Kelly Amonte Hiller’s success as Northwestern’s women’s lacrosse coach is unprecedented.
A school outside of the Eastern time zone was never supposed to win a lacrosse national title, let alone five consecutive NCAA Division I championships.
The lacrosse world has honored Amonte Hiller with numerous awards, but earlier this month she received an accolade that is a true testament to why the Wildcats have been, and should remain, consistently competitive: ESPNU and ESPN the Magazine named Amonte Hiller 19th on their top-20 recruiters list across all college sports. She is in pretty good company with coaches such as Duke’s Mike Kyzyzewskiand Ohio State’s Thad Matta.
The Wildcats’ 2011 season begins on Saturday at Notre Dame. For the first time since 2005, the Wildcats don’t have the bullseye on their backs of defending national champion.
Despite losing 37 percent of last year’s offense after graduating Katrina Dowd and Danielle Spencer, NU is poised to contend for another national title in 2011. The Cats are the second-ranked team in the Women’s Lacrosse Coaches Association preseason poll.
Replacing lost offensive firepower is nothing new for the Maryland graduate. Amonte Hiller doesn’t just recruit well; she completely reloads. And that’s the only way a team can be so dominant nowadays when there is plenty of parity in college athletics.
The Class of 2009, featuring Tewaarton Trophy Winner Hannah Nielsen and Hilary Bowen, accounted for close to 40 percent of the team’s scoring production during the undefeated 2008-09 national championship run. The next season, the Cats comparatively averaged a little more than one fewer goals-per-game.
This year, NU’s attack should be a much more balanced affair.
Junior Shannon Smith, who netted 69 goals last season, will be the focal point of the Wildcat offense and NU’s top candidate for the Tewaarton Trophy. But it is the secondary scoring that will ultimately determine the Cats’ fate. Neither senior Brooke Matthews, junior Alex Frank nor sophomore Erin Fitzgerald are expected to score 60 goals, but collectively the three of them will need to boost their overall scoring.
As usual, the biggest questions is the freshman class. This season there are 11 fresh faces on NU’s roster, including nine players from lacrosse hotbeds New York and Massachusetts.
“This class has great potential,” Amonte Hiller said in interview with NUSports.com. “We’ve got players that scored a bunch of goals in high school, and it has been an adjustment to see them at the next level.”
Some of these freshmen will earn playing time, but it’s too early to tell who will be this season’s Fitzgerald and emerge as a reliable scoring threat by the postseason.
Most college programs with two-thirds of their roster comprising underclassmen would be labeled as in the rebuilding process.
But, then again, most teams don’t have Kelly Amonte Hiller.
Justin Schecker is a Medill junior. He can be reached at [email protected].
