Northwestern University Athletics
Smith, Thornton Garner Final Weekly ALC Accolades
5/1/2012 12:00:00 AM | Women's Lacrosse
May 1, 2012
EVANSTON, Ill. -- Northwestern's two Tewaaraton Award nominees, senior Shannon Smith (West Babylon, N.Y.) and junior Taylor Thornton (Dallas, Texas/Hockaday School), were named the American Lacrosse Conference Offensive and Defensive Players of the Week, respectively, on Tuesday. Smith and Thornton keyed a pair of Wildcat wins over top-10 opponents during the final week of the regular season.
It marks Smith's third weekly conference honor of the season, while Thornton was twice named the league's defensive player of the week. Northwestern, which ranks third nationally in scoring defense this season, saw one of its players earn the league's weekly top defender honor in five of the last seven weeks.
On offense, Smith recorded back-to-back five-point games, including a four-goal effort in NU's 13-6 comeback win over No. 9 Virginia on her Senior Day. She also had two goals and a season-high-tying three assists against No. 6 Notre Dame on Wednesday. Smith now stands at exactly 100 career assists and 244 goals, which places her six goals shy of NU's career record and 12th all-time in NCAA women's lacrosse history.
Thornton continued to impress on both ends of the field as she has all season, leading NU against the Fighting Irish with five ground balls and three caused turnovers while adding one goal to the Wildcat attack. She followed that effort with two goals, three caused turnovers, two ground balls and two draw controls against No. 9 Virginia. The junior from Dallas leads the Wildcats in ground balls this season and ranks second in both draw controls and caused turnovers, also moving into the top 10 on NU's career lists for both categories.
Northwestern and the rest of its conference brethren are ready to convene for the 2012 ALC Tournament, which begins Thursday in Gainesville with a pair of first-round games between Penn State and Johns Hopkins as well as Ohio State and Vanderbilt. The Wildcats await the winner between the Nittany Lions and Blue Jays and open play at 3:30 p.m. CT Friday.
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