Stick Season, Week 11: Conference champs

Northwestern winning the Big Ten? Nothing new.

And just like that, the regular season is wrapped up, and the Wildcats are Big Ten regular-season champions for the third consecutive year. In this week’s Stick Season column, we’ll go over Northwestern’s final two conference games — a 15-6 win over No. 13 Michigan during the historic Lacrosse Night in Chicago, and a 20-12 win over Ohio State to go undefeated in conference play.

Now that the Big Ten regular season is over, let’s just take a moment to appreciate how Northwestern laid waste to the rest of the conference.

Across eight games, Northwestern outscored its opponents 136-58, with its smallest margin of victory being eight against Ohio State. It forced a running clock on every team except for USC and Ohio State, including 16-4 and 17-5 wins against No. 7 Maryland and No. 9 Johns Hopkins respectively (and both teams were ranked No. 4 at the time they faced Northwestern). The only time the ‘Cats ever trailed by more than one goal in conference play was when they went down to Michigan 3-0 in the first quarter.

This type of in-conference dominance wasn’t even seen during the 2023 and 2024 seasons, when Northwestern spent a good chunk of the year as the No. 1 team in the nation. It most certainly wasn’t on display last year, when the ‘Cats fell to a then-unranked Penn State and only clinched the Big Ten regular season title by a single goal against Michigan.

Yes, in an ACC-heavy year, the Big Ten isn’t as strong as it typically is. In fact, its average NCAA RPI ranking (28.55) is lower than that of the Ivy League (24), despite having more top-end talent. But regardless, Northwestern’s ability to remain unbeaten in that fashion is still wildly impressive.

In addition, it also proves that no matter what roster Northwestern has—whether it’s a team led by Selena Lasota, Izzy Scane, Madison Taylor or whatever other superstar — its winning culture stays the same.

Now, Northwestern’s next task will be to do it all over again in Big Ten tournament play, when it will face conference foes seeking revenge. Many of Big Ten have gotten much better since facing the Wildcats, and as Amonte Hiller said, it’s a “pretty naive mindset” to believe that what happened in previous matchups will happen this time around. But if the Wildcats can get the job done in College Park this week, it will stamp on a truly dominant Big Ten season.

Racking up Miles

I feel like I’ve talked about a litany of other attackers who have emerged to step up alongside Taylor this season, but that’s just been the theme of a team that familiarized itself with each other throughout the course of the year. But perhaps no non-Taylor player had as high expectations as graduate student Niki Miles.

Miles, a USA Lacrosse Magazine preseason honorable mention All-American, was named by myself and Inside NU’s Sophia Vlahakis preseason as the transfer who would make the biggest impact. However, she had a slow start, including an 0-for-6 showing against Boston College and not scoring multiple goals in a game until the fifth of the season. But ever since the March 22 Maryland game, where she put up three goals and two assists, she’s broken out into the solid No. 2 option on the team. Now, Miles is in the middle of an eight-game streak of scoring two or more goals.

However, “No. 2 option” isn’t enough to describe Miles’ role for the team during Northwestern’s past two games. She tallied four goals and an assist against Michigan, and then put up a season-high six points (four goals, two assists) versus Ohio State. But it’s not about the numbers — its about her ability to drive the action when her team needs her to do so.

Against Michigan, Miles was the first Northwestern player to be on the board, scoring with just over a minute left. She was in a difficult position, facing a double team, but she got the tough shot off to ensure that the Wildcats wouldn’t end the first quarter with a 3-0 deficit.

Another one of Miles’ goals broke a near five-minute scoring drought for the Wildcats in the third quarter as she scored in transition after three consecutive shot attempts from Michigan. It was a similar story against Ohio State, when she netted two goals in two minutes to negate the Buckeyes’ 2-0 run in the second quarter.

Scoring isn’t as clear-cut for Miles as she doesn’t get awarded as many free position attempts as Taylor or graduate student Riley Campbell. However, she’s great at driving in from further out and made a great one-on-one play against Ohio State defender Ella Wright.

With Miles’ increased presence, the Wildcats will be dangerous on both sides of the attacking third — Miles heading one while Taylor leads the other.

Slow starts (Though does it matter?)

It’s hard to nitpick a team that sweeps through the Big Ten. But it’s still fair to point out the trend in which Northwestern won both of its most recent matches — by overcoming rocky beginnings before getting into a groove later on.

Obviously, there was the 3-0 deficit against Michigan. The ‘Cats just couldn’t quite get past Wolverine goalie Erin O’Grady, who saved their first four shots of the game. In the same span, Michigan scored its three goals. After Miles broke through, Northwestern dug itself out through winning draws and scoring free positions — more straight-forward scoring attempts that couldn’t be stopped by O’Grady as easily. From then on, it was all Northwestern.

“In the beginning of the game, we rushed things a bit,” Amonte Hiller said after Northwestern’s win against Michigan. “[The team] was like, ‘Alright, we just need to relax and finish our shots’,…we know that the Michigan goalie is phenomenal. Once they kind of figured it out and took really good, high-quality shots, they were able to finish.”

Ohio State was a more back-and-forth game than Michigan was, but it still took Northwestern some time to get going. The Buckeyes got on the board first, and Northwestern couldn’t score its first goal until nearly eight minutes into the first quarter. The Wildcats eventually pulled away, but OSU was right on their heels, as it was a three-goal game at halftime.

A lot of factors attributed to Ohio State being Northwestern’s closest Big Ten game, despite the Buckeyes being 1-7 in conference play (though many of their losses were decided by a handful of goals). Amonte Hiller said that having to travel the day after the Michigan game had the team in “low energy” to start against the Buckeyes, but it was something they had to push through. In addition, OSU is also powered by an elite goalie in Jocelyn Torres, who made seven first-half saves against the Wildcats.

That said, I don’t think these slow starts or tight periods are a bad thing for Northwestern. As I said before, expect the teams in the Big Ten tournament to be better versions of themselves from the start of the season. It’s important for the Wildcats to have reps getting out of tough situations, as its better to win a close matchup than to dominate opponents before collapsing as soon as things get difficult.

Weekly Awards

Player of the week: Madison Taylor — junior attacker: Grass is green, the sky is blue and the fork has been found in the kitchen. After two consecutive six-goal performances and a combined five assists in those two games, awarding Taylor her sixth POTW honor. A little foreshadowing before she is inevitably being named Big Ten Attacker of the Year in a few days.

Play of the week: Is this Taylor jump-shot the equivalent of dunking in lacrosse? Either way, how this video turned out (big props to Field Vision Media) is a testament to just how awesome the environment and the light show were last Thursday.

What’s Next?

As the top overall seed, Northwestern has a first-round bye in the Big Ten tournament. It will kick things off by facing the winner of No. 4 Penn State vs. No. 5 Johns Hopkins on Friday in the semifinals at 4 p.m. CDT. The Wildcats beat those teams in contrasting manner — defeated Hopkins through dominating possession but winning against Penn State despite losing the draw 16-10.

Playing on Maryland’s Field Hockey and Lacrosse Complex this week, the Wildcats will practice this week on Lakeside Field — home to your 2024 field hockey national champions. An entire feature could be written about the parallels between Northwestern’s two most dominant sports teams.