Northwestern lacrosse’s crowning glory comes with smiles, tears and total domination

Smiling in the rain. That’s how Northwestern’s women’s lacrosse starters took the field for the national championship game Sunday against Boston College in Cary, North Carolina. Izzy Scane, Hailey Rhatigan, goalie Molly Laliberty behind her mask — all of them wore ear-to-ear grins before the thing even started.

How was a team that looked like that ever going to lose?

From start to finish, the No. 1-ranked Wildcats (21-1) pummeled BC (19-4) in an 18-6 declaration of absolute power. There are great college teams, then there’s this pre-eminent one that outscored its final three NCAA tournament opponents by an astonishing 30-goal margin.

‘‘There’s nothing more fun than when you get a big group of people to believe in the same thing,’’ coach Kelly Amonte Hiller said.

It’s the eighth title — and the first since 2012 — for Northwestern under Amonte Hiller, who also won two of them as a star player at Maryland.

Three months ago, the Wildcats trailed the Eagles by four goals at halftime before rallying to win 15-14 in Evanston. The rematch figured to be a grueling task, given it was BC’s sixth consecutive appearance in the title game. But the bigger, faster Wildcats were overwhelming physically, never more so than when Scane — the top player in the country — fought her way to the front of the cage and went parallel to the ground, like Bobby Orr, to score her fourth goal of the day and the 99th of her spectacular season.

‘‘If I can lay myself on the line for the girls to the left and right of me,’’ Scane said, ‘‘I’m going to do it 20 times over.’’

Crying in the rain. That’s how it ended, with Scane — who referred to winning it all as a ‘‘big, crazy dream’’ — unable to stop bawling. What a beautiful thing.

This you gotta see

Golden Knights at Stars, Game 6 (7 p.m. Monday, ESPN): After keeping their season alive with an extraordinary effort on the road in Game 5, the Stars are hoping what happened in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas.

Heat at Celtics, Game 7 (7:30 p.m. Monday, TNT): One more big night, and the Celtics will become the NBA’s first team to climb out of a 3-0 hole and win a playoff series. Whom do they think they are, the 2004 Red Sox?

‘‘30 for 30: The American Gladiators Documentary,’’ Part 1 (7:30 p.m. Tuesday, ESPN): From 1989 to 1996, contestants lined up to get the hell knocked out of them by ‘‘professional’’ gladiators in a display that was glorious, absurd and totally twisted — and those were just the scenes viewers saw. Part 2 airs at 8 p.m. Wednesday.

Only because you asked

Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images

From Scott, via email: ‘‘Why aren’t you calling for David Ross’ head?’’

One, Ross didn’t build this Cubs roster and didn’t construct this debacle of a bullpen. Two, it’s not like he’s out there pulling a bunch of in-game levers of his own volition. He’s making moves that, most of the time, are predetermined with heavy influence from the front office and its analytics people. This is our great game in 2023. Do you miss Joe Maddon yet?

The bottom five

OK, fine, Ross: Even Mike Quade, Dale Sveum and Rick Renteria are starting to wonder what in tarnation is going on.

Jed Hoyer, too: Not to say the Cubs’ prez is updating his résumé, but, just in case, he probably would be better off leaving out the part about creating a team that got swept at home by the Reds by a combined score of 25-10.

The White Sox: Get ’em on, get ’em over, get ’em in? Maybe in a previous life.

Jimmy Butler: A week ago, the entire hoops world was throwing a parade for the guy. Of course, that was back when he was capable of making a layup.

Scottie Pippen: On a podcast, he referred to young Michael Jordan as ‘‘a horrible player’’ to play with. Unhinged Pip is a trip, is he not?