Every week, Sippin' on Purple takes a look around the world of other NU sports (i.e. not basketball and football, the two I know a lot about), and never actually does it on Tuesday, just for the sake of tradition.
These conference championships, I grow weary of them. Last week, NU brought home the Big Ten women's tennis title and the individual men's golf title, this week, the women's lacrosse team brought home their sixth straight ALC title. WE GOT WALLS TO DECORATE.
Lax: Yup. They only had to play two games, and neither of them were close, knocking down Penn State 15-9 and Vandy 23-14. I'll let TDozer do most of the talking, because he went ahead and wrote a fanpost that pretty well outlines everything that could possibly happen in the NCAA tournament. The Cats have a No. 2 seed, which makes sense, because you'd expect the team that has won the past five consecutive national championships to be an underdog. (Maryland has the No. 1 seed with a marginally-better-than-NU 18-1 record - TYPICAL MID-EAST COAST BIAS). Anyway, their first round game if you clicked through on that link is Saturday at home - see you there?
Women's Tennis: Also going dancing on a much smaller scale than you normally refer to when you say "going dancing" to refer to the NCAA tournament - tiny dancing? - are the women's racket-bearing Cats, who earned a No. 6 seed for the upcoming tournament and will play Miami (OH) at home on Friday, which is apparently also the team they played last year in the first round of the NCAA tournament. (Can't we play teams besides Miami (OH) in any sport? I blame Wally Szczerbiak.) If they win that, they play Illinois or Nebraska on Saturday, also at home. Here's the big-ass bracket, if you wanna peek. The Cats won the indoor national championship earlier in the year, so, expect big things. Or don't, if you're chronically afraid of disappointment.
Baseball: For only the second time this year, the Cats lost a Big Ten series, to Indiana. Considering they only won one of nine series last year, you'll take that, but, losing is never optimal. They're now a game behind Purdue in second place, although it should be noted that at 10-8, they're still only 2.5 games ahead of 7-10 Michigan State, who are in last, so their chances of qualifying for the six-team Big Ten tournament for the first time since 2005 are looking good, but with two more series to go, not sealed by any means. After splitting the first two, winning 11-4 Saturday thanks to Paul Sneider's team-leading sixth home run, the Cats lost the rubber match on Saturday 1-0, with the Hoosiers not even scoring a single earned run - the only run was thanks to an error by second baseman Zach Morton. The Cats managed to strand four runners in scoring position from the seventh inning on, so, it's kinda one that got away. They play UIC at home tomorrow, and head to Michigan - also 10-8 in conference for the weekend to try to get back into first.
Softball: It hasn't been a spectacular year for what's been one of the more consistently successful teams at NU, but they had a nice Senior Day on Sunday, with four homers by seniors giving NU an 11-3 victory in six innings over Wisconsin. They lost the first game of the series, but, well, focus on the good things, you negative tool.
Women's golf: They qualified for the NCAA regional tournament, which apparently isn't the NCAA tournament, but they could've fooled me. Apparently, it's like another tournament before the NCAA's where the top 8 get to go to the NCAA tournament. I'm not really sure what made it regional, because competitors included NC State, Detroit-Mercy, Jackson State, USC, and Arizona State, but, hey, it sounds cooler than the NCAA unregional tournament. Anyways, the Cats finished 15th of 24, 17 strokes off of what they needed to qualify, so their season is over, but, props to them for getting this far.