BALTIMORE — The 2006 US Lacrosse Women's Division Intercollegiate Associates National Championships 16-team field was announced today by US Lacrosse. The teams will travel to Dallas, Texas where they will compete from May 11-13 at the Russell Creek Athletic Complex and Tom Kimbrough Stadium. The event, which runs from May 9-13, is sponsored by Lax World, Sports Her Way and STX.

Cal Poly, the five-time national champion, returns to defend its title once again as the Mustangs have been the only team to win the US Lacrosse WDIA title since the women's championship began in 2001.

The 2006 women's field is made up of 10 conference automatic qualifying bids and six at-large teams. The field was adjusted when Central Plains Women's Lacrosse League automatic qualifier University of Missouri declined its bid. Santa Clara was the first alternate team to be selected to fill the void. The Broncos accepted the at-large bid and will enter the tournament as the No. 11 seed.

Top-ranked Colorado State University was granted the top-seed by the US Lacrosse WDIA Rankings Committee.

The 2006 US Lacrosse WDIA National Championship Field is below with the team's seeding number (not national ranking). Please note that "club" is listed after schools that have varsity programs. An asterisk indicates the team received an at-large bid.

No. 1 Colorado State
No. 2 Cal Poly
No. 3 Pittsburgh
No. 4 *Michigan
No. 5 *UC-Santa Barbara
No. 6 *Colorado
No. 7 Florida
No. 8 *Brigham Young
No. 9 Maryland (club)
No. 10 Texas A&M
No. 11 *Santa Clara
No. 12 *Navy
No. 13 Army
No. 14 Northeastern
No. 15 Oregon (club)
No. 16 Minnesota-Duluth

Cal Poly and Navy are the only two schools to have appeared in all six US Lacrosse WDIA national championship fields. The 2005 US Lacrosse WDIA semifinalists return along with seven of the eight quarterfinal teams from a year ago.

There are two schools—Brigham Young University and Northeastern University—making their debut in the US Lacrosse WDIA championships.

The championship game will be played on Saturday, May 13 at 4:30 p.m. in Tom Kimbrough Stadium. CSTV will televise the Men’s Division A and Women's Division national championship games in their entirety. Both games will be aired on a tape-delay basis on Monday, May 29 with the women's game starting at 8 p.m. followed by the men's game at 10 p.m. (Eastern time).

Complete coverage of the 2006 US Lacrosse Intercollegiate Associates National Championships will be available on the US Lacrosse Web site at www.uslacrosse.org.

The Men's Division A and B National Championship fields will be announced on May 1. The Division A championship begins on May 9 while Division B gets underway on May 10.

The US Lacrosse Intercollegiate Associates (IA) are college lacrosse teams, primarily at the club level, that compete in a national structure. There are nearly 400 men's and women's teams from around the country competing under the IA umbrella in three divisions.

This year's championships will bring 44 teams to Dallas to compete for three championships. Sixteen teams will compete in the Men's Division A field, 12 in the Men's Division B and 16 in the women's field. All three championships were won by California schools in 2005: UC-Santa Barbara (Men's A), University of San Diego (Men's B) and Cal Poly (Women's).

US Lacrosse, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, is the national governing body for men's and women's lacrosse. To learn more about the organization, please visit www.uslacrosse.org.

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