The sun and heat managed to come out to see some great women�s lacrosse being played at Hudson Bay High School in Vancouver, WA this weekend.  The women�s PNLA tournament hosted by Portland Woman�s Lacrosse brought together the northwest club colleges to see which team earned the 2002-championship title.

At the beginning of the weekend, Montana was leading the standings, and Western and U of Washington were heated rivals, while Whitman and U. of Oregon were close behind and gaining quickly.  We were all excited to see the new team from Oregon State and returning teams from Lewis and Clark and Pacific Lutheran (PLU).  They proved they are here to stay in the league and are determined to gain respect from the other club colleges.

University of Washington set the pace on Saturday by going undefeated against Montana, UO, and OSU.  Western Washington also played undefeated in their pool upping the stakes for every team on Sunday.  Sunday saw high intensity in both semi finals.  Montana and UW played a great game with UW finishing on top.  Whitman and Western dogged it out in sudden death overtime, with Western scoring the winning goal in the second half of overtime.  With only a 20-minute break for Western, they headed into the finals against long time rival UW.  UW knew they had to beat Western�s solid defense with fast breaks and clever shooting, while Western was still charged up from their semi final and ready to beat UW with fast connections to goal.  Both teams played with great intensity and it was UW who came out on top.  The low score showed that both teams have magnificent defense and goal shots needed to be well calculated.  It was a hard-earned victory.

Congratulations to the University of Washington!