Daniella Augeri / Collegian

The Massachusetts men’s and women’s lacrosse teams have proud traditions: the Minutemen have made 18 NCAA Tournaments, including a runner-up finish in 2006, while the Minutewomen captured the 1982 national championship and appeared in the semifinals in 1984.

Despite their respective successes, never have both teams made the NCAAs during the same season.

That ends in 2009 after both squads captured their respective conference tournaments to receive the automatic qualifier into the NCAA Tournament. And both teams will play schools with even prouder lacrosse traditions.

The Minutemen

Led by freshman goalkeeper Doc Schneider in 2006, UMass made it all the way to the NCAA title game before falling to Virginia. With such young talent, it was a surprise to many that they spent the next two postseasons watching.

Not this year. The Minutemen (9-5, 5-1 ECAC) will play at fourth-seeded Princeton (12-2, 5-1 Ivy League) on Sunday at 5 p.m., in a game televised on ESPNU. This will be the third-ever meeting between the teams, with the previous two also coming in the NCAA Tournament. The Tigers won in both 1995 (first round) and 1997 (quarterfinals).

‘You work your tail off and sophomore year we had a bunch of one-goal losses and last year everything happened ‘- we wanted to put the program back to where we thought it belongs,’ Schneider said Sunday night after the NCAA Selection Show.

‘We wanted to make the tournament, we strived for that, but we’re going down there to win.’

If they do, they’ll play the winner of fifth-seeded Cornell and Hofstra.

The Minutewomen

Behind a clutch 5-goal 3-assist performance by Jackie Lyons, UMass (11-7, 8-1 Atlantic 10) defeated Saint Joseph‘s, 15-14, in overtime in the A-10 Tournament to clinch the automatic qualifier.

However, the team endured some early losses to top competition that hurt their RPI. As a result, the Minutewomen will travel to Chicago to face four-time defending national champion and top-seeded Northwestern (19-0, 6-0 Atlantic League) in the opening round Sunday at 1 p.m.

It will be a tough task for the Minutewomen, who lost 22-5 at home to the Wildcats back on March 25. UMass has gone 8-1 since that loss and believes it is a different team than the one that lost by 17 goals nearly two months ago, and believe they can pull off the upset.

‘We have the potential to shock a lot of people,’ senior captain Holly Drown said.

The winner of Sunday’s game will go on to face the winner of Princeton vs. Georgetown.‘ ‘

Eli Rosenswaike and Scott Feldman can be reached at [email protected].