Northwestern vs. Boston College is for a shot at the title. Madison Taylor vs. Rachel Clark is for the NCAA goal-scoring record.
Northwestern's Madison Taylor. Credit: Northwestern Athletics/Ryan Kuttler
Madison Taylor is having the greatest goal-scoring season in women’s lacrosse history.
Her six goals for Northwestern in a quarterfinal last week, which came after she scored a tournament-record 10 in the previous round, gave her the NCAA’s all-time single-season scoring mark with 105.
Now the challenge for the Wantagh High School product will be to keep her name atop that list.
To do that, she and the Wildcats likely will have to top Rachel Clark and Boston College in Friday’s semifinal at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts. Clark, who scored eight goals in her quarterfinal win, is just two behind Taylor with 103. That would have put her in a tie for the previous record set in 2022 by High Point’s Abby Hormes.
As the two superstars head into the final weekend of the season, only Friday’s winner will have one more game, Sunday’s national championship, to add to their total and almost certainly end the year as the nation’s scoring queen.
The ultimate goal isn’t the individual accolade but the trophy that goes to the team for winning the championship. Northwestern (18-2) and defending champ Boston College (19-2) have faced each other in the final the last two seasons and split those results. This time they are in the semifinals while top-seeded and undefeated North Carolina (20-0) faces Florida (20-2) in the other Friday matchup.
But the goal-for-goal jostling between Taylor and Clark will be one of the highlights of the tournament.
“It's so cool for the growth of the sport, you know?” Boston College coach Acacia Walker-Weinstein said. “The more these records get challenged, the more fans we're getting. And I think more people are excited to watch. It's such a credit to these girls, to Maddie and to Rachel and to all these other players who are constantly challenging these records. They really deserve a lot of credit because it's hard to do. These players make it look easy. It's not easy, but they're really helping with the growth and the excitement and, I think, viewership.”
Taylor, a junior attacker, was a two-time All-Long Island player at Wantagh. Northwestern coach Kelly Amonte Hiller said she saw something in the player that impressed her beyond stats and athletic ability.
“In meeting her family and meeting her, I saw her work ethic and how much she loves this game,” Amonte Hiller said. “That’s a cornerstone for greatness for sure.”
She scored 53 goals as a freshman and 83 as a sophomore before this year’s explosive output.
“In the past couple of years when she’s been on the team she’s had two superstars in Izzy Skane and Erin Coykendall,” Amonte Hiller said. “Now we have a collective group and she’s the leader of that group. She’s not only done an amazing job scoring goals but being a leader and distributing the ball too… She’s really the complete package. She just comes to compete and believe every time she steps out on the field.”
Walker-Weinstein said Taylor and Clark are “really different players” with a “common denominator.”
“They're pure goal scorers,” she said. “It's unbelievable how they have a knack for scoring through pressure, in big moments, and the frequency of it.”
One edge Walker-Weinstein thinks Boston College has in this clash of record-seekers is a supporting cast.
“We also have Emma LoPinto,” she said of the senior from Manhasset whose 76 goals rank eighth in the country. “Nobody's talking about her… I think that's really good for Rachel to have someone like Emma LoPinto who can also bear the burden of putting the ball in the back of the net. Having someone with those types of numbers really contributes to a little bit of equilibrium and balance on the offense.”
In the quarterfinal win over Yale, in fact, it was LoPinto who scored five straight goals to erase a 6-5 deficit en route to the 18-11 victory.
Taylor and Clark, though, are the undisputed headliners of this season and this matchup.
Each is having one of the greatest seasons any player has ever orchestrated. Only one of them, however, will be able to enjoy it for one more game after Friday.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
