanks to -- perhaps not surprisingly -- a free position goal by Blair Weymouth. It's worth noting that Virginia took six free position shots in the game, while Northwestern didn't have any.

Just under a minute later, some good passing in Virgina's end led to a goal for Northwestern's Meredith Frank to make it 13-11. The Wildcats fans started chanting "Frank the Tank!" which I found quite funny, given Drexel fans' use of the same chant for Frank Elegar. Not that they had any reason to understand.

With 16:25 left, Ashley McCulloch cut the deficit to one goal again with a great quickstick shot -- the lacrosse equivalent of hockey's one-timer -- on a pass from Devon, Pa. native Megan Havrilla.

From then on, though, Northwestern really imposed its style of play. Sick of letting Virginia run them ragged, the Wildcats dramatically slowed the pace down. After a passing sequence that lasted nearly two minutes, Hilary Bowen made a quick cut across the net from right to left with the ball and scored, making it 14-12. Megan O'Malley scored with a similar cutting run at the other end a few minutes later to make it 14-13, but that would be Virginia's last goal.

This is where Northwestern really ground the game to a halt, passing the ball around 25 or so yards from goal for a few minutes without any seeming intention to take it to the net. It felt like some mirror image of the Italian soccer style called catenaccio, in which the defense basically possesses the ball for as long as possible so that the other team's offense couldn't have it. This was like that, except run by the offense.

Virginia countered this by employing what I would call the "student body at the top of the goal area" defense. It's basically what it sounds like -- put all the field players in a line at the top of the arc and just have them stand there for as long as Northwestern doesn't do anything.

Well, Northwestern finally did something, except it led to more of nothing. Bowen got the ball and took it behind the net and basically stood back there cradling it for almost three minutes. The fans got sick of this, and being in Philadelphia, they did the only thing the could -- boo Northwestern. Loudly and for quite a while at that.

Virginia didn't apply any ball pressure, which had just about everyone in the stadium quite confused. But in the eyes of Cavaliers coach Julie Myers, it was actually a sign of respect for Bowen's talent.

"That was a great delay on their part, to put one really dominant player back behind who could take you on in the crease right- or left-handed while they put everyone up in a stack," she said. "We knew what they were doing, but the risk of going back and forcing a great crease challenge, to come up and take that crease challenge, you've got a pretty good chance of going down another goal."

Myers turned out to be right. After Bowen finally passed the ball, Virginia goalie Kendall McBrearty saved the resulting shot.

But a few minutes later, after a no-call on Northwestern that had Myers furious, Virginia was whistled for a foul that was also a bit questionable. Northwestern capitalized, and with 2:29 left on the clock, Dowd finished off the night's scoring with her third goal.

I mentioned at the beginning of the post that neither coach really said that this Northwestern team has built a dynasty, even if everyone else in the sport is convinced of it.

"Are they as good as Maryland? Very similar," Myers said. "Their true force, their strength is their attack. They just hope to outscore other teams, so I think it's very similar to Maryland in that."

Northwestern coach Kelly Amonte Hiller played on the team that won the first two of Maryland's seven straight titles. Even if she knew the question was coming, it was still humbling to have to answer it.

"I can't compare myself to Cindy Timchal -- she's one of the greatest coaches ever," Hiller said of her former mentor, the winningest coach in the sport's history. "I think that we've developed something special here at Northwestern. I think we have our own little niche in the Chicago area and I think ours is different from Maryland's, but we're just excited about what we've established at Northwestern thus far, and we're looking forward to the future."

That future will include Bowen, whose five goals in the championship game's won her Most Outstanding Player honors despite the jeers. She's only a sophomore now. But it won't include Kjellman, Northwestern's best player, who graduates this year.

Kjellman was equally selfless about her place in lacrosse lore -- but her coach was not.

"She kicks my ass in practice," Hiller said.

Point taken, and history certainly made by Kjellman, Hiller and the rest of the team.