Laliberty, Rhatigan Have Pushed Northwestern Over the Top

As she prepared to clear the ball in a March game against Vanderbilt, Northwestern graduate goalkeeper Molly Laliberty stared down the field at a sea of Wildcat-gray and Commodore-white. She lobbed the ball toward the midfield, where her pass met graduate attacker Hailey Rhatigan, who twisted and dodged past multiple defenders until she managed to score.

“I flung it as far as I could because I knew Hailey was going to get it,” Laliberty said. “Then she ran through like three girls to score. They won’t give me an assist on the stat sheet, but in my heart, that was mine.”

That goalkeeper-to-attacker connection is far from the only bond Laliberty and Rhatigan share. They’re the only graduate transfers at Northwestern this season, emerging as stars on opposite ends of the field. Outside of lacrosse, as roommates and friends, Laliberty and Rhatigan have embraced the twists and turns of their Northwestern journey together.

Both Laliberty and Rhatigan were initially unsure about using their fifth year of NCAA eligibility granted by the pandemic. Laliberty was coming off a 19-4 campaign at Tufts that featured a run to the national championship and IWLCA Division III Goalkeeper of the Year honors. Rhatigan had powered Mercer to a Big South championship, finishing 2022 with 93 goals — second-most in all of Division I.

After her senior year, Laliberty and her Tufts teammates traveled to Europe. There, she donated all her lacrosse gear to Team Portugal.

“That’s how done I was,” Laliberty said.

But former coaches began to reach out to Laliberty about whether she would use her fifth year. Then, she began to reflect on her senior year and what her Tufts team went through after the death of her teammate Madie Nicpon. Laliberty said she realized how lucky she was to have the opportunity to continue playing, so she entered the transfer portal.

Rhatigan decided to transfer at the urging of her father. She narrowed her top two choices to North Carolina and Northwestern — coincidentally, the same choices as Laliberty. Their individual visits to Evanston ultimately sealed the deal.

“It sounds so corny when you visit a school and it’s like, ‘I don’t want to leave,’” Rhatigan said. “That’s what I felt here… Izzy [Scane] was really welcoming, and the coaches made me feel like we had a chance to win a national championship.”

Coach Kelly Amonte Hiller said she was excited to see Rhatigan and Laliberty’s names in the portal, and she worked hard to show them how “special” the Northwestern program was during the recruiting process.

Laliberty and Rhatigan didn’t know each other prior to going through the transfer process, but they decided to live together for the school year.

“All summer, when we were looking for an apartment, she would always leave me on read,” Laliberty laughed. “I was like, ‘OK, I literally made the trip out here to look at apartments.’”

When they first met in person in Evanston in September, the pair became fast friends. Laliberty said she and Rhatigan are “very different” but work together perfectly. On the way home from practice, she and Rhatigan often compare their experiences at Northwestern to their old schools –– especially in the fall, Laliberty said, while participating in lots of lifting and conditioning.

Rhatigan said the transition to Northwestern was much easier than expected. She felt like she and Laliberty “meshed really well” with their teammates from the beginning, and Northwestern’s culture of including the entire team at social events helped, too.

“Whenever we do something, it’s not a small [event],” Rhatigan said. “It’s literally all 37 of us doing something together. It’s amazing, the connections we have on and off the field.”

Both Rhatigan and Laliberty faced challenging opponents at their old institutions. Rhatigan played on a Mercer team that faced top-ranked teams like North Carolina, Florida and Jacksonville, and Laliberty made multiple runs to the Division III NCAA semifinals at Tufts. But transferring to Northwestern, a perennial power in Division I, has brought both challenges and new opportunities for growth.

For Rhatigan, improving on working off-ball has been important. It was a challenge for her at Mercer, she said, and it’s been one of her primary areas of focus at Northwestern.

Laliberty said she’s become faster in goal, but her biggest area of improvement has been her mental game.

“There’s no room for mental error here,” Laliberty said. “Not to say D-III was easier in that way, but yeah, I made a lot of saves in Division III. Here, there’s a level of mental toughness that’s required. Being on TV, every time you get scored on, the first thing they do is zoom is on the goalie’s face.”

Since arriving at Northwestern, Amonte Hiller said Laliberty and Rhatigan have “led by example.” It can be tricky coming in as a transfer, Amonte Hiller said, but the pair have balanced respecting the traditions in Evanston while bringing their authentic selves each day.

While Laliberty has started all 18 games for the Wildcats, Rhatigan spent the first four games sitting on the bench due to injury. Junior defender Kendall Halpern, also sidelined by injury at the beginning of the season, remembered speaking with Rhatigan on the bench during the Syracuse game in February.

“We were talking to each other, [saying], ‘We can’t wait to get back on the field together,’” Halpern said. “To see her on the field — she worked so hard in the fall, and to finally see her story come true was inspiring.”

On offense, Halpern said Rhatigan creates a “whole different firepower.” On defense, she called Laliberty a “rock.” Since the pair arrived at Northwestern, Halpern said their differing perspectives on the game and general strengths have been incredible to witness.

Laliberty has anchored the Wildcats’ defense, posting a 46.7 save rate and anchoring the country’s No. 18 scoring defense. Rhatigan, who didn’t compete until the Vanderbilt matchup on March 4, has tallied 52 goals and 11 assists through 14 games. The pair both received USA Lacrosse Magazine All-American honors and were named to the All-Big Ten tournament team.

Beyond the on-the-field accolades, Laliberty said it’s the “love for one another” that makes the Wildcats stand out. The connections among all the coaches and players are special, she said.

Laliberty and Rhatigan have been part of a season full of big moments on the field: winning the Big Ten tournament, taking down No. 1 North Carolina, going undefeated in Big Ten play. But none of those rank as Rhatigan’s favorite memory in Evanston.

“Just getting a bye for our first game [was special],” Rhatigan said. “I was walking back to our locker room with Molly, and I was tearing up because it’s something so small, but it means so much. Knowing that you’re going into [the] postseason with such a high seed and to actually have the opportunity to win a national championship is breathtaking. It’s something so amazing that I never thought I’d get to experience.”