Boston College dethroned Northwestern as women’s lacrosse champions because the Eagles refused to be rolled a second time.
No. 2 seed BC rallied from a 6-0 first quarter deficit and went on to defeat the reigning champion and no. 1 seed Wildcats, 14-13, in the NCAA Division 1 championship match on Sunday at WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary, N.C.
The Eagles (20-3) captured their second national championship in seven straight trips to the title game. Northwestern blasted BC 18-6 in last year’s title game, but the Eagles denied Wildcats’ head coach Kelly Amonte-Hiller a ninth national championship. BC captured its first NCAA title in 2021 when the current senior class were freshmen.
“I think the losses along the way were part of this process and I’m not glorifying losing by any means,” said BC head coach Acacia Walker Weinstein. “I do think maybe I, our staff and our players needed to be hardened a bit to be ready for this moment.
“It is not easy to get to the national championship, it’s not easy to win, almost impossible. Everything has to be aligned. I think somewhere along the way those heartbreaking losses taught us what we needed to fix and to be better and play smarter.”
BC attacker Kayla Martello led the BC attack with five goals, finishing with 68 on the season and 16 in four tournament games. She was named tournament MVP. Goaltender Shea Dolce, who was on the business end of last season’s 18-6 beatdown, finished with nine saves and was spectacular in the closing minute to secure the victory.
“I have been thinking about it every single day since last year,” said Dolce. “That was a moment I wanted back and it means the world to have this moment and be on the flip side.”
Leading by one after three, Wildcats sniper Izzy Scane scored on the opening possession of the fourth to make it 11-9 with her third of the match and 86th of the season. BC’s Rachel Clark retaliated with back-to-back goals to tie the game 11-11 at 11:05.
Andrea Reynolds scooped a ground ball and scored on an over- the-top shot to give the Eagles’ their first lead, 12-11, with 9:39 to play. Martello’s scored her fourth of the game on a crossing move with both teams short-handed to put BC up 13-11 with 5:55 remaining. Scane got it back to one with a free possession goal with 4:56 to play, but McKenna Davis put BC up 14-12 with a transition goal.
Northwestern killed off a BC power play and Scane cut the lead to 14-13 with her fourth straight on a free possession with 58.8 seconds to play. Northwestern won the ensuing controlled draw but failed to score in the final minute.
“The nature of their defense is really aggressive and I think Northwestern and us, like our tanks were running low,” said Walker-Weinstein. “We had to spread out and let the ball do a lot of the work. The girls did a great job making adjustments.”
The Wildcats revisited the script from last year’s title match by jumping to a 4-0 lead before the first media timeout. Playmaker Erin Coykendall opened the scoring with her 43rd of the season and then set up Dylan Amonte from a free position to make it 2-0 at 10:20. Coykendall and Taylor blasted shots from set plays to make it 6-0. It was the largest deficit BC faced all season.
“They (seniors) were all so level headed and we knew there as so much game left to played,” said Walker-Weinstein.
The Eagles scored the first goal of the second quarter on a well-executed play at 9:44. Florida transfer Emma LoPinto fired a blind behind the back shot that eluded goalie Molly Laliberty for her 27th of the season.
BC cut the lead to 6-3 when Andrea Reynolds unloaded a bullet from a free position and Martello followed with a shot from the inner crease at 4:29. After NWU senior Lindsey Frank and Martello exchanged goals, the Wildcats responded with two unanswered tallies to go up 8-4. Martello scored the final two goals to make it 8-6 at the break.
BC made it a one-goal game when Ryan Smith scored her ninth from a free position with 13:01 to play in the third. Dolce followed a singular moment when she stoned junior Samantha Smith on a free possession shot from the middle of the crease.
The Wildcats broke the BC rally with goals by Taylor and Scane to go up 10-7 with 6:54 on the board. LoPinto got it back to a pair with a bad angle shot from the side of the cage with 2:44 to play. Davis beat the buzzer with an over the shoulder, short-handed, goal to make it 10-9 at the end of three.
“That was outrageous and I almost missed it,” said Walker-Weinstein. “Mckenna practices that shot every single day and she knew the time on the clock which is a huge thing to her. To make that shot was so clutch.”
