Boston College Athletics
Photo by: Joe Sullivan
May 29, 2024 | Lacrosse, #ForBoston Files
The impact of what BC lacrosse accomplished only just started to sink in when the team arrived home on Monday.
The bus arriving at Campanella Way on Monday looked virtually identical to the one that departed less than one week earlier. An adoring crowd clad in neon green lined barricades leading to an entrance door at Conte Forum, and pom poms and cheers greeted student-athletes and coaches who made the walk between the two. Reasonable smiles followed the sounds of children holding lacrosse sticks, after which families departed to find their daughters who played the sport for Acacia Walker-Weinstein's Boston College program.
The lone difference was a simple signature wrapped on the bus after the arrival of a new passenger. Buckled into the first seat next to the front door, the messenger didn't make the trip to Cary, North Carolina, but its permanent residence in Chestnut Hill received a welcome message draped on the wall outside Alumni Stadium. It left no doubt about how the gathered crowd would remember the 2024 Boston College program, and it stamped the final achievement of a team that started the season by dreaming bigger than its previous seven years:
Boston College. 2024 National Champions.
"It's an unbelievable feeling to come home to Boston," said head coach Acacia Walker-Weinstein after the team arrived back on campus. "It's great to celebrate where the Final Four happened in North Carolina, but it's another to come home to Boston, where our community has shown out for years and years and years. It's such an incredible thing [because] we play for our city, our fans, and our school. It was in our heart, even when we were down 6-0, playing for Boston."
The Eagles' party was nowhere near ending in the wake of their one-goal win over Northwestern, but the 48-hour period after the national championship victory gave fans and lacrosse supporters an opportunity to savor the climb associated with beating the top-ranked Wildcats. The comeback from a 6-0 deficit aside, what transpired at the WakeMed Soccer Park on Sunday afternoon began aging with wonder after BC executed the perfect game plan over the final three periods.
The team had been disjointed through the first period, and Northwestern capitalized by scoring on a minute-by-minute basis. A pair of penalties and a green card to Ryan Smith didn't help, but Erin Coykendall's 43rd and 44th goals of the season bookended Dylan Amonte's 43rd goal of the season, the 81st and 82nd goals by Madison Taylor and the extra-attacker goal by Mary Schumar because the defense couldn't track the Wildcat attackers.Â
Every situational number felt like it went against BC, and even the few offensive opportunities failed to generate statistics favoring the Eagles. They owned one more draw control, but Northwestern's five successful clears vastly outnumbered the 1-for-1 on BC's sheet. Four turnovers dwarfed the Wildcats' one giveaway, and the plus-2 groundball advantage for the No. 1 team in the nation translated to an 11-3 shot advantage with a 7-2 differential in shots on goal.
"Offensively, it was all things in our control," said Kayla Martello, "so we kind of [came together] as a group of attackers first [to] make sure we were supporting the [midfielders]. They were busting their butts up-and-down the field.Â
"So as the attackers, we had to pull ourselves together and kind of flip that switch for them," she said. "The defense had our backs the whole time, so we needed to have theirs, [and] we slowly, one-by-one, called ourselves out on that."
Pressuring the game flow allowed BC to nail down its first goal in the second quarter and build momentum in a way that illustrated the lessons learned in the teams' first meeting. Nothing necessarily changed strategically, but the slow galvanization was significantly different from the teams' late February meet-up at Newton Campus. The first quarter of that game had been similar after the Wildcats scored the first three goals, but the 7-2 deficit was too much to overcome because BC couldn't find enough mojo to fully chip away at the Northwestern defense. They'd missed defensive assignments, and Izzy Scane's huge second half included two goals in the fourth quarter whenever the Eagles started climbing out of their hole.
Sunday afternoon witnessed a change in BC's demeanor because the yeoman's workmanlike appearance that buckled in the first minutes instead shifted into a more hardened concrete by the second half. Scane's hat trick from the second half in February didn't materialize until later in the game, at which point BC both had the lead and was attacking from an unconscious state.
