Northwestern coach opens pipeline to LI

Here's one way to get a recruiting edge on Long Island, what Northwestern's six-time national women's lacrosse champion coach Kelly Amonte Hiller called "a mecca" for the sport.

"Well," she said, "my husband is from Long Island. Garden City."

For years, Hiller, who played on one of Maryland's 10 national championship teams in the 1990s, ran a summer lacrosse camp in Greenlawn. That, in fact, is where she first saw Shannon Smith, the comic book-like Northwestern superhero who repeatedly saves the day in close games.

With four goals in Sunday's 8-7 victory over Maryland in the NCAA title game, Smith was named tournament most valuable player.

Smith, a junior from West Babylon, once was one of Hiller's campers, "I don't know, when she was 8 or 9 years old," Hiller said. "And she was just like she is now. A terror. She could just take over a game and make plays, make things happen. She had this will, this will to win, and that's what made her an extremely attractive recruit. And luckily, I got a few other of her best friends to come here, too."

Smith, who made varsity at West Babylon in seventh grade, described herself as "a kid that couldn't sit still" and remembered that at Hiller's camp, "the coaches always were innovating things. Every year, I'd learn something different."

Though recruited by Georgetown, Notre Dame and North Carolina, "I always knew I wanted to go to Northwestern," she said.

"Sometimes when you build relationships with the kids when they're that young," Hiller said, "they look up to you and your players. It makes a big difference. And I just think the type of kid that comes out of here tends to like what we have to offer at Northwestern, so that's why we've been able to attract a lot of top athletes."

Long Islanders provided all the goals and the goaltending Sunday, and did so with hundreds of relatives and friends among the 8,011 in attendance at Stony Brook's LaValle Stadium. That visibility won't hurt future Northwestern recruiting here, nor the fact that the NCAA Division I Final Four will return to Stony Brook next year.