All eyes are on the Northwestern junior attacker, who comes into the 2025 season expected to be the best player in the country. However, even as she grows as a leader, she’s not focused on the noise.
Madison Taylor rarely seems fazed.
After falling onto her front from a hard Notre Dame foul, the Northwestern junior was briefly disheveled. But she quickly got up to take a free position shot, firing the ball straight into the goal.
Over the next eight minutes, Taylor scored two more goals and notched an assist to put Northwestern up 6-0 in its 2025 season opener. Notre Dame could not hold her back.
“I think I just went out there really excited,” Taylor said after the game. “I mean, every time there’s a first game, obviously there’s first game jitters, but I was just so happy to be out there with this new group.”
Human highlight reel 2️⃣5️⃣ pic.twitter.com/Y8lQp2Ndes
— Northwestern Lax (@NULax) February 8, 2025
Unfazed can also describe the 2024 Tewaaraton Award finalist’s playing style.
While Izzy Scane was known for her powerful, rocket-like movement and Erin Coykendall was known for engineering artistic plays, Taylor is the player who will find an opportunity. She’ll take the bruises and cuts to draw a foul and score on a free position, her favorite type of shot. She’ll fall to the ground if it means getting the shot off. She’ll maneuver through defenders, flashing her athleticism and stick skills (She had a short stint on the Wantagh High School track team and her high school lacrosse coach, Robyn Rooney, swears she could have won a state title in sprinting if she didn’t quit mid-season to focus on other sports).
Taylor implemented all these skills in Northwestern’s 13-10 win over Notre Dame, finishing with a tied career-high of six goals, an assist and five draw controls. She has a dominant presence on the field — it can creep up on her opponents quickly because of how she can make something out of nothing.
“[Taylor’s] got a pretty good even-keel demeanor,” said Northwestern assistant coach Scott Hiller. “She’ll look for opportunities, take her opportunities, she won’t force things, and she’ll play within the system.”
Taylor’s performance was expected for a player named 2025 USA Lacrosse Magazine Preseason Player of the Year and ranked as the No.1 player in the nation by Inside Lacrosse, as a result of a sophomore season where she put up 83 goals and 33 assists. After the departure of two all-time program greats in Scane in Coykendall, Taylor is expected to take over the NU attack and adjust to a new world where her opponents’ top priority was stopping her.
But Taylor is unfazed by the narrative, choosing not to internalize it.
“We do a really good job here of not letting that stuff get to us,” Taylor said. “That could really make a team crash or burn when you try and look into all the media. Obviously I think it’s really cool, I never thought I would be in the position I am today. But even though I am in that position now, I’m just making sure I’m staying present in the moment, playing for my teammates, having fun and not letting the expectations weigh too much on me.”
Northwestern Athletics
In fact, Taylor and her coaching staff are not worried about an adjustment. Despite Northwestern losing seven starters and gaining 17 newcomers, Hiller thinks Taylor’s experience as a two-year starter and her time playing lacrosse, basketball and soccer in high school is enough to prepare her for any situation.
Also, Hiller thinks it’s unhealthy to be consumed by pressure.
“We don’t need [Taylor] thinking that she needs to do a million things out there,” Hiller said. “If she starts feeling like she has to carry a team or she has to be the best player in the country or she has to win this award, it’s going to be a tough season.”
And in a sense, pressure is a privilege.
“I think sometimes people could look too much into it and say, ‘Oh, I have to do this.’ But I think instead of having to do something, you could just flip it into ‘I get to do this,” Taylor said.
Being one of the most lethal players on the field while competing at a high level is not a new situation for Taylor. She was once the best player on the Wantagh High School lacrosse team, one of the top teams in Long Island, and Rooney knew from when they first met that Taylor would be the greatest player she’d ever coach.
“When you’re that talented, you don’t have to work at leading, because you lead by example even more than you do off the field,” Rooney said of Taylor. “She talks with respect and authority and she goes there and does it. She backs herself up on the field.”
