No. 1 Maryland women’s lacrosse suffers 11-10 loss to No. 4 Northwestern

COLLEGE PARK — As well as Maryland women’s lacrosse has played this spring, supremacy in the Big Ten continues to run through Northwestern.

The No. 4 Wildcats, winners of the past three conference tournaments, used an 8-5 second half to upend the No. 1 Terps, 11-10, on Thursday night before an announced 2,804 at SECU Stadium.

Maryland (13-1, 5-1 Big Ten) was off to its best start since the 2019 squad opened with 18 victories in a row and was the only team in the country without a setback. But the Terps wilted after halftime against Northwestern (10-3, 4-1), which won its fifth consecutive game.

“Everybody had a play they wish they could have done differently or taken back,” coach Cathy Reese said after talking to her players in the locker room. “All of it’s within our control. One-goal games are always one more save, one more goal, one better shot, one less penalty, one more draw control. But for me, I’m not going to really harp on that or look at that. It’s just looking at our game as a whole and saying, ‘What can we do better?’”

The game between two programs that have taken home nine of the league’s last 10 tournament crowns was a case study in the difference in halves. In the first half, Maryland dominated draw controls (7-2) and shots (17-11) and built a 5-2 advantage before taking a 5-3 lead into halftime.

The second half belonged to the Wildcats. They turned the tables on ground balls (8-3), turnovers (3-8) and shots (20-10) to collect their ninth victory in the past 10 meetings in this series and sixth in a row.

After junior attacker Lauren Lapointe converted a feed from sophomore midfielder Kayla Gilmore to give Maryland an 8-7 lead with 13:15 left in the fourth quarter, Northwestern took over. Senior attacker Madison Taylor scored two goals in a 90-second span, sophomore attacker Aditi Foster lasered home a goal off a pass by redshirt junior attacker Abby LoCascio, and freshman attacker Kate Ratanaproeksa scored to cement a 4-0 run in a 6:04 stretch.

Taylor’s second goal and Foster’s tally occurred while Terps senior defender Neve O’Ferrall (Glenelg Country) served a 2-minute penalty. Maryland drew four cards to Northwestern’s two in the second half, and Reese rued the gaffes.

“We didn’t shoot particularly well, but I think for us, probably too many cards is the answer,” she said of the difference after halftime. “We gave too many man-up opportunities to a team that is really good at man-up. One of them was non-releasable, and that hurt us. There were a couple goals in that bit that we just couldn’t get back.”

Graduate student attacker Kristen Shanahan and senior midfielder Kori Edmondson (McDonogh) each scored a goal to draw the Terps within one with 58 seconds left in regulation. But Taylor controlled the ensuing draw, and the Wildcats ran out the clock to cement the outcome.

Northwestern became the only team to knock off two No. 1 opponents this season after toppling top-ranked North Carolina, 17-16, on March 25. Taylor, who finished with game highs in goals (four) and points (five), said she and her teammates rose to Thursday’s challenge.

“When we get in those games, that’s when you tell yourself, ‘That’s why I came here. I wanted to come here to play in those big moments, those big games,’” she said. “It’s just really fun. It’s the best. Why wouldn’t you want to just do that and play for each other and have a lot of fun doing that?”

The Wildcats’ recent success seemed unlikely after they were upset by unranked Colorado, 10-9, in the second game of the season and then absorbed setbacks to then-No. 14 Syracuse, 9-6, and unranked Ohio State, 16-15, in back-to-back games last month. In hindsight, coach Kelly Amonte Hiller said her players needed a bit of humility.

“Anytime you’re a strong team, sometimes you expect things to happen, and maybe we expected a little too much, and we got humbled,” she said. “Honestly, it was a great thing because it’s really helped us grow and learn what we need to do to be better.”

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