Cats Corner: Looking ahead to spring sports

Desiree Luo, Ingrid Smith, Audrey Pachuta, and Henry Frieman

February 24, 2025

The Daily Northwestern · Cats Corner: Looking ahead to spring sports

With Northwestern lacrosse, softball and baseball kicking off their seasons, The Daily’s sports reporters talk predictions, players to watch for and storylines to follow.

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DESIREE LUO: Northwestern lacrosse, softball and baseball kicked off their seasons this February.

From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Desiree Luo. Welcome to a new episode of Cats Corner, a podcast about all things sports and purple pride. This week, we’ll be talking about the start of spring sports season.

I’m here with two Daily staffers who have covered all three sports.

AUDREY PACHUTA: Hi, I’m Audrey Pachuta. I’m the Sports Editor this quarter.

HENRY FRIEMAN: Hey, how’s it going? I’m Henry Frieman, and I am a Managing Editor this quarter.

DESIREE LUO: So, let’s start with lacrosse. How does the team look so far?

HENRY FRIEMAN: So NU lacrosse is kind of at a crossroads right now. Top scorers Izzy Scane and Erin Coykendall have graduated, as have key players, Kendall Halpern, Carleigh Mahoney and Dylan Amonte, and so junior Madison Taylor has been thrust into this role where she has to contribute day in and day out. And NU has added some talent in the attack with transfers, but it’s not the same as it was.

I think that was really evident Northwestern’s loss to Boston College. It was a 13-9 loss to the No. 1 team in the country. It was No. 1 vs. No. 2, which is NU, now NU is ranked No. 3. (Coach) Kelly Amonte Hiller is a proven championship winner, proven program builder. She has eight national titles to her name. So despite the fact that Scane and Coykendall and so many others have graduated, I still have full faith in the squad to at least make it to the NCAA Final Four. I’m not sure that they’ll win the national championship, but they’ll get close.

AUDREY PACHUTA: You can never be too sure. I mean, Izzy Scane was the all time scoring leader. When you lose someone like that, it’s an automatic rebuild for a program. And I think that we’re seeing the culture adapt.

HENRY FRIEMAN: If there are two areas of concern I have with NU lacrosse, it’s the A) the goalkeeping. Graduate student transfer Delaney Sweitzer has looked a little rusty. She came in from Syracuse, missed the first couple games of the season due to undisclosed reasons — Kelly Amonte Hiller wouldn’t tell us why — and she did not look great against Boston College. So I would be curious to see how the goalie position works itself out. And I would be curious to see who is able to score on offense for the cats.

DESIREE LUO: And even though the team looks a little bit different this year, which players should fans keep an eye on?

HENRY FRIEMAN: You’re gonna want to look at Madison Taylor, who’s most certainly going to be a finalist for the Tewaaraton Award. She’s the first player in Division I this season to reach 20 goals. She scored six against Niagara.

Harvard graduate transfer Riley Campbell is a really good defender, even though she’s a forward. When the defense is carrying the ball out of their own defensive area, attackers are permitted to sort of contest and try to force a turnover. It’s called the “ride,” and Campbell is phenomenal on the ride, and I think that’s really going to help NU down the stretch.

AUDREY PACHUTA: We were both covering the game against Boston College that Henry was referencing, and Emerson Bohlig had a big game. So, I’m interested to see, it’s very early on in the season, but she had three goals in that game. I don’t think she was a big scorer last year, but I’m very interested to see about her progression this year.

HENRY FRIEMAN: Defensively, you’re going to want to take a look at Sammy White, who also may be a finalist for the Tewaaraton, she’s already on the watchlist. And Grace Fujinaga from Penn has been phenomenal inside the eight meter.

DESIREE LUO: What was the significance of their loss to Boston College last week? I know there are some storylines with that matchup.

HENRY FRIEMAN: It was NU’s first home loss since March 9, 2020, so it was the first post COVID-19 pandemic loss the ’Cats have sustained while in Evanston. Obviously, a loss like that is big in stature, but in reality, NU frequently has losses earlier in the season, and then figures it out, goes in stride, starts working together more as a team.

Kelly Amonte Hiller told us last week that the team was working on its on-field chemistry, and as time progressed, they knew they would be getting stronger. So what NU is really focusing on right now with this game, yes, they lost, but they also lost to a team that has almost virtually booked themselves in the national championship game as a strong contender to win the national title. And now it can learn from that loss and go from there.

AUDREY PACHUTA: Last year, the national title game was Boston College and NU, and I think anytime you have sort of that rematch of a matchup of that stature people are going to be talking about it. There’s a lot of storylines you want to follow. But as Henry said, things that happen this early on in the season tend to work themselves out. I wouldn’t put too much pressure and be like, “Oh my gosh, this isn’t the team it was last year.”

DESIREE LUO: Moving on to softball, what’s the rundown?

AUDREY PACHUTA: Henry’s talking about the rebuild we have here with lacrosse after losing some key contributors last year. I think for NU softball, we’re in the second year of that.

So two years ago, after the 2023 season, we lost some of the best players this program has ever seen. The winningest pitcher in NU program history, Danielle Williams, she had led the team to three super regional appearances, and alongside her were four or five other players. I mean, Jordyn Rudd was one of them. There’s a ton of players who this program just lost. And last year was like, “Okay, this is a new team.”

