Lacrosse: Northwestern dominates Ohio State 20-12 for Big Ten perfection

Business as usual for the Lake Show.

Seeking an outright conference championship, No. 3 Northwestern (14-2, 8-0 B1G) headed east to Columbus for its regular season finale against Ohio State (8-7, 1-7 B1G).

The theme for the ‘Cats was simple: share the rock. Eight different NU players netted goals on the afternoon in a game that can only be characterized as a shootout. The teams combined for 32 goals, with Madison Taylor logging a game-high six goals, followed by Niki Miles and Riley Campbell with four apiece.

For Ohio State, Leah Sax led with three goals, while Annie Hargraves and Kate Tyack followed with two each.

After senior Sam Smith took the opening draw, Ohio State would draw first blood with a goal from Leah Sax, taking advantage of Campbell’s green card a minute and a half into the contest.

The scoring remained quiet until the quarter neared the five minute mark, where Campbell avenged her early mistake with a goal of her own.

Sammy White followed suit with a free-position goal to give the ‘Cats a 2-1 lead. Then to finish the quarter, Northwestern rattled off four goals from Taylor, Miles, Taylor Lapointe and Emerson Bohlig, sandwiched between two from the Buckeyes’ Kate Tyack, who led the team with 34 goals heading into the match.

Quarter two was much more even, with both teams scoring four. Two of Northwestern’s came from Miles – one a laser from inside the fan that found the bottom-left corner, the other a bounce shot that she ripped off as she came barreling down the left-wing.

It was Miles who led the ‘Cats with three goals heading into halftime.

NU would then double its margin by the end of the third. Taylor Lapointe opened up second- half action with her second goal of the game, which Sax answered to a minute later.

Taylor would take over at the 6:24 mark, scoring three unanswered goals in the span of three minutes. Taylor would finish with six goals, giving her a nation-best 83 goals on the season. Taylor, a Tewaaraton finalist a season ago, has already matched her goal total in her sophomore campaign with the Big Ten and NCAA Tournaments still to come.

Taylor assisted on Abby LoCasio’s quarter-ending goal to give NU a 16-10 lead.

Ohio State continued playing the “catch-up” game in an attempt to match NU shot-for-shot. The Buckeyes ripped off four shots on goal in the third, three of which found the back of the net. Kampbell Stone got her sole goal of the game with just under three minutes left in the period, and Annie Hargraves got one of her own about a minute afterward.

Northwestern added another four in the fourth for the 20-12 victory, courtesy of Taylor, Campbell, Miles, and redshirt sophomore Rachel Weiner — her first since Feb. 9 vs. Canisius — above the reach of Ohio State goalkeeper Jocelyn Torres. The win gave head coach Kelly Amonte Hiller her third flawless conference slate in the past five years. Dating back to 2021, the ‘Cats are a combined 35-2 in Big Ten regular-season play.

The Wildcats’ outright regular season championship has earned them the No. 1 seed and a bye in the Big Ten Tournament. They await the winner of No. 4 Penn State and No. 5 Johns Hopkins, who they’ll face on Thursday in College Park, MD at 4 p.m. CDT.