CORRECTION: An article in Friday’s sports page incorrectly stated the game clock ran continuously at the lacrosse game. The clock stopped after each goal.
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Women’s Lacrosse
Northwestern’s 16-3 NCAA tournament hammering of unranked Mount St. Mary’s may not be enough to convince some skeptics of Northwestern’s credibility as the nation’s top-ranked team.
But the game convinced Courtney Martinez Connor, the Mount’s head coach, that the Cats are seeded right where they belong.
“They are No. 1 in hustle and all-out heart,” Martinez Connor said after Friday’s game.
NU (18-0) scored 10 first-half goals to give them a comfortable lead and cruise past Mount St. Mary’s. For the second straight season, NU advances to the tournament quarterfinals while Mount St. Mary’s heads home.
On Sunday the Cats will host Princeton (13-4), which topped Maryland 16-8 in the tournament’s first round.
Sophomore Aly Josephs led the Cats on Thursday with a career-high seven goals, the most any NU player has scored in a game this season. Josephs opened scoring 1:36 into the game, and before that goal was announced, she scored a second.
Kristen Kjellman then notched two more for the Cats.
Almost 10 minutes into the game, in its second venture into its offensive zone, the Mount got a goal from Kirby Day, its leading scorer.
Josephs scored off the free position to get things rolling again for NU, which scored seven unanswered goals in the half.
Josephs opened second-half scoring, and the clock began running continuously with the Cats’ 10-point lead. Kjellman made it 13-1 before NU goalie Ashley Gersuk came out of the game just before the half’s five-minute mark.
Day scored her second goal of the game one minute after NU backup goaltender Abby Bangser entered her first tournament match.
The game’s pace slowed as NU sent in players from its bench, but the Cats scored three more goals and the Mount scored one, making the game 16-3.
“I think we didn’t let up,” Lindsey Munday said. “We just wanted it really bad.”
Munday, NU’s leading scorer, scored two goals and four assists in the match. Kjellman had three goals and Jennie Bush had two. Sarah Albrecht and Courtney Flynn each had one goal, and Flynn added an assist.
For the first time this season, injuries may affect the Cats on Sunday. Junior Laura Glassanos, NU’s third-highest scorer, stood on the sidelines on crutches Thursday after hurting her ankle in practice this week.
Kjellman came out of Thursday’s game with a slight limp after getting tangled with a Mount player on a play.
The Cats will spend the weekend preparing for Sunday’s game, the most high-profile one in NU’s current program’s history.
The Cats and the Tigers met in Princeton during the preseason this fall, but have not faced each other in the regular season in NU’s four-year-old modern program.
Princeton won the championship in 2002 and advanced to the NCAA finals last season, where the team lost 10-4 to Virginia. The Tigers were ranked in the season’s top five until the final week of the season.
“We’re really looking to step it up,” Amonte Hiller said. “This is what our girls thrive on…the challenge of playing such a good team. They’ve worked all season to get to this game on Sunday.”
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