Fresh off winning the ALC Championship for the sixth straight year, No. 2 Northwestern will start its pursuit of a sixth consecutive NCAA Championship on Saturday against No. 14 Notre Dame.
Last weekend’s victories over Penn State and Vanderbilt came in a do-or-die tournament setting. Starting now though, the season is on the line with each game. For the younger players, it’s a chance to keep this season going and build momentum heading into next year.
For the seniors, they step onto the field hoping to extend their lacrosse lives.
“My career is week by week, it all depends on how we come out and execute,” senior attacker Katrina Dowd said. “It makes you want to practice hard every day like it’s going to be your last. You can never understand when you’re not in the situation, but I have that sense that I want to accomplish that goal of winning a National Championship.”
Dowd has given most teams nightmares throughout the season, which is one of the reasons she was named a 2010 Tewaaraton Award finalist. Her 5.83 points per game lead the nation, and she ranks in the top five nationally in total points, total goals and goals per game.
One team successfully held Dowd in check during the regular season-Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish limited the Wildcats’ main threat to one goal and one assist throughout the contest.
As Notre Dame found out in its 15-5 loss, shutting one senior down is not enough to stop NU’s attack. Danielle Spencer had one of her best all-around performances of the season against the Irish, scoring four goals and dishing out three assists.
“It’s pick your poison, who they are going to focus on,” Dowd said. “That’s the thing about (me and Spencer); not a lot of teams have been able to get both of us at once. We feed off each other and know we’re going to step up to help this team.”
The third NU attacker, Shannon Smith, showed her offensive prowess in the Cats’ 23-14 win against the Commodores in the ALC Championship. With Spencer faceguarded and limited to two scores, the sophomore notched seven goals and had three assists.
The attacking trio combined to score 171 of NU’s 302 goals so far this year, or roughly 57 percent. Spencer has the third-most goals on the team with 48. The next-highest total is from freshman Erin Fitzgerald, who has 23, including three from the earlier meeting with Notre Dame.
Coach Kelly Amonte Hiller has told her younger players the importance of stepping up at this time in the season, especially as the opposition focuses on shutting down NU’s veteran attackers.
“Throwing Shannon in the mix there is crucial,” Amonte Hiller said. “That has been a strength of ours-if Katrina is on and they’re holding back another one of our attackers, someone else steps up. As you play against top teams like Notre Dame, they are going to have multiple strong defenders and they’re going to be looking to stop our three big guns, so we’re going to need performances from everyone.”
The Cats will host their first round contest and should they win, will also face the winner of No. 5 Duke and No. 9 Vanderbilt at home. Spencer said it would be a “pleasure” to play at Lakeside Field once more, and hopefully twice.
With only one game this weekend, NU is not looking ahead. But the team is not looking back either. The Cats are focused solely on the Irish, but have not placed much emphasis on March’s regular season meeting.
“They were a tough team then and they’re even tougher now,” Spencer said. “I’d like to say the same about us. We’re both different teams. We’ve evolved a lot as the season progressed.”
Spencer said the key to the 10-goal victory in the regular season was draw controls and ground balls, though NU narrowly edged Notre Dame in both categories. Despite the lopsided score, the Irish kept close to the Cats in every statistical category except fouls. Notre Dame committed 29 penalties to NU’s 15.
That tough competition in the first round is emblematic of the entire tournament. Each team has faced adversity at some point during the season, and traditional powerhouse programs such as Duke and Pennsylvania fell to the lower than normal seeds, providing potential championship-caliber matchups in the second round.
“There’s no undefeated team in the tournament and every team seems to have been up and down,” Spencer said. “It’s everyone’s chance to win. It’s going to come down to who has worked the hardest, who wants it more and who’s ready to go.”
Spencer said as she realized her playing days at NU are nearing an end, she has been trying to enjoy every moment at practice and with her teammates. Though she has been in the NCAA tournament the past three seasons, she said she still gets butterflies in her stomach thinking about it.
For the younger players, the magnitude of the tournament has not kicked in, and might not until next year, Amonte Hiller said. She said the number of freshmen contributing to the Cats this season could prove beneficial, as they will come out and play the way they are used to.
Ultimately, Saturday marks the pinnacle of the lacrosse season for all 16 teams in the tournament. And NU is prepared to defend its place atop the mountain.
“We have a great challenge ahead of us and we’re really looking forward to it,” Amonte Hiller said. “These are the moments you live for, and you have to go out there and play your best. That’s all you can control.”[email protected]
