WEST CHESTER, Pa. (CBS) - For the ninth time in program history, the West Chester University women’s lacrosse team is headed to the national semifinals of the Division II NCAA Tournament.

The Golden Rams beat Lock Haven last weekend, 9-8 (photo above), to advance to the semis, and head coach Ginny Martino (below right) says they have worked hard to get there.

“We always go into the season with high expectations, of course, but this was probably the toughest schedule we faced in my 14 years,” she says.  “We have all the big names in our schedule this year, and going into it, it was a lot of tough competition early on and I just kind of waited to see how our young squad would come through.  And they did great.  We lost a few games, but definitely I think that competition against those tougher teams is going to help us in the long run.”

Listen to Matt Leon’s full interview with Ginny Martino in this CBS Philly SportsPod…

West Chester is 16-4 heading into Saturday, but one of those regular-season losses came at the hands of Limestone back on March 10th (16-10).

“They were easily a quarter of the way through their season already when we faced them, and we were just starting.  We’ve completely turned our game around — I think that gives us some confidence going in, knowing that we lost to them but we play such a different game at this point.  We’ve gotten a lot stronger, we’ve put some things together.  It was just so early that we didn’t really play our game, kind of got pushed into things that we weren’t used to doing.”

If West Chester can win on Saturday, it would advance to the national championship game for the ninth time in 11 years.  The other semifinal game features Adelphi taking on Le Moyne.  The winners play for the title on Sunday.

West Chester has won two national titles in its history (2002 and 2008).  Six members of this West Chester team were members of the squad that won it all back in ’08.

Reported by Matt Leon, KYW Newsradio 1060

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