Fairfield Women's Lacrosse is making its third NCAA Championship appearance.
For the third time in program history, ¶¶Òô»ÆƬapp Women's Lacrosse is set to take the national stage in the NCAA Championship first round. Opening draw for the eighth-seeded Stags and #9/10 nationally-ranked Loyola Maryland is slated for Friday, May 11 at 4 p.m. in Baltimore.
Fairfield enters the NCAA postseason with a record of 13-6, riding a six-game winning streak that includes last Saturday's 14-10 victory over Canisius in the MAAC Championship game. The Stags were the first team to ever win three MAAC postseason games en route to the conference crown. Loyola Maryland earns an at-large spot in the 27-team field at 15-4 overall. The Greyhounds went 9-0 in the Patriot League but were upended by Navy in the Patriot League Championship game.
Despite being traditional MAAC foes in many sports from 1989-2013, Fairfield and Loyola Maryland have never met on the women's lacrosse field. The Greyhounds were previously associate members of the CAA and the Big East in women's lacrosse prior to joining the Patriot League as full members beginning in the 2014 campaign.
The other side of the bracket features #7 Navy and #20 Johns Hopkins squaring off on Friday at 7 p.m. The second round from Loyola's Ridley Athletic Complex will be held on Sunday, May 13.
Fairfield made its NCAA postseason debut as the 2009 MAAC Champion with a 16-10 win over Sacred Heart in a play-in game held on campus at University Field. The 2009 Stags would fall, 10-8 in the first round against #4 Penn, as the Quakers began their road to the Final Four. In 2015, the MAAC Champion Stags were upended by #11 Princeton, 18-8 in the first round hosted by Stony Brook. Fairfield also won the MAAC Championship in 2001 but did not advance to the national postseason, as the MAAC was not granted an automatic bid until the 2002 campaign.
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