It’s not that way this year. Last year, I think ahead of the season, people were like, “Oh my gosh, what’s gonna happen? This isn’t the NU program that we knew.” And then they came out and they won their third consecutive Big Ten regular season title. Their top two hitters are juniors now, but Kansas Robinson and Kelsey Nader, they were eighth and ninth, I think in the Big Ten in batting average, they’re back again this year. Really, the starting lineup for NU has only lost two key contributors. Angela Zedak and Hannah Cady were their power hitters in that three and four spot last year. When you have a lineup that’s returning seven of nine of its players from last year, you kind of know what to expect.

DESIREE LUO: And what have the players and coaches been saying?

AUDREY PACHUTA: I had the opportunity to talk to coach Kate Drohan this weekend, and she was talking a little bit about some shifts in the lineup. Maybe moving Kansas out of the top spot. She batted third on Sunday in their win over UT Arlington.

But yeah, I think we’ve seen some players emerge that weren’t here last year. Kaylie Avvisato, she’s a freshman. She was the ninth ranked recruit I think by extra inning softball, if we want to be specific, but she’s leading the team in batting average. She’s 15 for 33 in her at bats. So she’s really leading our offense right now, alongside Grace Nieto, who is a senior. She missed all of last season with an injury, and she’s come back, and she’s just really done a great job at the plate and in the field, and she’s really, you know, making her reemergence in the lineup. So those are two people to watch for that maybe weren’t here last year.

When you talk about pitching, another key aspect of the game, I think so far, what we’ve seen is Riley Grudzielanek, who is a sophomore, she’s pitched the most innings of any NU pitcher so far, 23 innings. And right up there with her is Lauren Boyd, who’s a graduate student pitcher who also missed all of last season with an injury, so she’s been back. It’s been really cool to see her get back into things, and she’s made four starts.

DESIREE LUO: Looking ahead, what are your predictions for this season?

AUDREY PACHUTA: In terms of the conference schedule, there’s a couple key storylines to monitor. I would say, definitely with Big 10 expansion, UCLA — perennial powerhouse program — entering the Big 10 for the first time this year. So NU will head out there. That’s their last regular season series of the year, when they go out to Los Angeles in May, which is a long time away, but it’s definitely something to consider. And two weeks before that, they’re going to host Nebraska here. So those are two teams who have definitely, will threaten NU in the Big Ten, I would say.

DESIREE LUO: Alright, last but not least, baseball. How are things looking there?

HENRY FRIEMAN: Yeah, second year at the helm for head coach Ben Greenspan as NU baseball took its first series win. First time since 2008 that they’ve won their opening series, so things are looking up.

The pitching last year was abysmal for NU baseball, and this year, they’ve taken some preventative measures to ensure that wouldn’t happen again. Some underclassmen have really stepped up. Garrett Shearer and Matt Kouser each pitched against Long Beach State last weekend, and both pitched wins. Kouser won Big Ten Freshman of the Week, which is a huge honor, especially considering how poor NU pitching was last season.

And a new face is in center field. Football quarterback Jack Lausch, who started seven games for the Wildcats on the gridiron, is now the starting center fielder on the baseball diamond. So that will be an interesting thing to see, how he will perform. He could have entered himself into the MLB draft after high school but instead chose to play football. Now, he’s returning to the sport that he had great success in.

DESIREE LUO: How do you think this season will be different from the last?

AUDREY PACHUTA: Henry mentioned this past weekend NU played its first series against Long Beach State. That was their first series win to open a season since 2008. So, this team’s on the right track compared to previous years. I think they had four wins in the Big Ten last year. They finished at the bottom of the Big Ten two years in a row. It’ll just be very interesting to see, having this winning momentum going into the season. Obviously it’s early on but off to a right start, I would say.

HENRY FRIEMAN: The bullpen also dipped into the transfer portal, brought in two SEC-caliber arms, and the Southeastern Conference is the gold standard of college baseball. So Crawford Wade came over from Wake Forest, and Sam Hliboki came from Vanderbilt, and both have already made impact to the program.

The great thing about expectations for this program is that they’re on the floor, and the only thing that they can do is raise them. So, should they get to .500 — something I don’t believe has been done in NU baseball in at least 10 years — should they win half of their games, that would be a milestone accomplishment for Ben Greenspan’s squad. I’m not sure if they’ll do that, but I think they are trending on the right direction. There are 50 games this season. As long as they go 23-22, they’ll be okay.

AUDREY PACHUTA: Yeah, I was gonna say something similar. After three games, I personally don’t want to make any assumptions. As I said, they’re off to a good start, but with such a long season ahead, it’s hard to say.

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DESIREE LUO: From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Desiree Luo. Thanks for listening to another episode of Cats Corner. This episode was reported by Henry Frieman, Desiree Luo and Audrey Pachuta. It was produced by Ingrid Smith and Desiree Luo.

The Sports Editor of The Daily Northwestern is Audrey Pachuta. The Audio Editor is Anavi Prakash. The Multimedia Managing editors are Kelley Lu and Jillian Moore. The Editor in Chief is Lily Ogburn.

Our theme music is “Take Your Shot” by Xennial, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License and provided by the Free Music Archive.

Email: henryfrieman2027@u.northwestern.edu
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