Oh man, oh man, oh man. Tourney time.
There’s a lot to get to before the first NCAA Tournament games commence, so this intro will be brief.
Northwestern enters the dance atop the world: the best record in the tournament with some of the best wins of any team in the nation, including two over the nation’s No. 1 in the NFHCA. An undeniable resume that was, at one point, undesirable for a bye.
Everything about this past weekend revealed the truth about the sport: there is much more parity in it than ever
before, but Northwestern remains the gold standard.
Conference tournament dominance
Juliana Boon stood on her head all weekend — the best weekend of her career, no doubt — and this was the start of it: A career-high eight saves on Friday, six of which came in the first half against six Indiana penalty corners. Boon set the tone by being stoic under pressure, and it seemed to permeate into all facets of the Northwestern defense.
Specifically, it seemed to pierce Kiera Sack. She took a beating on penalty corner defense on Friday, taking a shot attempt to the stomach and another to the shin in the second half to alleviate some pressure off her goalkeeper. Boon had high praise for after the semifinal.
Boon locked things down with seven saves on Sunday in the title game, earning herself All-Tournament Team honors.
In other news, Raquel Hofmeister took a major step up offensively with three points in the tournament. The first two came as a result of some penalty corner tinkering with the absence of Ilse Tromp, as head coach Tracey Fuchs made Hofmeister the primary option on NU’s first penalty corner on Friday.
This entire set piece looked different: Eva Nemeth as the inserter and Emilie Kirschner providing the stick stop. Nothing that was laid out in this play would be deemed “normal” in the Northwestern system. It still found a way to make it work.
Championship teams have depth. The best of the best have players on the depth chart that can execute just as well, if not better than those ahead of them. That’s what Hofmeister did: her goal on Friday, and her assist on Sunday — a very Aerin Krys-like find along the end line, centering for Ashley Sessa’s shot from point-blank range.
Sessa, who may be the best offensive player in the country right now, took over the offense with three goals and an assist this past weekend. Most of these plays showcased how NU at its best is a well-oiled machine.
The first play that comes to my mind is her takeaway in the back third of Rutgers’ clearance, leading directly to an Olivia Bent-Cole score.
A direct callback. This exact play (same two forwards, roles reversed) took place a few weeks ago in the regular season and propelled Northwestern to a gritty win over Iowa.
The Sessa-OBC connection is one of the best in the entire sport, and it showed up on this penalty corner that padded Northwestern’s lead.
Bent-Cole wasn’t shooting. She was ripping this ball straight to Sessa’s stick for the deflection upwards into the cage. A magnificent set piece that shows how a four-year bond like Sessa’s and Bent-Cole’s can fuel an offense for success.
Around the country
Pure chaos everywhere else.
Whoever won the Big Ten Tournament Final was going to be the No. 1 seed in the dance. That was clear after the dumpster fire that ensued across the nation. It felt as though almost EVERY favorite in any other tournament lost.
Let’s recap.
The ACC
The top three seeds didn’t last long. The No. 3-seeded Duke Blue Devils took a shocking loss to a struggling No. 6-seeded Boston College team, No. 2-seeded Wake Forest was shut out in the first round by No. 5-seeded Louisville, and top-seeded North Carolina was bested by No. 4-seeded Syracuse in a shootout. The latter of the three teams was the only team to escape the quarterfinals.
The Orange, who had been up-and-down all year, were the beneficiaries of one of the wonkiest tournaments in the history of ACC field hockey, securing an auto-bid to the NCAA Tournament, while Wake Forest was left on the outside looking in without a standout victory. It had its chances against Maryland, Iowa, Duke and Harvard, but came up empty-handed in all four opportunities.
The Big East
Everyone had UConn and Liberty in the finals. Everyone forgot about the scrappy Old Dominion Monarchs. All season long, they’d posed a threat to any ranked team they faced (exhibit A: 5-4 upset win over No. 5 North Carolina). Liberty didn’t get the memo, and the 13th-ranked team in the nation was up-ended in the Big East Semifinals before ODU went on to scrape out a 2-1 win in the final quarter of the conference tourney.
An insanely fun turn of events that saw the Monarchs get an at-large bid over the Flames.
The Ivy League
Oh boy, this Ivy League might be the deepest we’ve ever seen.
If you told me that Yale would somehow win this tournament, I would’ve laughed. Hysterically.
Sure, the Bulldogs would beat the nation’s No. 4 and No. 9 teams in the span of three days.
They actually did.
Against Harvard, Yale had its foot on the gas from the get-go, getting out to a 2-0 lead that proved too much for the Crimson once the game reached the final 15 minutes. Then, the Bulldogs dragged the Tigers into a shootout (ironic, huh) and found a way to force THREE mistakes from Princeton.
I have no words. Literally anyone can win this year’s NCAA Tournament, from No. 1 Northwestern to unseeded Wagner.
Weekly awards
Player of the Week: Juliana Boon
Boon was the best player in all of the sport this past weekend: a ridiculous 15 saves across two games to secure clean sheets in the conference tournament — the first time the ‘Cats went the entire Big Ten Tournament without allowing a single goal (and the first Big Ten team to do so since Michigan in 2017). Boon was the centerpiece of this effort, shutting everything down that came her way.
It’s so hard not to give this to the tournament MVP, but it feels as though the magnitude of this tournament win revolves around her.
Unit of the Week: Back Line
Defense. Wins. Championships. NU’s won it the conference tournament.
Oh, by the way, it blanked some of the nation’s best without its best back in the lineup. That is a scary sight for anyone that draws the ‘Cats this tournament.
Looking at you, St. Joe’s.
Play of the Week: The Conference Tournament Celebration
For a team who had been doubted all season long, this Big Ten title meant something to the Wildcats. Time and time again, questions of this team’s resolve had been raised — after the Princeton loss, and more frequently, after the Penn State loss. All of those had been put to rest once the trophy was given to the Wildcats, and they felt it.
