On the road to a repeat, it’s one down, three to go for Northwestern.
The No. 1 Wildcats defeated No. 15 Stanford 17-9 Sunday at the Thomas Athletic Complex to advance to the semifinals of the NCAA tournament. NU will face North Carolina at home Saturday to play for a trip to Boston and the Final Four.
“I think you always have to bring another level (of intensity) when you’re in the playoffs,” NU coach Kelly Amonte Hiller said. “And I think they brought that and so did we today.”
Led by four goals from both junior Kristen Kjellman and senior Sarah Albrecht, the Cats (17-1) pulled away from Stanford (12-6) with a 6-0 run in the second half to seize a 16-5 lead and take control of the game. Freshman Meredith Frank added three goals and an assist for NU.
The Cats dominated on draw controls, outpacing the Cardinal 17-10 while owning the possession battle. And with both teams featuring high-pressure, high-intensity defenses, aggressive play marked much of the game.
“The officials were definitely letting us have more contact than usual,” Albrecht said. “You just have to kind of play off it and make sure that you go with the officiating. You can’t complain about it, and they’re not going to call it.”
In the first half, the teams matched goals early. Sophomore Daphne Patterson scored two goals for Stanford, and NU had scores from Kjellman and freshman Hillary Bowen for a 2-2 tie eight minutes in.
But from there, the Cats ruled the first. Five-straight NU goals, including two from Frank, gave the defending-NCAA champions a 7-2 halftime lead.
Cardinal players said they saw a definite change in the NU team they played Sunday from the one that defeated them 19-8 at Stanford on March 25.
“I thought that they had really picked up their intensity,” Stanford senior Megan Burker said. “They looked great then, they look great now. But there was sort of a new level of intensity. And maybe that came from their experience in the tournament in past years but they just seem more ready to play.”
Stanford again hung with the Cats to start the second before another NU run ended any hopes for the Cardinal. Holding onto a five-goal lead with 17 minutes to play, the Cats notched six unanswered scores, including three from Albrecht, two from Kjellman and one from junior Aly Josephs, to take a 16-5 advantage.
Stanford would go on to outscore NU 4-1 in the final 3:39, but the Cats’ mid-half run proved too powerful to overcome.
“I think that they started to really harness the momentum (in the second half),” Patterson said. “They got a few draws in a row; we got a little out of control on the attack, giving the ball away a little bit. We weren’t as composed as we could be, (and) we didn’t give our ‘D’ enough time to rest.”
For Stanford, the high-energy combination of playing a high-pressure defense against a powerful NU offense proved costly in the second half. While the aggressive nature proved valuable in the first, with goalie Laura Shane and the rest of the Cardinal defense often frustrating the Cats’ attack, Stanford grew tired as the game wore on and NU took advantage.
“I think that’s our bread and butter, just wearing people down,” Amonte Hiller said. “You know, wearing teams down, being physically and mentally tougher than other teams. And I think that’s what really helped us last year in the playoffs and all season long.”
Reach Ben Larrison at [email protected].
