Everyone knows Katrina Dowd. The Tewaraaton Trophy finalist leads the team with 74 goals and 32 assists. Dowd, the 2009 NCAA Championship MVP, has scored the most playoff goals in NCAA history.
Everyone knows Danielle Spencer. The 6-foot-2 attacker recorded 64 goals last year, second only to Dowd. She has registered 97 draw controls this season, already a school record.
Everyone knows Shannon Smith. The sophomore has started every game of her career, notching 96 goals as the third and fourth threat on two offensively loaded teams.
Not everyone knows Erin Fitzgerald and Amanda Macaluso, but they should. The pair has combined to score 50 goals, less than Spencer alone, but their impact is immeasurable.
“At this point in the season, those people are the most crucial,” coach Kelly Amonte Hiller said of the Wildcats’ secondary scorers. “They’re the key to success.”
Fitzgerald started just five games in the regular season, but she tallied time in all 18 contests. In those games, the freshman notched 13 goals. In two playoff games, Fitzgerald has recorded seven scores, second behind Dowd. Fitzgerald broke out last weekend, recording three goals and one assist. But it wasn’t as much what she did as how she did it. With 12:06 left in the first half, the freshman weaved her way through a pair of Notre Dame defenders, finally emerging and firing her second goal of the game. Fitzgerald topped that number Saturday, scoring four times and picking up a pair of ground balls.
Macaluso played even less than Fitzgerald, starting only three contests. But Amonte Hiller started Macaluso in both playoff games, and her risk paid off Saturday when Macaluso recorded a hat trick in NU’s dismantling of Duke. Saturday was Macaluso’s coming out party, as she stole the show with three goals, two ground balls and two caused turnovers. But like with Fitzgerald last weekend, it wasn’t as much what she did as how she did it. With 13 minutes left in a game that was all but over, Duke attacker Lindsay Gilbride was racing unopposed toward NU’s net. Out of nowhere, Macaluso caught up with her and whacked her stick from behind, knocking the ball loose. The play drew a roar from the crowd, and two minutes later Fitzgerald put in her fourth goal of the game.
“Sometimes as a freshman you can just play free,” Amonte Hiller said after the Cats’ win over the Irish. “You don’t have any expectations from the years past. You just go out there and give your best effort.”
And if it wasn’t for NU’s loss to North Carolina, there’s a chance neither Fitzgerald nor Macaluso would have such a large role.
After the Cats only defeat of the season, Amonte Hiller shook up the lineup, and since then NU has put on a clinic in domination. In seven games following the loss, only two teams have come within nine goals of the Cats. Squads have been able to hold certain players silent, like when Penn State held Spencer and Smith to one goal apiece, but shutting down The Big Three plus players like Fitzgerald, Macaluso, Alexandra Frank and Brooke Matthews is next to impossible.
“If you can do a good job of limiting certain kids on Northwestern, an Erin Fitzgerald is going to hurt you,” Duke coach Kerstin Kimel said. “She’s in a position to do that because quite honestly, most teams’ game plans defensively are geared around (Dowd, Spencer and Smith) … Most teams don’t have seven top defenders that can shut down people.”
The Cats are going to need as much offense as they can get against North Carolina on Friday. The Tar Heels have one of the most explosive attacks in the country, and they have topped 10 goals in all but two of their 19 games.
The last several NCAA tournaments have provided a good preview of things to come for Amonte Hiller. Three years ago, Hilary Bowen was the difference for NU in the National Championship game, as the sophomore scored five goals in a 15-13 win. Last year it was Dowd, who notched four scores in the final game.
The time is now for Fitzgerald and Macaluso to make their move. They too should be household names come Memorial Day.
Sports Editor Robbie Levin is a Medill sophomore. He can be reached at [email protected].