"I don't necessarily think it was our best day defensively," said Northwestern head coach Kelly Amonte-Hiller. "I wish we could have made a few more stops, but I was proud of how we stayed resilient throughout and still continued to try to gain possession for the offense."
That indomitable feeling seeped into every aspect of BC's game over the course of the afternoon, and the entire team finished the last minute with a devilish attitude built around a desire that loudly slammed the door on Northwestern's attack. Shea Dolce's stop on Amonte's wide open free position shot rightfully stole headlines, but the rest of the players on the field offered unparalleled emotion inside the closing seconds. Their appearance spoke to a theme of "win or die trying," and the flawless execution avoided a foul in a game where whistles openly searched for ticky-tack shooting space or illegal check violations over the full afternoon.
"It was really frustrating in the first quarter and in the second quarter," Walker-Weinstein admitted. "We were getting a lot of fouls called on us that hadn't been called all year, so it was a little alarming. We decided that we were going to have to face Northwestern and some of the officiating as well. Their job is really difficult, especially in a national championship game with two very aggressive teams, and it was a little scary in the beginning when I thought we couldn't buy a call.
"But they did a great job [over the course of the game]," she continued. "I'm grateful for those officials, and I'm proud that our girls got around and won despite some of the adversity."
Adjusting to an official's style of calling a game is part of how coaches and players attack their respective game plans, and those closing opportunities offered a masterclass in the in-game pairings offered by BC's defensive strategy. The errant pass as time expired came after each defender took an opportunity to hold her respective stick in the air to defend a potential shot, and Dolce's positioning forced Northwestern to avoid working into the eight-meter area. The last pass carried more desperation than the earlier attempts and failed to get near the net, after which the entire BC team exploded with the realization that the final shot clock against the nation's most prolific scoring offense ended with barely an attempt on net.
"Jen [Kent] made incredible adjustments throughout the game," Walker-Weinstein said. "Madison Taylor started to get hot, and we switched what we were doing with her. When Izzy got hot, we switched what we were doing with her, and I think we were prepared to have a lot of those adjustments. My defensive coordinator is the smartest in the country, and her adjustments always work. Against this offense, you have to be prepared with five or six plans, and Jen's plans always worked."
The lone difference was a simple signature wrapped on the bus after the arrival of a new passenger. Buckled into the first seat next to the front door, the messenger didn't make the trip to Cary, North Carolina, but its permanent residence in Chestnut Hill received a welcome message draped on the wall outside Alumni Stadium. It left no doubt about how the gathered crowd would remember the 2024 Boston College program, and it stamped the final achievement of a team that started the season by dreaming bigger than its previous seven years:
Boston College. 2024 National Champions.
"It's an unbelievable feeling to come home to Boston," said head coach Acacia Walker-Weinstein after the team arrived back on campus. "It's great to celebrate where the Final Four happened in North Carolina, but it's another to come home to Boston, where our community has shown out for years and years and years. It's such an incredible thing [because] we play for our city, our fans, and our school. It was in our heart, even when we were down 6-0, playing for Boston."
The Eagles' party was nowhere near ending in the wake of their one-goal win over Northwestern, but the 48-hour period after the national championship victory gave fans and lacrosse supporters an opportunity to savor the climb associated with beating the top-ranked Wildcats. The comeback from a 6-0 deficit aside, what transpired at the WakeMed Soccer Park on Sunday afternoon began aging with wonder after BC executed the perfect game plan over the final three periods.
The team had been disjointed through the first period, and Northwestern capitalized by scoring on a minute-by-minute basis. A pair of penalties and a green card to Ryan Smith didn't help, but Erin Coykendall's 43rd and 44th goals of the season bookended Dylan Amonte's 43rd goal of the season, the 81st and 82nd goals by Madison Taylor and the extra-attacker goal by Mary Schumar because the defense couldn't track the Wildcat attackers.Â
Every situational number felt like it went against BC, and even the few offensive opportunities failed to generate statistics favoring the Eagles. They owned one more draw control, but Northwestern's five successful clears vastly outnumbered the 1-for-1 on BC's sheet. Four turnovers dwarfed the Wildcats' one giveaway, and the plus-2 groundball advantage for the No. 1 team in the nation translated to an 11-3 shot advantage with a 7-2 differential in shots on goal.