Unlike at Northwestern, where Taylor plays attack, Rooney had her play midfield in high school because it allowed her to do everything. Taylor was the team’s best scorer, draw-taker, midfielder and defender, Rooney said. Plays were drawn up for her to score game-winning goals, but she was also assigned to defend top opposing players like current Boston College attacker Emma LoPinto, who once played for Wantagh rival Manhasset High School.
Taylor was also named team captain. Rooney said Taylor saw the game on a different level than everyone else and had a unique perspective from being on the field in a way that a coach wouldn’t have. Taylor’s teammates gravitated toward her leadership — she was honest, sometimes even brutally honest, but in a way that made people want to listen.
“[Taylor] was always willing to step up and say things that aren’t always easy for high school kids to say to their friends, for the betterment of the team,” Rooney said. “And she said it in a way that made people respect her, not hate her. It wasn’t like ‘Oh, Maddy is talking s**t.’ It was like, ‘Oh, Maddy is making a really good point. We should probably focus on that going back on the field.’”
Despite earning All-American honors and helping lead Wantagh to a conference title in 2022, Taylor wasn’t a highly-touted recruit coming out of high school. She was given a four-star rating by Inside Lacrosse and ranked outside the top 50 for the class of 2022. Her Northwestern teammates Abigail LoCascio, Carli Fleisher, Francesca Argentieri and Rachel Weiner were all ranked in that top 50 in the same class — on paper, Taylor was not the incoming freshman one would pick to make a difference in Evanston.
Rooney, who at the time thought Taylor could be a Tewaaraton winner, was baffled by the lack of recognition she received in high school. But Taylor didn’t let that shake her, just like how she refuses to let the pressure of accolades get to her now.
“She doesn’t care how she wins. She doesn’t care if she’s the star. And I think having that star power and not caring for it is dangerous, because she’s so willing to give the ball up to somebody in a better position, but also knows that if the game is on the line, it should probably be in her stick.”
In college, Taylor never had an adjustment period. She was great from the jump, scoring five goals during her Northwestern debut against Syracuse in February 2023. Even as a freshman, no moment was too big for her. After all, she tied Scane as the top scorer in the national title game against Boston College.
Even though Taylor played alongside more experienced attackers like Scane, Coykendall and Dylan Amonte, she never felt like her presence was diminished as one of the younger players on the team. In her mind, she could be just as assertive as her graduate student teammates, so finally being on the older end of the team doesn’t make much of a difference.
Northwestern Athletics
“The best thing about Northwestern lacrosse is that I feel like they’ve created such a good environment that no matter what age you are,” Taylor said. “If you want to take that shot, you could take it if you want to. If you want to make a play, make a play. Obviously it’s a different team and I’m a little bit older now, but it doesn’t change the way that I’ve been acting. I’m still gonna stay true to myself.”
Despite making such an impact in her first year, Taylor had room to improve. Between her freshman and sophomore seasons, her goal count increased from 53 to 83, while her assist numbers nearly doubled from 17 to 34. Her accuracy on eight-meter free position shots, a pride point that Taylor specifically emphasized in her offseason regimen, improved from 48.7 to 56.3 percent.
Another part of Taylor’s 2023 offseason was a workout with Northwestern alum and two-time Tewaaraton winner Kristen Kjellman, who reached out to Taylor when she traveled to Long Island. They worked on skills that brought Taylor out of her comfort zone, such as spin moves, one-handed ball grabs and using deception in her body language to trick opposing defenses.
The biggest thing that Kjellman picked up on was just how receptive Taylor was.
“I think there’s a learning curve for a lot of players, and hers is pretty steep. She just is able to get right into the drill or the move pretty seamlessly.”
Those improvements continued into Taylor’s junior season. Just from preseason play, Hiller already thinks she’s faster, more accurate and better in her off-ball movement and cutting into open space — skills necessary to have if she wants to increase offensive opportunities for her other teammates.
