This Week's Outlook: The College of Wooster women's lacrosse team is headed to Kenyon College for the semifinals of the 2022 North Coast Athletic Conference Tournament. Opening draw on Wednesday, May 4 is set for 1 p.m. The winner of Wednesday's semifinal contests meet up on Saturday, May 7 for the NCAC Tournament championship, which will be hosted by the highest advancing seed.
Tickets: Tickets for the NCAC Tournament semifinal contest are $7 for adults and $3 for children 18-and-under. Students from NCAC institutions are admitted free of charge with their student ID card.
Media Coverage: Kenyon will have live stats and a livestream of Wednesday's semifinal contest. Fans can also follow @CoWWLAX on Twitter for periodic score updates and check for an end-of-game recap at WoosterAthletics.com.
NCAC Tournament History: Wooster is making its 27th appearance in the NCAC Tournament, where the Fighting Scots sport a 24-20 all-time record. Wooster won the NCAC Tournament in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2007, 2009, and 2010. The Scots are 6-4 all-time against Kenyon in the NCAC Tournament, 13-9 in the semifinals, 7-9 when playing a true road game, and 2-6 as the fourth seed. Wooster has played in the championship three straight times, falling to Denison University each time. Last year, Wooster and Denison met in the NCAC Championship game, with one game pitting the East Division and West Division top seeds against each other taking place in lieu of the traditional four-team tournament. Alumna Ashley Boersma tied the 2021 championship game at 13 with :29 remaining, as Wooster rallied back from a 13-9 deficit only to see Denison's Liza Farnham net the game-winner as time expired to lift the Big Red to a 14-13 win.
Scots In Search of Win No. 14: Wooster enters play today at 13-4. A win would give Wooster its second-ever season with 14 victories. Wooster won a school-record 16 games as part of a 16-2 record in 2019. Wooster has three other seasons with 13 victories, with those coming in 2004 (13-4), 2013 (13-5), and 2015 (13-4).
Win It: Wooster has enjoyed much success on draw controls this season. In fact, the Scots enter the week 13th nationally and first within the NCAC with 17.41 draw controls per game. Individually, junior Hannah Shaw (Menlo Park, Calif./Menlo-Atherton) is 20th nationally with a 7.47 per-game average, a total that is also tops in the NCAC. Shaw's 127 draw controls are the most in single-season program history. The junior surpassed alumna Megan Healy's 115 from 2019 during a 20-12 win over Baldwin Wallace University on April 23. Shaw has five games with at least 10 draw controls on the year, including a career-high 15 against Indiana Institute of Technology on March 5, with that total believed to be the single-game program record. Shaw's up to 226 career draw controls, a total tied with alumna Emma Lawrence (2016-19) for the second-most in program history. Healy holds the career record at 275. Of note, Wooster's entire midfield has over 60 draw controls this year. Senior Syd Schuster (Ann Arbor, Mich./Skyline) has 65, the ninth-most in single-season program history, and first-year Kenzie Morris (Chardon, Ohio/Chardon) ranks just outside the single-season top-10 at 61. Schuster and Morris are both in the top six in the NCAC.
Score More: Wooster's 15.47 goals per game is the top average within the NCAC this spring. Wooster's balance, something that has been a staple of the program for years, is once again on display. Five Scots have at least 30 goals on the year, with Schuster leading the team with 46. Schuster broke Wooster's single-game record with nine goals during a 17-11 win over Allegheny College on April 20. Others with at least 30 goals include Morris (42), junior Jill Murray (Middlebury, Conn./Pomperaug) (37), Shaw (37), and senior Caitlyn O'Connor (Massapequa Park, N.Y./Massapequa) (30).
Scoop it Up: Junior Clare Leithauser is a groundball magnet with 76 on the year. That total is the second-most in program history and ranks behind Healy's 83 from 2019. Leithauser has 13 more groundballs than any other player in the NCAC this spring and she has eight games with at least five.
The Stopper: Senior CC Dent (Holliston, Mass./Dana Hall School) is in year one as the Scots' starting 'keeper. Dent has 112 saves on the year and 18 of them came during a career night against Allegheny.
Cardiac Crew: Wooster has a trio of exciting finishes this year, as the Scots are 3-0 in overtime. On April 6, O'Connor batted the overtime game-winner into the goal with her lacrosse head at the buzzer to give Wooster its second-straight 13-12 overtime win at Oberlin College. That victory came over Ohio Wesleyan University. Four days prior, Schuster delivered the overtime winner on a free-position goal with 4:32 to go in the extra stanza. Earlier in the season, Morris scored with 3:48 to go in overtime to lift Wooster to a 12-11 win over Trine University. That victory ran the Scots' record to 7-0.