Ninety-six seconds separated Northwestern from its fourth Big Ten women’s lacrosse championship. The lightning delay only served to prolong the celebration.
Reigning Tewaaraton Award winner Izzy Scane tied Charlotte North’s NCAA record for career goals and led the top-ranked Wildcats to a 14-12 victory Saturday over Penn State.
In avenging one of its two losses this season, top-ranked Northwestern (15-2, 5-1) secured the Big Ten’s automatic qualifier to the NCAA tournament.
The Wildcats have appeared in every NCAA tournament dating back to 2004, winning eight national championships. They’ll likely be the No. 1 overall seed this go around.
Held to just one goal in the Northwestern’s narrow semifinal win over Johns Hopkins, Scane scored five goals Saturday to bring her career total to 358. That matches North’s total accumulated at Duke and Boston College from 2018-22.
Scane is in her sixth season at Northwestern, having missed the 2022 campaign with a torn ACL and like North receiving an extra year of eligibility due to the cancellation of the 2020 season at the onset of the pandemic.
Scane’s fifth goal Saturday put the Wildcats ahead by 14-10 late in the fourth quarter. It looked like Northwestern might try to get her the record or at least salt away the win when lightning struck and put the game on ice with 1:36 remaining.
Northwestern moved the game indoors to the Ryan Fieldhouse. Penn State scored a pair of goals to pull within two, but Wildcats goalie Molly Laliberty made her 10th save in the final seconds to seal the win.
The Nittany Lions (11-7, 4-2) still look good for an NCAA tournament at-large bid on the strength of three top-10 wins over Johns Hopkins, Maryland and Northwestern.
Penn State jumped out to 4-1 lead in the first quarter with Kara Nealon assisting three of the four goals.
Northwestern’s offense came alive in the second quarter, however, scoring in bunches. The Wildcats scored three goals in 88 seconds and then twice more in a 56-second span to take a 6-5 led into halftime.
Northwestern blew the game open with a six-goal run in the third quarter, during which its defense came up with multiple impressive stops.
The Wildcats led 8-5 when defender Hannah Gillespie drew a charge at the end of a long, fruitless and frustrating possession for the Nittany Lions.
On Northwestern’s next defensive possession, midfielder Jane Hansen stripped Brooke Hoss of the ball, one of four caused turnovers for Hansen. Going the other way, attacker Madison Taylor sprinted beyond the reach of two Penn State defenders and sent a bullet into the goal as she fell to the turf, staking the Wildcats to a 9-5 advantage.
That started a run of four goals in less than three minutes, as Northwestern looked like it might run away with a blowout victory.
But the Nittany Lions, who stunned the Wildcats in overtime back on March 22, did not go quietly. They went on a four-goal run of their own to make it 12-9 with 8:23 left in the fourth quarter.
Penn State almost drew closer, but Northwestern goalie Molly Laliberty made a pair of point-blank stops on Gretchen Gilmore and Taylor fed Dylan Amonte for a goal to stretch the lead back to four.
