The title defense begins now.
Needing a win to lock up the top seed in the NCAA tournament, the No. 1 Wildcats came through with a 14-9 win over Vanderbilt on Friday at the Thomas Athletic Complex.
Led by three goals from junior Kristen Kjellman and three more from freshman Meredith Frank, Northwestern (16-1, 5-0 American Lacrosse Conference) jumped out to a 10-1 lead and held on for the victory.
“I thought we played pretty well,” Kjellman said. “I think that we definitely can work on a few things still. I think that it was a good sign going into the tournament, but we’re going to look to step up our game.”
The Cats survived an 8-4 run late from the Commodores (6-9, 2-3 ALC), where Hickman scored four of her five goals and notched both of her assists.
But the lead was too great to overcome, and a 3-0 NU rally in the middle of the second half ended all hopes of a comeback.
“It’s definitely a tale of two halves,” Vanderbilt coach Cathy Swezey said. “Even though Northwestern is a very talented, well-coached team, I knew that for us to be in the game we were going to have to fight. And I think maybe in the first half we were lacking that fight.”
Meanwhile Hickman, who was playing her final weekend of collegiate lacrosse, felt the game was decided by another factor: fear.
“We have a lot of youth on the team that can sometimes get intimidated by a team’s name,” Hickman said.
With the win, the Cats claimed their third-straight ALC crown outright, and for the second season in a row finished undefeated in the conference. The title carries with it an automatic NCAA berth.
While the Cats seem disinterested with the polls, they can see the advantage of being ranked first entering NCAAs.
“A ranking is just a ranking,” Kjellman said. “But if it will help us through the tournament and help us get a better road to the (championship), then it’s great.”
The game started typically for NU, when Frank scored just 18 seconds into the contest to take the lead.
The Cats went on to dominate the half, ending the first with six-straight goals and a 9-1 advantage. Both Frank’s three goals and one assist, and all three of Kjellman’s scores came in the period.
Senior Sarah Albrecht, junior Aly Josephs and freshman Casey Donohoe also added first-half goals for NU.
But the second half was a different story.
“I think we started out well,” Frank said. “We started off a little slow (in the second half), but I think then we hit a peak and we were doing really well. (But) towards the end, we just kind of plateaued – didn’t play with the passion, didn’t play with the aggressiveness that we usually do.”
After Albrecht’s goal gave the Cats a 10-1 lead less than a minute into the second, Vanderbilt went on an 8-4 tear to end the game. NU, usually dominant on draw controls, was on the wrong end of many of the draws and ground balls in the half.
NU coach Kelly Amonte Hiller said the struggles came as the team was trying out new plays and strategies before NCAAs.
“Sometimes that happens, you give up a few goals,” Amonte Hiller said. “But we were confident with where we were. We could test some things and see if they worked.”
Reach Ben Larrison at [email protected].
