June 8, 2006

Northwestern’s championship season

Lacrosse defends title, tennis duo wins doubles crown; softball takes World Series run to the brink

Lacrosse defeats Duke, Dartmouth for back-to-back titles

The Wildcats captured their second straight NCAA national lacrosse championship with a 7-4 victory over Dartmouth on May 28 in front of a record crowd of 5,684 at Boston University’s Nickerson Field.

Aly Josephs scored four goals to lead the Wildcats. Tournament MVP Sarah Albrecht, a senior, added two goals and an assist for the Wildcats, who became the first team in University history to win back-to-back NCAA team titles.

Northwestern also became the third school to repeat as the NCAA Division I women’s lacrosse champion. The last to accomplish the feat was Princeton in 2003. The Wildcats are the sixth school to win multiple NCAA Division I women’s lacrosse titles.

To get to the final game, Northwestern had to endure an epic overtime battle with Duke, which handed the Wildcats their only loss earlier in the season. Albrecht scored the game-winner with 37 seconds left in the first half of overtime for an 11-10 win over the No. 1 seed, setting up the final with Dartmouth.

After the season, the Tewaaraton Award Foundation named junior Kristen Kjellman the nation’s top lacrosse player. Kjellman become the first player, male or female, from a school outside the Eastern Time Zone to win the award.

Grier, Prousis take down Stanford, Fresno State on way to tennis title

One day after lacrosse hoisted the trophy, Northwestern’s All-American doubles tandem of senior Cristelle Grier and junior Alexis Prousis defeated Fresno State’s seventh-ranked doubles team 6-4, 6-1 to claim the national doubles tennis championship.

The duo won their final 15 matches of the season, which included a national semifinal win over Stanford, the nation’s top-ranked doubles team.

The national title is the second in the history of the Northwestern’s women’s tennis program. Katrina Adams and Diane Donnelley won the 1987 doubles title.

For Grier, one the nation’s most heralded and highly regarded women’s tennis players, the title comes at the end of an illustrious collegiate career. She earned All-America honors in both singles and doubles play this season, and was named the Big Ten and ITA Midwest Regional Player of the Year. Grier posted a 46-1 singles record in the Big Ten and is the only player to earn three Big Ten Player of the Year awards. Grier concluded her career 181-38 and is the only Wildcat to ever earn four consecutive singles All-America honors.

The road to the title started out rough for Grier and Prousis, who earned her first All-American selection this season. After falling way behind in their first-round match versus No. 16 Arizona State, the Wildcats stormed back and beat the Sun Devils in three sets. Northwestern then beat No. 8 California, No. 10 Georgia Tech and No. 1 Stanford to reach the championship match.

Softball marches to College World Series final

Northwestern’s 2006 College World Series run began with a dramatic, 10-inning win against Alabama. It continued with a shutout of Tennessee, which had eliminated defending champion Michigan in regional play. Then freshman Tammy Williams and junior Garland Cooper hit consecutive home runs in the eighth inning to beat top-seeded UCLA and push the Wildcats into the championship round.

Junior Eileen Canney and senior Courtnay Foster pitched the Wildcats through the first three rounds, while freshman Erin Dyer and senior Kristen Amegin joined Williams and Cooper in providing key hits along the way.

In the championship, No. 2 seed Arizona proved too strong. Led by a dominant pitching performance over two complete games from senior standout Alicia Hollowell, the Wildcats of the Pac 10 Conference won 8-0 and 5-0 to take the school’s seventh national softball title.

However, Northwestern earned its first trip to the eight-team World Series in 20 years. Its runner-up finish is the best season-ending result in program history. The team finished third in 1984.

 > For complete championship coverage, go to NUsports.com