"Offensively, it was all things in our control," said Kayla Martello, "so we kind of [came together] as a group of attackers first [to] make sure we were supporting the [midfielders]. They were busting their butts up-and-down the field.Â
"So as the attackers, we had to pull ourselves together and kind of flip that switch for them," she said. "The defense had our backs the whole time, so we needed to have theirs, [and] we slowly, one-by-one, called ourselves out on that."
Pressuring the game flow allowed BC to nail down its first goal in the second quarter and build momentum in a way that illustrated the lessons learned in the teams' first meeting. Nothing necessarily changed strategically, but the slow galvanization was significantly different from the teams' late February meet-up at Newton Campus. The first quarter of that game had been similar after the Wildcats scored the first three goals, but the 7-2 deficit was too much to overcome because BC couldn't find enough mojo to fully chip away at the Northwestern defense. They'd missed defensive assignments, and Izzy Scane's huge second half included two goals in the fourth quarter whenever the Eagles started climbing out of their hole.
Sunday afternoon witnessed a change in BC's demeanor because the yeoman's workmanlike appearance that buckled in the first minutes instead shifted into a more hardened concrete by the second half. Scane's hat trick from the second half in February didn't materialize until later in the game, at which point BC both had the lead and was attacking from an unconscious state.
"I don't necessarily think it was our best day defensively," said Northwestern head coach Kelly Amonte-Hiller. "I wish we could have made a few more stops, but I was proud of how we stayed resilient throughout and still continued to try to gain possession for the offense."
That indomitable feeling seeped into every aspect of BC's game over the course of the afternoon, and the entire team finished the last minute with a devilish attitude built around a desire that loudly slammed the door on Northwestern's attack. Shea Dolce's stop on Amonte's wide open free position shot rightfully stole headlines, but the rest of the players on the field offered unparalleled emotion inside the closing seconds. Their appearance spoke to a theme of "win or die trying," and the flawless execution avoided a foul in a game where whistles openly searched for ticky-tack shooting space or illegal check violations over the full afternoon.
"It was really frustrating in the first quarter and in the second quarter," Walker-Weinstein admitted. "We were getting a lot of fouls called on us that hadn't been called all year, so it was a little alarming. We decided that we were going to have to face Northwestern and some of the officiating as well. Their job is really difficult, especially in a national championship game with two very aggressive teams, and it was a little scary in the beginning when I thought we couldn't buy a call.
"But they did a great job [over the course of the game]," she continued. "I'm grateful for those officials, and I'm proud that our girls got around and won despite some of the adversity."
Adjusting to an official's style of calling a game is part of how coaches and players attack their respective game plans, and those closing opportunities offered a masterclass in the in-game pairings offered by BC's defensive strategy. The errant pass as time expired came after each defender took an opportunity to hold her respective stick in the air to defend a potential shot, and Dolce's positioning forced Northwestern to avoid working into the eight-meter area. The last pass carried more desperation than the earlier attempts and failed to get near the net, after which the entire BC team exploded with the realization that the final shot clock against the nation's most prolific scoring offense ended with barely an attempt on net.
"Jen [Kent] made incredible adjustments throughout the game," Walker-Weinstein said. "Madison Taylor started to get hot, and we switched what we were doing with her. When Izzy got hot, we switched what we were doing with her, and I think we were prepared to have a lot of those adjustments. My defensive coordinator is the smartest in the country, and her adjustments always work. Against this offense, you have to be prepared with five or six plans, and Jen's plans always worked."
Players Mentioned
Wednesday, October 21
Wednesday, October 21
Tuesday, October 20
Tuesday, October 20
