This could be a very special weekend for two groups of outstanding women in Virginia, one that could echo in gyms and blacktop courts across the commonwealth.
The Virginia Tech women’s team will compete in their school’s first Final Four at 7 on Friday evening, with a chance to make Sunday’s national championship game. The Christopher Newport University women’s team will play for the Division III national title at noon on Saturday.
That these contests will occur on the same weekend is a pleasant coincidence. That they will do so on the heels of Women’s History Month and during the NCAA’s celebration of Title IX’s 50th anniversary only amps up the excitement and accentuates the significance.
The men’s Division I tournament typically receives the lion’s share of fan attention and this year, with upsets aplenty and a host of thrilling, tightly contested games, has been no exception. The Final Four in Houston, beginning on Saturday, features three teams making their first national semifinals (San Diego State University, the University of Miami and Florida Atlantic) and only one team with a national title to its credit (the University of Connecticut, which has four championships).
The women’s Division I tournament hasn’t been as chaotic as the men’s side, but it has featured its share of surprises. For the first time in 25 years, two teams seeded No. 1 were eliminated before the round of 16. Tournament favorite South Carolina continues to look like the team to beat, but will face hot-shooting Iowa (making its second Final Four appearance) in their semifinal on Friday at 9:30 p.m.
Preceding that contest is the game that should have the commonwealth cheering: Virginia Tech, making the school’s first Final Four, will play Louisiana State with a spot in the title game on the line.
The Hokies have enjoyed a historic season — winning the team’s first Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament title, earning their first No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, and now reaching the national semifinal. Can Tech, the winner of 15 consecutive games, pull out two more? Let’s hope so.
Winning a national championship would be a first for the school, but it wouldn’t be the first time an in-state team stood atop the women’s college basketball world. Old Dominion University won the title in 1985 under head coach Marianne Stanley and behind the outstanding play of Tracy Claxton.
Virginia’s ties to the women’s tournament run deep. Norfolk’s Scope Arena played host to the Final Four in its first two years, 1982 and 1983, and the Monarchs reached the semifinal in 1983. The University of Virginia also made the Final Four three times, reaching the final in 1991.
These days, those who competed in the early years might not recognize the event they helped popularize. The NCAA recorded 66,924 total spectators throughout the entire 1982 tournament. The regional events in Greenville, S.C., and Seattle last weekend brought 82,275 fans for those 12 games, and organizers expect American Airlines Arena in Dallas (capacity: 21,000) to be packed for the Friday and Sunday contests.
In an exciting twist, Saturday will see the Division II and Division III title games played on the same court. Once again, the commonwealth has a rooting interest as undefeated and top-ranked CNU takes on the Transylvania Pioneers in the Division III title game only a few weeks after the men captured a championship in a thrilling contest.
What’s more, the NCAA will be celebrating 50 years since Congress adopted the landmark Title IX law, which mandated equal treatment for men and women in academic settings. Among other effects, it opened the door to the growth of women’s college sports and led to the explosion of girls’ participation in youth sports.
Indeed, this could be a very special weekend, not only for the Captains and the Hokies, but the next generation of female athletes who will be watching, cheering and dreaming of someday cutting down the nets after winning a title.
