It turns out that, last weekend, a women’s lacrosse champion was crowned. But it was a much different journey from one that any other women’s team has ever taken.
Last Sunday, in Columbia, Md., the inaugural season of the Next Collegiate League for women came to a conclusion with a title game between Morgan State and Hampton University.
If you’re coming to this site for the first time, and don’t recognize the names of the participants, you might be forgiven somewhat. This is the first year for the league, and the first time that the six participants in the league — all from historically-black colleges and/or universities — had a chance to play more than just a handful of scrimmages.
This was different. A lot different. The women in this league played Sixes lacrosse, the format which is scheduled for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. In addition, the women all were playing with different equipment from which they were accustomed. The players all had full-face helmets, gloves, shoulder pads, and sticks with deeper pockets — all equipment found in the men’s game.
Starting from the first series of games at an indoor facility in Springfield, Va. all the way to the final in Maryland, the women on the six teams all had to make adjustments. They had to create pace and speed in order to beat the 30-second possession clock. They had to account for the possibility of body contact.
So, for me, it was not a surprise that the schools which made the final had a history in men’s lacrosse from which the women could take inspiration.
Hampton is a current NCAA participant in men’s lacrosse. Morgan was famous for its “Ten Bears” teams of the 1970s. Morgan also won the inaugural NCL men’s league in 2022.
The Morgan women have had a lacrosse club since the pandemic, and reportedly had nearly 30 players coming to practice regularly. And it paid off, with an 11-10 win over Hampton. It also won the school a $5,000 prize presented by NCL after the game.
The winning goal was scored by Irma Gomez, a 5-foot-2 attacker from Baltimore, on a cross-field pass from Christina Krastel, who attends Morgan State’s architecture and construction school.
I’m hoping that more schools will get the idea for putting out a Sixes teams for the next iteration of the NCL league.