Taylor’s movement, while always a strength of hers, has also become more permeating. In a January preseason practice, for example, she scrimmaged against the Northwestern defense, and there was rarely a play where she wasn’t either maneuvering to the goal or setting up another attacker to do so.
“We’ve had players like [Taylor] in the past, but not too many who started off so good and have continued to get better and better every year,” Hiller said. “She’s better than she was last year just in her confidence, her demeanor, her shooting.”
Taylor admits she wants to be a better, more confident communicator this season. That’s slowly starting to show as she occupies a more experienced position on the field.
Northwestern Athletics
One day during the preseason, the Northwestern coaching staff gave Taylor a rare day off from practice, but she still insisted on showing up to help out. During the team’s intrasquad scrimmage that day, she would give her teammates advice on the sidelines.
“When [Taylor’s] the one doing things, she’s gonna get [her teammates’] attention,” Hiller said. “These young [players] and even the transfers are looking up to her. And I think when she actually comes over and takes the time to talk to them, it’s pretty compelling. It carries a lot of weight.”
Not so long ago, Taylor was one of the younger players under the wing of a senior and graduate student-dominated team. But now, her presence is like that of a veteran.
Taylor barely remembers the 2024 national title game against Boston College, where Northwestern blew a 6-0 lead and ultimately fell 13-14. There, she was held to just one shot in the second half. It wasn’t until she watched “One of a Kind,” NU’s documentary on the 2024 season, that she recalled the pain of losing.
“I would just say that I kind of felt in shock. The loss sucked, but I was even more sad about everyone leaving,” Taylor said. “I would say that I have a chip on my shoulder this year, and I definitely want to play for [the players who graduated.]”
Immediately after the championship loss, Taylor had to prepare for the U20 World Championships in Hong Kong, where she’d travel outside the United States for the first time. With a 23-6 victory over Canada in the tournament final, she helped Team USA to a gold medal and an overall dominant showing. Her total of 35 goals broke Kristen Waagbo’s single-tournament record of 29 from 2003.
T-Time ⏰
Madison Taylor led the U-20 @WorldLacrosse Championships with 3️⃣5️⃣ goals! pic.twitter.com/SrsYR1Plzg
— Northwestern Lax (@NULax) August 28, 2024
In Hong Kong, Taylor gained valuable experience playing international lacrosse, which has different rules from the NCAA. At the opening ceremony, she also met lacrosse players from other countries, many of which looked up to the American players. That moment gave her a new perspective on the impact she could have on the sport.
“Seeing that just made me feel so honored and just humbled that people would even think that of me,” Taylor said.
Despite Taylor’s experience and repertoire, her coaches still know that being at the top can be difficult, especially at Northwestern where legacies run rampant.
In the past, Hiller and head coach Kelly Amonte Hiller had to have one-on-ones with stars like Coykendall and Scane to make sure they weren’t overwhelmed by pressure. They anticipate doing the same with Taylor this season, regardless of whether she needs it.
“It’s going to be something that we’re going to check in with [Taylor] quite frequently,” Hiller said. “We have a lot of conversations with her, whether it’s weekly, just to take her temperature and see how she’s doing. It’s just the same as what we did with [Scane] and [Coykendall] last year.”
Meanwhile, Taylor is focusing on taking things day by day, building chemistry with her new team while keeping her eyes on the game ahead of her. She notes that she has bonded with Ivy League graduate transfers Riley Campbell and Niki Miles, both attackers who start alongside her in the lineup and share the same goals as her.
Taylor is off to a dominant start, as predicted. Alongside her performance against Notre Dame, she nabbed five goals and three assists in Northwestern’s second game against Canisius. Her opening weekend performance earned her Big Ten Offensive Player of the Week honors.
But regardless of the narratives, accolades, and expectations, one thing isn’t going to change: Taylor will continue bettering who she was before, simply by playing lacrosse in her way and the Northwestern way.
“It’s been really fun to be back,” Taylor said. “Honestly, I feel like it goes by faster and faster as I keep getting older.”