Brennan Dwyer came all of 10 minutes from Winnetka, Ill., to become a draw specialist for the Northwestern women’s lacrosse team — a position of high esteem within the program.

“I definitely wasn’t trying to stay insanely close,” Dwyer said. “The fact that it was is kind of an added bonus.”

The only player from Illinois on the Wildcats roster, Dwyer gets plenty of support at home games as a result. She is the youngest of six children. All five of her siblings are married with children. Four of them have settled in Winnetka, and the other is planning to move the 30 minutes back from Chicago in the near future.

Dwyer’s tight-knit family is a bastion of athleticism. Her father played football at Georgetown before eventually starting and leading the girls’ lacrosse program at Loyola Academy. One brother went to Georgetown to play football. The other played ice hockey at Notre Dame. All three of her sisters played lacrosse at Georgetown.

“I definitely looked there,” Dwyer said.

Ultimately, Northwestern profited when Dwyer kept her draw skills close to home, although the Wildcats had to wait along with everyone else for her commitment. She did not commit to any college until November of her senior year at Loyola, when she chose Northwestern.

“I always looked at it because it’s close,” Dwyer said. “They obviously have such a storied history in lacrosse. It’s super awesome to have the opportunity to play at such a high leve, be able to compete for a national championship and have such great academics as well.

“I have a huge family as well, so them being able to come to watch all my games has been awesome. Everything just lined up when I was looking at places to go. Northwestern just kind of checked all the boxes. It was a pretty awesome fit for me and it’s been great to be close and have my family to support me.”

The Wildcats have been pretty happy about it as well. Dwyer has picked up double-digit draw controls in seven of the last nine games, including 10 in an 18-14 win over Syracuse in the NCAA quarterfinals Saturday.

“Early on in the season, Brennan had some good moments, but then she struggled as well. She’s really hit her stride down the stretch now,” Northwestern coach Kelly Amonte Hiller said. “People ask us, ‘Why do you play the schedule you play?’ We play the schedule we play and she probably goes up against every one of the top draw people in the country — Notre Dame, Syracuse, Boston College, Maryland, UNC, you name it. When you do that and then you’re facing it in practice as well, you can’t help but get better every day.

“Brennan has a tremendous demeanor. She never gets rattled. She’s very calm and collected. That’s what makes her so great. Even in our Syracuse game on Saturday, she came up with some really clutch draws at the end of the game when they were making a comeback.”

Fourth-seeded Northwestern (15-4) takes on top-seeded Maryland (21-1) at 7:30 p.m. Friday in the second semifinal of the NCAA tournament final four at Johns Hopkins. Boston College faces North Carolina in the first semifinal at 5 p.m. Northwestern and Maryland split their first two meetings, with Maryland winning at Northwestern 17-13 on April 11 and Northwestern winning 16-11 in the Big Ten Tournament championship game May 5 at the same venue where they will play the rubber match Friday.

It’s Northwestern’s first final four appearance since 2014. The Wildcats won seven of the eight national championships from 2005-2012.

“We’ve been working pretty hard to get to this point,” Amonte Hiller said. “Obviously, we’ve been here before in the past, and I think sometimes when you lose that confidence and your ability to get over the hump, it takes a little bit to get back. This has been a process to get back here, and I’m really proud of this group and the groups before this group that helped us make steps every year to get us to this point.”

Dwyer had 11 draw controls in the first game against Maryland and nine in the Big Ten title clincher. Bigger than that, the team numbers showed a big jump. In Northwestern’s win, they held a 19-10 advantage. It was just a 17-15 Northwestern edge in the regular-season loss.

“Brennan learned some lessons,” Amonte Hiller said. “Our circle girls were better. Their circle girls are tremendous too. So we know it’s going to be a battle for every single draw and we know how important that is so we have to make sure we give our best effort. ... Brennan came up with some key ones down the stretch in that game when Maryland was starting to come back a little bit.”

Dwyer actually had her coming out moment a year ago. Thrust into action in the 2018 regular season finale against Maryland, she helped to turn the tide with 10 draw controls, although the Wildcats’ comeback came up short.

“It definitely was the best game of my freshman year,” said Dwyer, who had 36 draws as a freshman. “It was super exciting it happened to be against Maryland. It happened to be a really exciting game. I had some reps in practice, and I’d been in a couple games before. I knew I could do it. I don’t remember being terribly nervous. They were going our way, and we were starting to come back.”

Dwyer took over full-time this year for Shelby Fredericks, who graduated last year with a program-record 496 draw controls. Fredericks has stayed on as a graduate assistant. Dwyer also works with assistant coach Hannah Murphy, who holds the UMass career record with 522 draw controls, third-best in NCAA history.

“They were obviously so good at it in college,” Dwyer said. “It’s been really cool having them teach me, and seeing everything that they tell me to do work is actually so cool.”

Dwyer has 172 draw controls this season. She ranks fifth nationally in draw controls per game, and is just the latest Wildcat player to excel on the draw.

“Obviously the draw has always been a strength for our program,” Amonte Hiller said. “That was a strength for me as a player. I’ve been able to teach some of my players, and then always had good assistant coaches that can help out in that area. I think having Hannah Murphy and Shelby Fredericks as our grad assistant this year has really helped Brennan. She’s able to go up against those guys every single day in addition to the kids on our team. When you’re going up against All-Americans every single day, you tend to be a little bit more ready for the battle.”

All three coaches work together to provide pointers for the draw team that also includes Megan Kinna, Kim Harker and Izzy Scane, as well as Lauren Gilbert and Lindsey McKone at times. It’s paid off over the season, and the improvement the second game against Maryland was reinforcement of their development.

“We put in a lot of practice with it throughout the week leading up [to games],” Dwyer said. “We’ve done a lot better at working with me and the circle people. As time has gone on, we’ve gotten more used to each other playing and more familiar with how I go for certain draws and knowing who’s going to get the ball if it goes up or down. That communication has gotten a lot better as the year has gone along.”

Dwyer, a draw specialist who usually comes off the field after it, focused on improving for this year after knowing she’d have the opportunity to take over for Fredericks. She is closing out her second year with a full season’s experience on the draw.

“This year is a huge difference,” Dwyer said. “I’m a lot more confident. That comes from how many reps we do. All the draw takers at practice take so many reps, everyone we have on our [draw] team. Going against Hannah and Shelby in practice helps too. It gives us a ton of different looks. Going against so many different draw takers, it’s super helpful and it prepares us to go against anyone. That’s been huge to develop confidence and try different things against different styles.”

The draw will again be big in the grudge match between Maryland and Northwestern. The Wildcats have saddled Maryland with their two largest deficits of the season in their two meetings. Maryland came back from one deficit to win the first one, but Northwestern’s draw dominance made that harder in the second meeting that the Wildcats won.

“Each team knows each other pretty well,” Amonte Hiller. “It was the first time we’ve beaten Maryland since they’ve been in the Big Ten, so that was a big step for us, and we’re excited about this next matchup. It just gives us another opportunity. I mean, all four teams in the final four are tremendous, and every game is going to be a battle. So we’re excited about it. We feel like we match up well against Maryland, and we’re just going to give it our best effort.”