Terps face No. 1 Northwestern today

Heading into its game this afternoon against No. 1-ranked Northwestern, the No. 2-ranked Terrapin women's lacrosse team is experiencing some mixed feelings.

On one hand, the Terps are excited for their opportunity to take on the No. 1 team in the country and the two-time defending national champions.

On the other hand, the out-of-conference matchup means very little for the Terps, except for bragging rights and the chance to potentially become the No. 1-ranked team themselves, a distinction that coach Cathy Reese insists means very little.

No matter their mindset, the Terps feel they'll be ready to play today, in what should be an evenly matched and exciting game between two of the nation's elite teams.

"It's hard; it doesn't matter at this point what happens, but you'd like to put a good show on," Reese said. "It's a chance to play another team who's the defending national champion. Obviously we'd like to show up and do well."

Not many of the Wildcats' opponents have done well against them this season. After losing its first game of the year in overtime to North Carolina on Feb. 17 , the Wildcats have won 10 games in a row, outscoring their opponents 176-57 during the winning streak.

In their 10 wins, they have won by eight or more goals nine times. "It's not new playing a team that's so strong and so good all over the field," Reese said. "They don't have any weaknesses; they're good from one position to the other, but that's nothing new. I think we've seen that in some of the other teams we've competed against. I just hope we show up and do our thing [today]."

The Terps are on an eight-game winning streak of their own and come into today's game with confidence and composure.

"We're just focusing on ourselves like we always have been this whole year," senior midfielder Katie Doolittle said. "We're just going to do what we have to do to win."

The Terps have been successful against similar competition already this season. They defeated then-No.1-ranked North Carolina a 8-6 on March 24, and beat then-No. 2 Duke 19-18 March 3.

While both of those games were at home, the Terps will take the same approach to Northwestern today.

"We came out focused on ourselves in both of those games, and didn't pay attention to who we were playing," senior defender Becky Clipp said. "It didn't matter if the opponent was ranked No. 1 or not ranked at all, and I think that's why we were successful."

While the Terps lead the all-time series between the teams 6-3, the Wildcats won 13-8 last year in the teams' only meeting since 1991.

The Wildcats are the second team to repeat as national champions since the Terps won seven in a row from 1995-2001, and the Wildcats' head coach, Kelly Amonte-Hiller, played with Reese on the Terps' 1995 and 1996 national championship teams.

"They're a fast-paced, aggressive team and it'll be fun, exciting, we'll see," Reese said. "I have no idea what's going to happen.

Contact reporter Greg Schimmel at schimmeldbk@gmail.com.