Stick Season, Week 13: Crown her

On Sunday, it was Madison Taylor’s world and we all lived in it.

It’s NCAA tournament time! After a brief hiatus, Stick Season is back this week to recap Northwestern’s 15-7 win against Michigan. Of course, we’ll start with junior attacker Madison Taylor’s historic 10-goal performance, which broke an NCAA tournament single-game record. We’ll also dive into the Wildcats’ ability to bounce back from adversity and its offensive tendencies.

Last Monday, on Inside with Inside NU’s NCAA tournament preview podcast, a topic of discussion was about how Madison Taylor could solidify herself among the Northwestern all-time greats. The discourse got a little NBA Twitter-esque, revolving around ring culture and Tewaaraton Awards. But one point I made still holds — that the best way Taylor can solidify her impact is by willing her team to victory when the lights shine the brightest.

And on Sunday, maybe more than ever in her career, I saw Taylor do just that. Despite having her fair share of great performances in the past, I’ve never seen anything quite like what she did against Michigan.

It was how Taylor scored three goals in the first eight minutes of the match, completely wiping away any possibility of an early Northwestern deficit. It was how she scored five straight in the third quarter after Michigan cut Northwestern’s lead to 6-4, blowing the game open and ending a period of back-and-forth between both teams. It was how the press box got increasingly more flabbergasted every time she left the nation’s No. 8 defense and the two-time Big Ten Goalie of the Year in the dust with her season goal total creeping closer to that century mark.

It’s not easy being in Taylor’s position. With her level being so much higher than any other Northwestern attacker, she’s always under a microscope, her mistakes more magnified without all-time greats to act as her security blanket. Even two weeks ago, I was critical of Taylor’s 2-for-14 showing against Maryland and some of her decision-making in that match. However, amidst these moments, it’s easy to forget that she’s cashed every check she has written and is still doing more.

Not only did Taylor’s season quell preseason worries about the increased defensive attention on her, but she’s also putting up a performance that’s likely about to become statistically better than anyone in Northwestern history. Taylor one goal away from breaking Scane’s single-season record of 99. And there’s no denying the greatness of 10 goals in an NCAA tournament.

Taylor showed the best version of herself against the Wolverines. If it continues, we may witness the stuff of legends.

Bouncing back

Above, I alluded to how Taylor came off arguably her worst performance of the season to have the best showing of her career. That was the theme of the entire game for Northwestern.

Northwestern’s topsy-turvy Big Ten tournament, where it was nearly upset twice, was still fresh in my mind heading into Sunday’s matchup against Michigan. It was hard not to be concerned when the Wildcats were slated to face yet another conference foe in a do-or-die game, especially one that had given them trouble previously. However, the version of Northwestern that came out Sunday gave arguably its best performance since defeating Hopkins 18-5 on April 3, highlighting its ability to show up in May like in so many years past.

Yes, Northwestern’s margin of victory against Michigan in the NCAA tournament was one goal less than its margin in the regular season against the same opponent. But unlike the regular season match when it went down 3-1 in the first quarter, the Wildcats were in the driver’s seat the entire time during the tournament game, leading from start to finish. The progress was highlighted through Northwestern head coach Kelly Amonte Hiller’s postgame comments. On April 17, she emphasized the Cats’ need to relax when it went down early. On Sunday, she talked about her pride in the team staying calm.

Almost every aspect of Northwestern’s game on Sunday was better than in the Big Ten championship. After letting Maryland shoot 62.5% on its free-position shots, it allowed just one free-position goal from Michigan on five attempts. The Wolverines’ two top offensive players, Kaylee Dyer and Jill Smith, were held scoreless until the fourth quarter. Northwestern’s defense forced 17 turnovers on Michigan and committed just 18 fouls compared to 32 against Maryland. Yes, the Wildcats received four yellow cards (including one that nullified a goal from grad student Niki Miles), but those fouls didn’t ruin the game’s momentum the way they did two weeks ago.

The same progress goes for the offensive side, which we’ll talk more about later. It helps when Taylor makes all but one of her shots after not quite as efficient performance against Maryland. But it was a team effort that allowed Northwestern to get off to a quick start and never look back. Aside from a few moments between the second and third quarter, the ‘Cats didn’t let Michigan back into the game. After several showings with poor starts or quarter-long scoring droughts this season, a consistent scoring presence (the longest time between two Northwestern goals all game was around nine minutes) was something to appreciate.

Attack evaluation

So let’s talk about that offense. After struggling early to break into the Michigan zone defense during the regular season, the Wildcats were able to do so in the postseason through better ball movement, cutting and more purposeful passing.

Yes, the offense ran primarily through Taylor, who scored two-thirds of Northwestern’s goals, but you can see her connection with her teammates when she scores. Gor example, junior Lucy Munro had a career-high three assists in a single game solely from feeding Taylor. Just look at this free-position play here, where Munro doesn’t have to think twice before finding her target in the perfect spot:

There were several other plays like this, like freshman Aditi Foster’s (whose high ceiling was on display again with some incredible shots, even if they didn’t go in the goal) acrobatic dish to redshirt sophomore Abby LoCascio, sophomore Taylor Lapointe positioning herself perfectly to catch passes and transition plays that resulted in goals from Miles and Emerson Bohlig.

Taylor herself was in on the passing as well, knowing when to feed whenever she couldn’t score herself (and even so, she scored several goals while blanketed by multiple Michigan defenders). Soon enough, Michigan head coach Hannah Nielsen realized that nothing her defense did would stop her.

“You have to be careful with how you play her,” Nielsen said of Taylor. “We slide, she feeds it. You don’t slide, she kind of gets through it. We try to mix up some defensive sets, man and zone, and [Northwestern] simply had an answer for everything today.”

Heading into the Penn matchup, I still have some concerns about Northwestern’s offense, specifically whether we see more from the Wildcats’ secondary attackers. It’s not reasonable to expect Taylor to score ten goals every game, and it’s not an ideal situation for the team to rely so much on her performance. However, after seeing what Northwestern was like when its entire offense wasn’t working, there’s not much more you can ask for than the flow it put on display this time around.

Weekly Awards

Player of the week: Madison Taylor, junior attacker — Next question.

Play of the week: You know I love a good transition play. Here, Taylor grabs a ground ball, dishes to Bohlig, who sprints to the attacking third before finding senior Sam Smith for the goal. What better way to end the first quarter?

Shoutout to Bohlig on defense too, forcing three caused turnovers to set a career-high for a single game. We talk so much about her speed and her shooting on the attack end, but don’t forget that she’s a two-way midfielder too.

What’s Next?

As we discussed before, Northwestern plays Penn on Thursday at 11 a.m. CDT in the NCAA quarterfinals. Although the start time isn’t ideal for those working or in class, it may be for the best as my weather app says it’s supposed to be around 80 degrees by the afternoon. Hopefully the Wildcats, who typically aren’t used to playing in these temperatures in Evanston, can escape the heat for at least the first portion of the game.

A trip to the 2025 Final Four is on the line during this quarterfinal. Winning means that Northwestern will not only qualify for its sixth consecutive championship weekend, but it will also continue a streak of nine straight Final Fours spanning across the field hockey and lacrosse teams since 2021.