May 27, 2007
by Clare Lochary, Lacrosse Magazine Online Staff
PHILADELPHIA - If ever there was an argument for adding a shot clock to women's lacrosse, it was the final scoring possession of the NCAA Division I women's lacrosse final Sunday at Franklin Field.
After Virginia's Megan O'Malley flicked Ashley McCulloch's pass into the net to make it a 14-13 game with 10:21 remaining in the second half, it looked like the Cavaliers in the midst of another amazing comeback. Virginia had chipped away at Northwestern's 11-6 halftime lead with five goals on five possessions, using the speed and determination that produced an unprecedented 10-goal rally to beat Duke in the semifinals Friday.
O'Malley's goal tied the total combined points for an NCAA championship (Maryland's 14-13 triple overtime win over Georgetown in 2001), and there was still more than 13 minutes for two highly charged offenses to continue to score. With Northwestern's Kristen Kjellman and Virginia's Brittany Kalkstein at midfield for the subsequent draw, the game seemed poised to continue its brisk scoring pace.
Instead, it was the Possession that Wouldn't Die.
Northwestern controlled the draw in its defensive end, but Virginia's midfield rode the Wildcats hard and seemed on the edge of a turnover. Northwestern needed more than 20 seconds to get the ball over the midfield line, eventually turning the ball over to midfielder Hilary Bowen.
"I just wanted to take a little bit of air out of the ball," said Northwestern head coach Kelly Amonte Hiller. "They were just being so explosive and pretty much scoring at will at that point."
Bowen, named the Most Valuable Player of the tournament, took the ball behind the goal. The sophomore already had five goals and two assists for the day, thanks to the opportunities freed up by Virginia's oppression of Northwestern's go-to scorers Kjellman (1g, 1a) and Aly Josephs (1g).
Bowen slowly paced behind the goal, waiting for an open Northwestern shooter to emerge from the stacked offense clustered about 10 yards outside the arc. Virginia star defender Jessy Morgan watched Bowen from crease as her teammates lurked at the top of the circle waiting for a cutter to make a break for the ball.
They all waited for quite some time.
"That was a great delay on their part to put one really dominant player back behind who could take you on the crease right- or left-handed while they put everybody else in the stack. I thought that was great," said Virginia head coach Julie Myers. "We knew what they were doing, but the risk of forcing a really great crease challenge to come up and take that crease challenge, you got a pretty good chance of going down yet another goal."
Bowen would walk a few steps to the left, and Morgan would mirror on the front of the crease. A few steps right, and Morgan followed patiently. A few steps in, a few steps out. It looked less like a defensive match-up than it did an incredibly slow-moving mime act. Northwestern attackers would peel off from the stack, only to be picked up by a Virginia defender.
The crowd started booing after about three minutes of Bowen standing behind the goal. No passes. No attempts to roll the crease. No defensive attempts to force something to happen. Just pacing, and watching.
Bowen, who already had five goals and two assists on the day, stoically kept waiting.
"That's what we had to do at that point in the game. Whatever it takes to win the national championship, I'll do it. And that's what it took right then," said Bowen. "If the crowd wants to boo and get into it, that just makes it that more exciting."
The tipping point finally came with about six minutes remaining in the half - more than four minutes after the draw that began the possession. Meredith Frank broke loose from the stack on the left side of the goal and got off the long-awaited pass. Frank dished to Hannah Neilsen, who was almost stripped behind the goal, but rolled the crease and got off a point-blank shot. Virginia goalie Kendall McBrearty made the stop, and cleared it to the midfield.
Freshman Brittany Kalkstein carried the ball in transition - blowing by Bowen - and eventually got the shot after Virginia settled into a set offense. Wildcats goalie Morgan Lathrop made her own tremendous save, clearing the ball to Allo Perry. Perry passed to freshman Katrina Dowd, who was fouled by O'Malley near the midfield.
Dowd passed to Neilsen, Northwestern's consummate feeder, and then cut toward the crease to catch the give-and-go.
"My girl was totally focused on her so I just ran straight across," said the freshman. "I had plenty of time."
She beat McBreaty with a low shot that put the score at 15-13 with 2:29 remaining, ending a 7:52 possession and one of the stranger sequences in NCAA tournament history.
It was a hat-trick for Dowd, and a head-scratcher for everyone else. Northwestern controlled the subsequent draw, and held onto it to win the game and its third straight title.
Good teams always find a way to win, but Northwestern surely found one of the strangest.
