The quest for a three-peat is on.
Postseason play is officially here as the 2025 Big Ten women’s lacrosse tournament begins Wednesday in College Park, Maryland. No. 1-seeded Northwestern, which already claimed the Big Ten regular season title, aims to maintain its unbeaten conference record this season and secure its third consecutive conference tournament victory.
Here’s everything you need to know about the Wildcats’ quest for a three-peat.
Projected schedule
As the top seed, Northwestern will be the only team in the bracket to earn a first-round bye. It will begin play on Friday in the semi-finals and needs just two wins to clinch the trophy.
Semifinal: Friday, April 25 at 4 p.m. CDT vs. No. 4 Penn State or No. 5 Johns Hopkins (TV: Big Ten Network)
Final: Sunday, April 27 at 3 p.m. vs. TBD (TV: Big Ten Network)
What’s at stake?
The Wildcats will be on the cusp of a record this tournament as they aim to win their fifth overall title. If they do, they will be the Big Ten team with the most tournament titles, surpassing Maryland’s four. The is especially notable given that the Terrapins are the No. 2 seed — setting up the possibility of a history-making Northwestern-Maryland championship showdown.
Winning also means gaining the Big Ten’s automatic qualification spot for the NCAA tournament. Northwestern is likely a tournament guarantee regardless, but it can fully lock up its projected No. 3 seed for NCAAs with a conference tournament victory. The Wildcats’ regular-season resume is good enough to warrant that seeding, but a bad loss within a historically weaker Big Ten isn’t a good look with squads like No. 4 Florida and No. 5 Princeton knocking on the door.
Even though the top four seeds get to host the early rounds of the NCAA tournament, only seeds one through three get first-round byes — a big part of why staying at No. 3 is worth fighting for.
Semifinals
The bracket has been designed so Northwestern is guaranteed a rematch from last year’s tournament, regardless of who wins in the quarterfinals. The Wildcats narrowly defeated the Blue Jays 13-12 in the 2024 semifinals before beating the Nittany Lions 14-12 in the finals.
Both Penn State and Hopkins are vastly different teams from last year and the start of this season. When Penn State played Northwestern this March, it had a 2-5 record. It has now improved to 7-8, with an upset win over No. 12 Michigan. The Nittany Lions also took Hopkins into overtime, falling just by one goal. Meanwhile, Hopkins was a top-four team when it faced the Wildcats. However, it lost two of its last three, including a 13-2 blowout at the hands of Michigan Michigan. In addition, its top scorer, Ashley Mackin, has not played since April 10.
What’s interesting about the Hopkins and Penn State matchups is that Northwestern beat them in vastly different ways to start the season. Against Penn State, the Wildcats held possession just 44% of the time, getting beaten 16-10 on the draw. However, it won 16-7 off of transition plays, forced turnovers and better efficiency. Meanwhile, Northwestern had the ball 62% of the time versus Hopkins, completely exemplifying “win the draw, win the game.” Both teams aren’t the same as they were early in the season, but it’s reasonable to assume that these stat differentials won’t factor in Northwestern’s game-planning.
Championship Game
If Northwestern wins on Friday, it could face No. 2 Maryland, No. 3 Michigan, No. 6 USC or No. 7 Rutgers in the championship. Having beaten all those teams by at least nine goals this season, the Wildcats will be the heavy favorite to win in a possible title game matchup. However, all four teams challenged Northwestern during periods of their games against each other, and anything can happen in the postseason.
The Rutgers-Maryland quarterfinal match could be a potential upset watch, as the Terrapins just barely eked out an 8-7 win against the Scarlet Knights last week — a game where Rutgers’ Payton Tini took a final shot with just 34 seconds left, barely missing wide. Michigan-USC could also be close, with the Wolverines winning by just two goals against the Trojans in Ann Arbor this March.
Given how close many non-Northwestern Big Ten games have been, a NU-UMD championship is far from guaranteed. But Maryland owns wins against every team in the conference but Northwestern and has home-field advantage, so it should be a favorite to make the championship game.
In a hypothetical Maryland matchup, the Wildcats should expect a different Maryland team from the one that fell 16-4 to them in March. That game was a regular-season spring break match inside Ryan Fieldhouse, whereas the title game will be played in enemy territory. Maryland has lost just one home conference game in head coach Cathy Reese’s 18-year tenure (Northwestern’s 17-9 victory last year) and will be backed by a community within a national lacrosse hotbed. In addition, it beat Northwestern 14-9 on the draw and held star attacker Madison Taylor to 20% shooting in their last matchup — that could lead to a slippery slope if not addressed in a rematch.
Stay tuned this week both here at Inside NU and @insidenu on X for full coverage of Northwestern’s Big Ten tournament run.