Lacrosse Season Analysis

Coach Kelly Amonte Hiller gave a simple answer in February when she was asked what the long-term goal for her lacrosse program was.

“I think we want to win a national championship,” said Amonte Hiller, one week before her team began its fourth season as a varsity squad.

That long-term goal came true shortly for Amonte Hiller and her 34 players, as the Wildcats assembled a Cinderella season of 21-0 and topped it off by beating defending national champion Virginia in the NCAA final.

“I think we deserve it for all our hard work,” sophomore Kristen Kjellman said.

The Cats set many firsts this season, including the first undefeated season in program history, the first No. 1 ranking for a team outside of the Eastern time zone and the first out-right American Lacrosse Conference title.

NU also advanced past the tournament quarterfinals for the first time and became the only NU team to earn a national championship since men’s fencing in 1941.

NU’s motto was “the team is the dream,” and that showed by the key contributions from every player that stepped on the field for NU. The Cats’ offense and defense were the best in the nation, and goalkeeper Ashley Gersuk had the nation’s best goals-against average, 5.9. The Cats averaged just more than 15 goals per game and held their opponents to fewer than half of that.

Junior Lindsey Munday led the team in scoring, finishing with 107 points and breaking the NU single-season records for assists and points.

Munday consistently fed passes to Kjellman, a First-Team All-American and the Cats’ top goal-getter of the past two seasons. Kjellman was the Most Valuable Player of the NCAA tournament and is among five candidates vying for the Tewaaraton Trophy, given to the nation’s best male and female college lacrosse players.

But the key to NU’s attack was, as Amonte Hiller would say, “a lot of weapons.” When Munday and Kjellman weren’t scoring, it was Laura Glassanos, Aly Josephs or Sarah Albrecht finding the net. And when those top five players were stalled, reserves like Jenny Bush, Kristen Boege and Donna McCann stepped up at key moments.

With 14 seniors on the team, NU had its most veteran team since being reinstated, and the team enjoyed unprecedented maturity. Those seniors, including captains Albrecht, Gersuk and Courtney Koester, gave strong leadership to the team.

Defenders Courtney and Ashley Koester helped lead and mentor sophomore defenders Emily Lovett and Lindsay Finocchiaro, and Christy Finch, who each had strong seasons.

The Koesters also brought top-notch grit and energy to NU’s defense, which stifled the nation’s top teams and big-name scorers like Virginia’s Amy Appelt, Duke’s Katie Chrest, Princeton’s Lindsey Biles and Johns Hopkins’ Mary Key.

And, as Amonte Hiller stressed all season, NU was “an extremely athletic team,” and was able to keep up high-intensity pressure for an entire match as their opponents tired.

After last season’s 15-3 run, which included a tournament quarterfinal appearance, NU started the season ranked No. 3 in the preseason polls.

“Our team is confident,” Kristen Kjellman said right before those rankings came out. “We know our potential, and each year we’ve done better, so that should help our momentum.”

After squeaking out a 6-5 come-from-behind win over then-No. 8 North Carolina in their season opener and then cruising past their next six opponents, the Cats clinched the No. 1 ranking in the fourth week of the season and never relinquished it.