With No. 3 Northwestern leading No. 2 Boston College 12–11 and four seconds left on the clock, Mia Mascone fired the final shot of the game with a chance to tie things up.
But Northwestern goalkeeper Delaney Swetizer grabbed it as the buzzer rang and Northwestern (19–2, 8–0 Big Ten) beat BC (19–3, 8–1 Atlantic Coast), keeping the Eagles from the national championship game for the first time since 2016 and crushing the Eagles’ hopes of back-to-back titles.
BC is no stranger to the semifinals—this was its eighth straight appearance. But this time, the game was a little closer to home.
After playing in the national championship against Northwestern last year in Cary, North Carolina, this year’s semifinal rematch between the teams took place at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, just 24 miles from Chestnut Hill.
Despite the spitting-turned pouring rain in Foxborough, Friday’s game brought 10,080 fans to Gillette, marking the most fans of any women’s lacrosse semifinal since 2002. BC head coach Acacia Weinstein-Walker attributed that turnout to the culture at BC and similar programs.
“I think the girls in our program play the right way,” BC head coach Acacia Weinstein-Walker said. “They play unselfishly, they play really gritty, they play really tough, and I think they’ve captured the heart of a lot of young lacrosse players. I think that’s a tribute to the kind of people that we have in our program.”
The Eagles trailed early on in Friday’s loss, as the Wildcats went up 4–1 with 4:05 left in the first quarter. But as the rain quickened, BC began to gain ground, led by two first-quarter goals from the nation’s leading scorer Rachel Clark.
The Eagles hurdled their initial deficit to end the first half up one goal as Clark finished her first-half hat trick with a third goal with 12:19 left in the first half.
As the second quarter came to a close, Madison Taylor connected with Emerson Bohlig, who launched the ball towards BC’s net, where it came in contact with Dolce’s stick. Dolce lost track of it and the ball rolled into the net behind her, tightening the game and making it a 7-6 BC lead.
The scoring slowed at the start of the second half, with both teams’ defenses crowding the crease and fending off shots for the first eight minutes of the third quarter.
But Molly Driscoll broke the stalemate as she sent the ball sailing over Swetizer’s shoulder, giving BC a two-point lead.
That spark lit the flame for the Eagles in the third, as they notched four unanswered goals and silenced the Wildcats for the entire quarter.
It was only the fourth time that Northwestern had gone scoreless in a quarter, with the last time coming in a UNC matchup in late March.
It looked like Northwestern might have responded with a minute to play in the third as Madison Taylor received the ball on a breakaway. But the Eagles got it back thanks to a ground ball pickup from Morgan Smith.
Those ground balls were a constant in the game—the Eagles finished with 21 ground ball pickups and 14 forced turnovers, something Shea Baker said was a product of practice.
“That’s who we are—we’ve been working on those, those stats all year,” Baker said. “We win those ground ball battles and those hustle plays. That’s BC lacrosse.’
McKenna Davis was left with an open goal with a minute left in the quarter, bringing BC’s lead up to five goals as the game headed into the final frame.
Defensively, BC goalkeeper Shea Dolce guarded her team’s lead with 11 saves—her 12th game this season with double-digit saves and her second straight such game in the national tournament. Dolce also hit a career total of 200 saves, making her the second player in BC history to do so.
“She’s the greatest goalie I’ve ever seen,” Walker said.
But the Northwestern offense broke through despite Dolce’s heroics, burying two goals in 1:30 to start the fourth and shaving down the Eagles’ lead to a single goal with a score from Taylor with just under eight minutes to play.
Then, off a feed from Bohlig, Riley Campbell sent another goal behind Dolce with 7:21 left, earning herself a hattrick and tying the game 11–11.
Two minutes later, Sam Smith added another goal for Northwestern off a feed from Taylor, giving the Wildcats the lead and leaving the Eagles with just five minutes to find an answer.
With just over a minute left in the game, the nation’s leading scorer Rachel Clark ran to pick up a ground ball, but fell and let the ball loose. While the referees reviewed the call to clarify possession, BC players hyped up their fan section, waving their arms and jumping up and down to spur a roar from the sea of neon green in the stands.
Finally, the refs made the call: it was Northwestern ball.
Another turnover from Driscoll with 31 seconds left, followed by Mascone’s miss to end the game, ended the Eagles’ season before the championship game—earlier than it has ended in eight years.
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