Northwestern celebrates after a goal by Izzy Scane (27) in the Big Ten championship game.
Joshua Sukoff | Northwestern Athletics
A weather delay got in the way Saturday just as the clock was ticking down in Evanston to another Big Ten tournament championship for Northwestern’s women’s lacrosse team. About a minute and a half remained when lightning flashed above the lakefront. Soon came heavy rain. The Wildcats would finish a 14-12 win against Penn State — giving up two goals in the final throes to make it needlessly close — in anticlimactic fashion.
Oh, so what.
“Good for the plot,” star attack Izzy Scane said afterward. “That’s definitely a story we’ll remember when we’re older.”
You know what else is good for the plot? The rest of us paying attention to a team — and an electric scorer — so out of this world, we’d be fools to miss what’s happening right under our noses.
Forty-three straight wins at home.
A No. 1 ranking heading into the NCAA tournament.
A national title — the program’s eighth — to defend, starting now.
And then there’s the irrepressible Scane, who scored five goals against Penn State and has 358 for her sparkling career. She netted the team’s first one and — from right on the goalie’s doorstep, off a slick Mary Schumar assist from behind the cage — its last and now sits tied with former Duke and Boston College star Charlotte North for the NCAA career record.
“She’d say it as much as I will: We’re just lucky that we’ve been surrounded by such great people to help us get there,” Scane said.
People such as Madison Taylor, who has 66 goals this season — only four behind Scane — and leads the team with 93 points. And Erin Coykendall, a wizard with the stick who leads the Wildcats in assists. And, of course, longtime coach Kelly Amonte Hiller, the architect of it all.
The Big Ten final, which Penn State led 4-1 after the first quarter, was uncomfortably close. It’s possible the Wildcats, 15-2, aren’t quite as strong as last year’s squad, which went 21-1 and destroyed its last three NCAA tournament opponents by a combined 30 goals.
“I’m excited that we were tested in that way,” Amonte Hiller said, “and it gives us an opportunity to kind of look at ourselves and see how we can be better going forward.”
After the outdoor Martin Stadium was evacuated Saturday, the Wildcats rode out the delay in a room inside Ryan Fieldhouse that was visible from the street. They danced. They sang. The game eventually resumed on an indoor field, most of the biggest crowd of the season having taken shelter elsewhere.
Oh, so what.
“It’s awesome,” Scane said. “Everything starts to get a little bit more sentimental when you’re coming in on the end of your career.”
But it isn’t over yet. And with all that’s unfolding on college campuses — including Northwestern’s — these days, it’s not bad at all to be reminded that sports are happening. Maybe not the major revenue sports — football, men’s basketball — but, no less so, balls and sticks and scrapes, blood and passion.
It’s right under your noses, people. Be sure to have a look.