Everything went right for No. 1 Northwestern in its NCAA quarterfinal match-up with No. 5 North Carolina Saturday – in the second half.
After trailing North Carolina 5-3 with less than three minutes remaining in the first half, coach Kelly Amonte Hiller called a timeout to regroup the Wildcats.
It worked.
Junior attacker Aly Josephs scored two goals in the Cats’ 3-0 run to end the first half with a 6-5 lead. Josephs finished with a team-high four goals.
“I’m not sure if it was nerves when we came out,” Amonte Hiller said. “Once we turned the light switch on, we were all working together and going after it.”
With the Cats path to the Final Four illuminated at halftime, they began the second half with five unanswered goals. That offensive outpouring would culminate in a lopsided second half where the Cats out shot North Carolina 18-6, en route to a 17-6 victory.
“Things just start to crumble the more they score goals,” said junior Kristen Hordy, the North Carolina goalie. Hordy entered the game with the nation’s seventh-best goals against average of 7.9. “And the more (they score) the more we get frustrated.”
The Tar Heels tried to prevent those goals by assigning one defender to face guard junior Kristen Kjellman. Kjellman, who is ranked fourth in the nation averaging 3.6 goals per game, did put a shot on goal until after more than six minutes into the second half.
“I think that I was confident that my teammates would be able to step up because everyone is capable on our attack of scoring goals,” Kjellman said. “So I wasn’t nervous at all, it was a little frustrating.”
Kjellman and freshman Meredith Frank each finished with hat tricks.
Although the Cats’ offense squelched any chance of a Tar Heels comeback, NU’s defense was just as suffocating.
Led by freshman goalie Morgan Lathrop, who recorded 10 saves, the defense dominated ground balls in the second half 11-5. The last time the Cats and the Tar Heels met, Lathrop did not play.
“(Lathrop) has really started to get better and better every game since the Duke game,” Amonte Hiller said. “I knew that given the opportunity today she was going to step up. That is just innate in her personality.”
With their ticket to Boston for the Final Four in hand, Lathrop and the Cats can now look to avenge their 16-10 loss to Duke earlier in the season on Apr. 7.
And the Cats have not forgotten about that game.
After suffering its first loss in more than thirty games, Amonte Hiller bought blue bracelets for the team to keep that defeat fresh in the players’ minds.
“We have it on so we can remember what it felt like and it motivates us,” Kjellman said about the blue bracelets.
In what will be a homecoming for Amonte Hiller and five Cats who are from the greater Boston area, the semifinal on May 26 will pit the nation’s two top teams against each other. Duke is second only to NU in scoring offense, draw controls and win-margins.
“Going into this Duke game, not only do we have a chip on our shoulder about the four seed, but we are really excited with the match-up about getting another chance to play a phenomenal team,” Amonte Hiller said.
Senior attacker Laura Glassanos, who played her final game in Evanston on Saturday and finished with two goals, said the team was “rudely awakened” the last time it played Duke.
The Cats will play in the first semifinal at 5 p.m. on Boston University’s Nickerson Field. Sixth-seeded Notre Dame will take on seventh-seeded Dartmouth following that game in the second semifinal.
This will be the Cats second-consecutive appearance in the Final Four.
“Our biggest flaw in the first Duke game is that we had the same thing that we kind of had in this first half (Saturday) in that some people expected our big guns to step up,” Amonte Hiller said. “We need to play smart and we need to have all players step up and be a threat at all times.”
Reach Steve Silver at [email protected]
