The end may be near, but Northwestern’s seniors aren’t ready to get nostalgic quite yet.
When the fourth-seeded Wildcats take the field Saturday for their NCAA quarterfinal matchup with fifth-seeded North Carolina, it will mark their final appearance at the Thomas Athletic Complex this season. It also means the team’s seniors will be playing in their final home game.
“There’s definitely a lot of emotion,” senior Sarah Albrecht said. “This is my last time playing at my home stadium, but again I’m just trying to focus in on what I need to do and I’ll think about that later on.”
For Albrecht, Laura Glassanos, Lindsey Munday and the injured Jenny Bush, the game will bring to a close one of the final chapters in the collegiate careers of perhaps NU’s most successful recruiting class to date. Munday is the school’s all-time assist leader, acting almost as a pass-first point guard on the Cats’ offense, while Albrecht and Glassanos are both in the top 10 on NU’s career scoring list.
All have served as leaders on a team that is fighting for its second-consecutive NCAA championship and has shown that a school out of the Midwest can topple the lacrosse powers of the East Coast.
“They’ve matured so much,” NU coach Kelly Amonte Hiller said. “So many of the seniors have done great things for this program and they’re all such great people, so it’s really been a pleasure to be around them and have them be a part of this program.”
Under Amonte Hiller, the Cats have fully embraced the “one game at a time” mindset the coach so adamantly preaches. In Saturday’s case, the one game at hand holds undeniable emotional value.
But rather than dwell on the moment, the seniors will look to turn the unique situation into extra motivation.
“I’m hoping it’ll make me score like 10 goals, but I can’t make any promises,” Glassanos said. “But yeah, I think it’s going to be really emotional for everyone, but hopefully it’ll work to our advantage.”
While three of the seniors will likely start the North Carolina game, one will be forced to watch from the sidelines. Bush, who tore her right meniscus warming up before a late-April victory against Denver, is out for the remainder of the season. The circumstance is reminiscent of classmate Glassanos’ 2005 injury, which kept Glassanos from playing in the NCAA tournament.
Though the situation may seem tragic, Amonte Hiller said that thanks to help from players like Glassanos, Bush has handled the injury admirably.
“I think they’ve been supportive of each other, and I think Laura understands what Jenny’s going through,” Amonte Hiller said. “She’s done a great job in supporting the team and being a great leader.”
The showdown with North Carolina is a rematch of an April 21 match, which the Cats won 18-10 in Evanston. In the first meeting, NU shocked and awed the Tar Heels with a 9-0 run in the first half, setting the Cats up for an easy win.
But the NU seniors know better than to think Saturday’s matchup will be so one-sided.
“We are just not really focusing on the last game, because we know it’s a tournament game and it’s going to be different,” Munday said. “They’re going to be coming out for revenge, so we know we need to come out there even harder than we did the previous time we played them.”
Reach Ben Larrison at [email protected].
