Ticketed for goal

It's a modest dream, all things considered. One woman, one charitable vision, and a lot of folks with pockets deep enough to help.

The way Joanna Cook Kjellman sees it, all she needs to make a little NCAA history and introduce thousands of underprivileged girls to one of the nation's fastest-growing sports is the kindness of 3,500 friends and strangers.

Her plan is simple enough to be rich. Persuade 3,500 souls to go online and buy a pair of $8 tickets to the NCAA Division 1 women's lacrosse championship game Sunday at Boston University's Nickerson Field. Approximately 3,000 tickets have already been sold, and 7,000 more -- which the buyers would agree to donate to a group serving needy girls -- would bring the total to a capacity of 10,000 and would mark the first sellout for an NCAA women's championship game in the tournament's 25-year history.

And thousands of kids would get their first glimpse of a sport that has rapidly gained a foothold in mainstream American athletics.

``I know it sounds crazy, but I think this can be done," said Cook Kjellman, of Westwood, whose daughter, Kristen, epitomizes the sport's extraordinary growth.

Kristen Kjellman had never played organized lacrosse before she signed up for a youth team in Westwood in the eighth grade. She joined Westwood High School's emerging varsity program as a freshman in 2000. And by her senior year, she had captained Westwood to a state championship and earned a full athletic scholarship to Northwestern (an estimated $175,000 value).

Now, Kjellman is an All-America midfielder for the Wildcats, the defending national champions who sent the fashion world into a tizzy last year when several players wore flip-flops to meet President Bush at the White House.

``The sport has been very good to us," Cook Kjellman said. ``This is one way for us to give something back to girls in the community."

If Cook Kjellman's gambit succeeds, the game would shatter the attendance record for an NCAA women's lacrosse championship: 5,422 at Loyola College in Baltimore in 2002. Baltimore has long been a hotbed of lacrosse, while Sunday's game at BU will mark the first time women play for an NCAA Division 1 lacrosse title in New England.

``If they can draw a pretty big crowd in New England, that would really make a significant statement about where the sport is going," said Brian Logue of US Lacrosse, the sport's national governing body.

Women's lacrosse has flourished since the turn of the millennium. In Massachusetts, the number of girls playing high school lacrosse has swelled to 5,230 from 3,437 in 2000, the largest gain of any girls' sport in the state, according to the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association. Tennis, cross-country, and swimming and diving all have been eclipsed by lacrosse in recent years in the number of Massachusetts high school girls participating.

And no girls' sport has attracted more new high school players nationally over the last five years than lacrosse, according to a survey by US Lacrosse.

``It has grown by leaps and bounds," said Kathleen Burke, the athletic director at Falmouth High School, who serves on the state girls' lacrosse committee. ``The people who go to BU [for the championship] will see a fast, exciting game."

Cook Kjellman lost a prime market of prospective ticket buyers when Dartmouth eliminated BU in the preliminary round of the national tournament. But three of the Final Four teams -- Northwestern, Duke, Dartmouth, and Notre Dame -- have New England ties, none stronger than Northwestern's.

Kjellman's teammates include Meredith Frank, the Globe's player of the year last year at Westwood, as well as former Thayer Academy stars Sarah Albrecht of Braintree and Laura Glassanos of Hingham. The team also includes Caitlin Jackson, who played at Norwell High School, and goalie Abby Bangser of West Hartford, Conn.

Their coach is Kelly Amonte Hiller, a Hingham native who starred at at Thayer Academy and Maryland, and later served as an assistant coach at BU and the University of Massachusetts. Her husband, Scott Hiller, coached the Boston Cannons of Major League Lacrosse until January, when he became owner and co-president of the Baltimore Bayhawks. And her brother is NHL player Tony Amonte.

As for Kjellman, she was the MVP of last year's national tournament and was named last week as one of five finalists for the Tewaaraton Trophy, the sport's equivalent of football's Heisman.

``It's a nice combination that she is arguably the best player in the country and has a chance to come back home and play for the national title," said BU spokesman Brian Kelley.

Dartmouth fields a number of New England players, including Thayer's Kristen Barry of Duxbury, Buckingham Browne and Nichols's Michelle Shortsleeve of Lincoln, and Concord Academy's Elizabeth Spence of Concord. They will face Notre Dame tomorrow at BU in the semifinals, with Northwestern playing Duke in the other semifinal.

The Duke women, who include Andover's Rachel Shack of Phillips Academy and Andrea Crosby of Concord (N.H.) High School, are the school's lone hope for a lacrosse title after the men's program was suspended in March amid an investigation that led to sexual assault charges against three players. The Northwestern women also will be playing in the shadow of controversy, a hazing scandal that prompted school officials last week to suspend the women's soccer program.

Neither scandal is expected to affect ticket sales for Sunday's championship. Instead, Cook Kjellman faces the challenge of trying to fill Nickerson Field during a Memorial Day weekend. She also will be competing for the lacrosse world's attention with the NCAA Division 1 men's championship, which will be played the same weekend in Philadelphia. In previous years, the women's championship was scheduled the weekend before the men's.

Still, BU officials believe Cook Kjellman could help draw more than 7,000 spectators, which would break the attendance record for a women's lacrosse game of any kind. The largest crowd ever was 6,820 in Annapolis, Md., last year for the World Cup championship between the United States and Australia.

Under Cook Kjellman's plan, tickets for Sunday's championship may be purchased online at www.goterriers.com. Customers may buy youth tickets for $8 each and designate in the optional mailing address section that the tickets are to be ``donated" or ``gifted." Tickets purchased for donation will be distributed to children through groups such as the Boys & Girls Clubs and Big Brothers Big Sisters, Cook Kjellman said.

``If everybody buys just two tickets, they can be part of history," she said. ``They can say, `Oh, my gosh, I helped to make this happen.' "