Lacrosse: ‘Cats outlast Wolverines, 9-7, to claim fourth straight outright Big Ten regular season title

It got testy and the waters got mucky, but the ‘Cats got the job done in Ann Arbor on Saturday.

Northwestern (13-3, 7-1 B1G) went on the road to face off against Michigan (11-6, 5-3 B1G) in its Big Ten regular season finale, with the No. 1 seed on the line. Four teams were still in the mix to claim a share of the conference championship and with a Wolverines win, they, along with Johns Hopkins and Maryland, would join NU as co-regular season champions.

Since the inception of Big Ten women’s lacrosse in 2015, the trophy has never been shared between multiple programs. Northwestern made sure that trend held true, upending Michigan, 9-7.

The contest was tight across the board, as, with the exception of the shot category, neither team was more than +2 in any box score statistical category on Saturday afternoon. NU rifled 10 more shots than Michigan, which may have proven to be the Wolverines’ Achilles’ heel.

Freshman goalkeeper Elizabeth Johnson answered the call for U-M as best she could, saving 13 shots in her 60 minutes between the pipes, just two short of her career-high set on Feb. 6 against Notre Dame. Her graduate counterpart on the other end of the field, Jenika Cuocco, made seven saves for a .500 save percentage on the day.

Madison Taylor led all attackers with three goals in the contest and found the only Northwestern assist of the game. She added four draw controls as well to lead the ‘Cats draw unit.

After ‘Cats head coach Kelly Amonte Hiller and Wolverines’ head coach (and former Northwestern attacker and later Amonte Hiller’s assistant coach) Hannah Nielsen exchanged pregame plesantries, teacher and pupil went to battle on the lacrosse pitch in what turned out to be a low-scoring dogfight.

Emma Burke opened the day with the first of her game-leading five draw controls to earn possession for U-M, opening the door for Emma Bradbury to try her hand at putting the Wolverines on top early. Her shot was denied by Cuocco.

NU made good on two of its first three possessions, starting with a Taylor Lapointe free position shot from the left hash that she buried into the bottom-right quadrant of the net for Northwestern’s first score of the day. Johnson redeemed herself with a save on the ‘Cats’ next shot on goal, fired out of Taylor’s stick, but couldn’t stop a second shot from Maddy T at the 8:57 mark.

From X to the front of the cage, easy pickings for the left-handed stick of the WLL-bound Taylor. NU led 2-0 halfway through the first.

Through the first 15 minutes, Northwestern’s defense was disciplined in its man-to-man, communicating well and rotating consistently to keep the ball outside the fan. It took a sidearm sling from Ceci Stein through telephone booth-like pressure to get Michigan on the board.