By: Ari Levin

Northwestern Women’s Lacrosse played a back-and-forth thriller against a top-five program but couldn’t come away with the victory. The No. 11 Northwestern Wildcats (5-3) dropped Sunday’s match against the fifth-ranked North Carolina Tar Heels (6-2) by a score of 18-13.

All three of Northwestern’s losses on the season have been against top programs and have been close, well-played games. Northwestern goes into conference play with plenty of experience against the top teams in the country.

The entire game was a give-and-take affair. In the first half, Northwestern didn’t take the lead despite multiple ties until a three-goal run in the last two minutes put them on top. Northwestern had some struggles on offense at first but scored their first six goals on free position shots. At halftime, the ‘Cats were up 8-7. 

Claire Quinn had a career game for Northwestern, posting a hat trick in the first half. The junior tied her career-high with four goals in the game, increasing her season total to 10.

The second half was more of the same back-and-forth. Three straight times the Tar Heels tied the game and the Wildcats responded with a goal to go back ahead. But ten minutes in, UNC finally pulled through, and scored three straight goals to take the lead, and they never looked back going up 18-12 after an 8-1 run.

It was an up-and-down day for Northwestern’s Redshirt-First Year goalie Julie Krupnick. Krupnick had a career-high 12 saves, eight of which were in the first half. But Northwestern simply couldn’t keep up with North Carolina’s offense at the end. The 18 goals given up were the most of the year for Northwestern.

Northwestern added one last goal in the final ten seconds by Selena Lasota for her fourth of the game, giving her 20 on the year.

Next for Northwestern is the beginning of Big Ten play on Friday, March 23. That game against the 3-5 Michigan Wolverines can be found on our Mixlr II page.