What you read above wasn’t a typo. Northwestern has claimed six of the past seven (no pun intended) Big Ten Tournament championships.
The run NU is on right now cannot be simply characterized as a “dynasty” anymore. Rather, it should be seen as a tyrannical death grip on one of the best conferences in college lacrosse. Since the turn of the decade, the ‘Cats have lost fewer than a handful of conference games — three in regular season play and one in the 2022 Big Ten Championship.
Insanity.
Not only
a word that describes this sort of dominance, but a word that aptly frames Northwestern’s 2026 season.
A season that started on the highest of highs when NU routed preseason No. 3 Boston College on the road, fell to its lowest point when the ‘Cats were upended on their own Senior Day by an unranked Ohio State squad, then rejuvenated with two wins over IWLCA No. 1 ranked opponents — a feat that hadn’t been achieved by a program in a single season since 2012.
Where will this roller-coaster ride of insanity take us next? Well, let’s look at what happened last week. Maybe a crystal ball of sorts is embedded in there.
Getting over the upset hangover
The first 15 minutes after NU’s upset win over then-No. 1 Maryland felt slow and sluggish.
Penn State came out of the games firing last Sunday, knowing that a win over the nation’s top team in RPI could’ve been the ace to booking its ticket to the NCAA Tournament as an at-large bid. After coming up empty-handed on its first possession, it proceeded to make good on its next two. After only four minutes, the Nittany Lions had built a multi-goal lead on the ‘Cats.
It’s very un-Northwestern-like to see half a quarter go by without a score, but that was the reality in Happy Valley. Great zone defense from Penn State coach Kayla Treanor’s group kept NU at bay for a while.
However, the tide shifted with one mistake: a Maggie Driver foul in the arc, giving Noel Cumberland a free position shot.
That is all Northwestern needed. A scary sight for the rest of collegiate lacrosse.
NU would go on to outscore PSU 6-3 for the rest of the first half after that score and started the second on a 4-0 run that put it miles ahead. Momentum would do its job from there, carrying the ‘Cats to the win.
Against Rutgers, we saw the Northwestern we’ve become accustomed to over the past month (minus Olivia Adamson, who hasn’t played since NU’s victory over USC on April 4). In an 18-goal performance, Madison Taylor took center stage and shined, as usual, but right behind her were Aditi Foster and Noel Cumberland, who have taken the next step in embedding themselves into the fabric of the ‘Cats’ offense this season. On the draw, Maddie Epke showed glimpses of the player we saw during her time at James Madison, while Madison Smith and Mckenzie Brown wreaked havoc in the defensive zone and made life difficult for the Scarlet Knights.
An all-around cohesive Northwestern showing where the pieces of the team seemed to mesh together flawlessly.
A dogfight in the regular season finale
Last week brought us a chess match between teacher and pupil: a masterclass of coaching between Kelly Amonte Hiller of the ‘Cats and Hannah Nielsen of the Michigan Wolverines.
Nielsen, a former Wildcat (and two-time Tewaaraton Award winner) in her playing days seemed to have an ear to the ground when it came to NU’s offensive deficiencies. The Wolverines’ defense held the ‘Cats to three goals in the 30 minutes, their least in a half since March 12 in a deflating loss to Syracuse.
NU’s saving grace, ironically, was its defense that surrendered one goal in the first half. The only other teams it’s done that against in 2026 are Oregon, USC and Central Michigan — teams nowhere close to the caliber of a Michigan, but that just shows how much of a scrap this game was.
The real test for this squad came in the third, when the Wolverines proved to have an answer to NU’s man-to-man defense. Michigan scored four unanswered goals and eventually grabbed a 7-5 lead in the fourth.
But even a 260 mile drive away from Evanston, T-time (plus this season’s sophomore cameo) persisted and prevailed over Northwestern’s adversaries. Taylor, Foster and Cumberland put the game away for the Wildcats with scores that displayed the best of their respective playstyles.
A month previous, it was a question of whether NU had the resolve to win in the clutch, having been 1-3 in games decided by three goals or fewer. Since then, it’s found three straight wins of that variety, which bodes well for the ‘Cats heading into a tournament that features teams that have battled with them in the regular season.
Funny enough, U-M grinded out a one-goal win of its own Wednesday over Penn State to escape the quarterfinals of the conference tournament and secure itself a date with the team that swiped the top seed (and the only bye) away from it at the very last minute.
The three left standing
On the morning of Thursday, April 23, we’re left with four teams in the running for the Big Ten title: Northwestern, Michigan, Maryland and Johns Hopkins — the top four seeds in the tournament.
The rematch of the conference regular season finale brings intrigue, in the sense that it’ll be interesting to see how both squads adjust to what they’ve seen from their opposition. It’s probable that both Nielsen and Amonte Hiller kept their best cards close to their chests, knowing that a meeting in the postseason was highly likely. I doubt either team threw its absolute best at the other and I anticipate some true fireworks on Friday.
As for the potential final, NU couldn’t have any two more polarizing matchups. On one hand, there’s the high-octane offense of the Blue Jays, who led the conference in scoring at 15.1 goals per game in conference play. On the flip side, there lie the feisty Maryland Terrapins, who are beneficiaries of the defensive services of JJ Suriano, who led the conference with 80 saves in conference play. Johns Hopkins gives NU a run for its money by turning the game into a shootout, Maryland turns it into a scrap.
Either way, the ‘Cats need to expect the unexpected when it comes to the next game or two.
Weekly Awards
Player of the Week: Madison Taylor
It’s really hard not to give this award to anyone other than Taylor, because she had the biggest hand in locking down the No. 1 seed for the ‘Cats against Michigan by netting the two game-winning goals in the fourth. Before that, she torched Penn State and Rutgers for six goals in each contest. No brainer here.
Play of the Week: Jenika Cuocco’s man-down save vs. No. 11 Michigan
Taylor can’t clean up the awards this week, however.
What Jenika Cuocco did in the fourth is overlooked, so let’s truly give the goalkeeper her flowers: her biggest save of the game gave Northwestern the momentum to get over the hump. If she doesn’t make this save, NU probably adjusts its game plan and ends up with a different result.
