Off to Gillette Stadium for championship weekend.
It’s Final Four eve, and another Stick Season column is out! Due to my massive academic backlog and Northwestern women’s golf’s NCAA championship run, this week’s piece is out a day late, but the amount of lacrosse content doesn’t change. So let’s talk about all things Lake Show, ranging from Northwestern’s 17-12 NCAA quarterfinal win against Penn and Madison Taylor’s NCAA single-season goals record.
We’re back in familiar territory. Like it has done for the past six years (excluding 2020), Northwestern lacrosse will have its calendar booked on Memorial Day Weekend to fight for a national championship.
When a team reaches the same standard of success for so long, it can be easy to get used to that standard while watching from afar. What gets overlooked sometimes is how it’s a battle to reach the Final Four year after year. That especially holds for this year’s Northwestern squad, which came into the season with more unknowns than it has had in a long time.
Nobody knew what Northwestern’s ceiling was when it began the season with a narrow win against Notre Dame and a loss to Boston College. Even after lighting up the Big Ten regular season, the postseason didn’t come easily for the Wildcats as they barely won their conference tournament. Many of us were concerned about potential upsets brewing in the Evanston region when Northwestern’s NCAA tournament draw came out. And despite having done so the last five times, NU’s quarterfinal match against Penn to book a ticket to Foxborough was one where the results weren’t certain until the clock ran out.
Yes, Northwestern led for the majority of the game. But it had to do everything to maintain that position, including fend off a 6-1 run by the Quakers between the second and third quarters that erased NU’s six-goal lead and made things a one-goal game. The Wildcats got two goals called off — one from Madison Taylor amid that 6-1 run, and one from Taylor Lapointe that snapped a 4-0 Northwestern fourth-quarter run and sparked two Penn goals to bring the game within three. Those calls could have ruined Northwestern’s momentum, like how Penn’s called-off goal at the start of the fourth did for it. But because the Wildcats were battle-tested, they pushed past every Penn resurgence to never let go of their advantage.
Heading into the Final Four, the main theme for No. 3-seeded Northwestern is still uncertainty. But as the underdogs clashing against titans like No. 2-seeded Boston College and No. 1 North Carolina, this now works in its favor. It plays a Boston College team that it last faced in February — both Taylor and Sam Smith said that Northwestern has gotten better, stronger and more cohesive since then. If the ‘Cats continue to fight until the last whistle like they’ve done for the past few weeks while playing without expectations, watch out.
“There’s definitely less attention on us and probably a lot more people overlooking us,” Northwestern head coach Kelly Amonte Hiller said in a Wednesday media availability. “That’s a great thing and we’re just gonna go out there and try to prove with each minute of the game who we are and how we can compete.”
Possession heroics (again)
At this point in the season, I sound like a broken record talking about “win the draw, win the game.” But I cannot restate how much the draw circle was the MVP for Northwestern to clinch a spot in the Final Four.
Penn was incredibly efficient last Thursday, shooting 54.5% with 18 of its 22 total shots being on-goal. It seemed like Anna Brandt was finding the back of the net every time she had the ball (she tallied five goals on eight shots). Meanwhile, Northwestern shot 53.12% with 22 of its 32 shots on goal. So if the Quakers had more possessions, the tide could have been changed, given that it was more efficient overall than the ‘Cats.
However, thanks to the efforts of Taylor, Smith and Sammy White, that didn’t happen. The trio, which you could argue makes up arguably the best draw unit in the nation, combined for all 23 of Northwestern’s draw controls. Smith had 15 of those herself, setting a single-game career high. Amonte Hiller said that she didn’t have her best game in the second round against Michigan (even though she did record nine draw controls that game) and made adjustments against Penn to come out firing.
“There’s nobody that is more of just a hungry player than Sam,” Amonte Hiller said. “She just has that hunger for the dirty work and the ground balls, the draw controls…the adjustments that we made were the smallest of adjustments, but made the biggest of an impact.”
The draw was especially critical in the first quarter, when Northwestern won the draw battle 7-2 (its largest margin of victory all game) — a big reason it got off to its 5-1 lead. In total, the team controlled possession 67% of the time compared to Penn’s 33%, a statistic crucial to its victory.
Contextualizing 105
The big story of the quarterfinal was Taylor’s assault on the NCAA record books. In one six-goal game, she took down Izzy Scane’s Northwestern single-season goals record of 99 before breaking High Point alum Abby Hormes’ NCAA Division I single-season record of 102. She’s been on pace to take down these marks since the start of the season (which I have written about), but it was always a matter of when defenses would “figure her out,” or when Northwestern’s offense would become more balanced to not rely on her the majority of the time. However, that never happened.
Throughout the 2025 season, Northwestern’s attack has stayed heliocentric around Taylor. Except for Maryland and maybe BC and UNC, no other team’s defense has been able to stop her. As a result, she’s scored or assisted on 31.2% of the Wildcats’ points. So even with how remarkable Taylor’s accomplishment is, it’s also not that surprising when you look at the role she’s played for Northwestern all season.
But the more interesting question is: What does this record mean for Taylor?
Of course, an NCAA record is an NCAA record regardless of how you spin it. But what’s impressive about the players Taylor has surpassed is the season that came with their records. For example, Scane’s 99-goal 2023 season was when she led Northwestern back to the top of the mountain for the first time in 11 years. Charlotte North’s 102-goal season in 2021, once an NCAA record, ended with her scoring six goals on championship Sunday to bring Boston College its first title ever and is arguably more memorable than Hormes’ season that broke the record a year later against weaker competition.
For Taylor, who currently sits at 105 goals on the year, her record represents how she rose to the occasion to become a much-needed offensive leader for Northwestern. However, she has a chance to make the mark more memorable in Foxborough, starting with the Boston College match. BC’s Rachel Clark has 103 goals so far, so the head-to-head with Taylor could determine who ends the season with the NCAA record (and potentially the Tewaaraton Award). Any win Northwestern gets in the Final Four will be considered an upset, so Taylor will have ample opportunity to rise to the occasion and further bolster her already historic season.
Weekly Awards
Player of the week: Sam Smith, senior midfielder — It feels wrong not to give this award to a player who broke an NCAA single-season goals record this past week, but Smith was perhaps the player who set up all those scoring opportunities for Northwestern. As said before, she tallied a single-game career-high of 15 draw controls last Thursday, contributing to the team’s possession dominance.
Play of the week: Aditi Foster truly has one of the highest ceilings on the team. Despite not starting, she’s shown her raw talent in later games this season, like this nifty shot she scored off while surrounded by three Penn defenders.
What’s Next?
As mentioned earlier, Northwestern travels to Foxborough on Friday to take on the No. 2-seeded Boston College in a rematch of the last two NCAA title games. After playing the earlier semi-final game three years in a row, the ‘Cats could finally get a taste of Friday Night Lights with their upcoming match starting at 5:30 p.m. local time. Expect a lot of neon yellow in the stands, however, with the Eagles having basically a home-field advantage.
This will be the penultimate Stick Season column, regardless of what happens next week. I’ll write one more piece next week to discuss championship weekend and end-of-season awards, but it’s so long after that.