Northwestern University Athletics
Wildcats Seek to Continue Winning Ways vs. 'Dores Thursday
4/9/2014 12:00:00 AM | Women's Lacrosse
April 9, 2014
| 2014 Northwestern Lacrosse -- Game 12 |
|
| No. 5 Northwestern (8-3, 2-1 ALC) vs. Vanderbilt (4-8, 1-2 ALC) |
|
| Date | Thursday, April 10 | 4:30 p.m. CT |
| Location | Lakeside Field | Evanston, Ill. |
| Live Video ($) | BTDN on Wildcats All-Access |
| Online Radio | WNUR Sports |
| Live Stats | NUsports.com |
| Social Media | @NU_SportsLIVE  | @NULax | Facebook  |
| Weekly Rankings | IWLCA.org |
| Buy Tickets | Season | Wrigley Field Game |
EVANSTON, Ill. -- Spring has arrived in Evanston, and with it comes a flurry of home Northwestern Lacrosse games for Wildcats fans to enjoy in person. A four-game homestand to end the 2014 regular season begins at 4:30 p.m. CT Thursday when No. 5 Northwestern hosts American Lacrosse Conference foe Vanderbilt at Lakeside Field.
Single-game tickets for all Northwestern Lacrosse home games are available for purchase at the entrance to Lakeside Field for $7 (adults), $4 (youth/senior citizens) or $3 (groups of 15 or more). All Northwestern students are admitted free of charge with presentation of a valid WildCard.
Wildcats On The Web
Thursday's game will be streamed live on the Big Ten Digital Network (BTDN) on Wildcats All-Access. Fans also can access a free online radio broadcast courtesy of WNUR Radio and stay up to date with live tweets on @NU_SportsLIVE.
Take Me Out to the Ballgame...
The countdown to watch Northwestern Lacrosse make history at iconic Wrigley Field is inside of three weeks. The Wildcats will host USC under the lights at the Friendly Confines on Saturday, April 26, in one of the marquee sporting events of the spring on the Chicago sports scene. Tickets are on sale now for just $10 and are available by calling 888-GO-PURPLE or by visiting Tickets.com.
By the Numbers
The NCAA released its first set of RPI rankings for the 2014 women's lacrosse season and placed the Wildcats fifth in the national standings -- the first non-ACC school to be found (North Carolina, Maryland, Syracuse and Boston College sit atop the rankings). The numbers also spell out the overall difficulty of Northwestern's 2014 schedule: the .682 combined winning percentage of NU's 15 opponents this season ranks as the third-highest for any team in the nation.
Wildcats Wall
Northwestern enters Thursday's action riding a four-game winning streak thanks largely to the air-tight defense it has displayed in recent outings. The Wildcats have limited four straight top-15 opponents to goal outputs of six, five, four and two, respectively, moving Northwestern up to No. 8 nationally in scoring defense for the year (7.45). On the rare occasion that NU's starting defensive trio of Kerri Harrington, Kate Ivory and Haydyn Anigian have allowed their opponents room enough to shoot, goalkeeper Bridget Bianco has usually been up to the task of making the save. Bianco has earned the last two Defensive Player of the Week awards handed out by the American Lacrosse Conference and has raised her season save percentage to .497, sixth-best among all NCAA netminders.
Finding Her Stride
Senior attacker Kat DeRonda carried the load offensively for the Wildcats in back-to-back road wins over ranked teams, beginning with her hat trick in a narrow 5-4 victory at No. 10 Penn State on Friday. DeRonda provided the last three Northwestern goals in the low-scoring ALC matchup. On Sunday, she came up big again with a career-high four points on two goals and two assists in NU's 7-2 defeat of No. 12 Penn. She now has 18 goals on the year -- the best single-season total of her career -- and the next goal she scores will be the 50th of her Northwestern tenure.
The Commodores In Brief
• Vanderbilt arrives in Evanston in search of its first win over the Wildcats since a 10-9 overtime victory in May of 2004, which preceded Northwestern's current 12-game winning streak in the series. All 12 of those NU victories were decided by five or more goals, including last season's 15-8 win in Nashville on Feb. 24. The Commodores will be playing the nation's fifth and fourth-ranked teams in back-to-back outings, traveling to No. 4 Florida after Thursday's battle in Evanston.
• Although Vanderbilt has dropped six of its last seven games, two of the squad's four victories this year came against ranked opponents in the form of then-No. 13 Stanford (March 2) and then-No. 9 Johns Hopkins (March 29). Vanderbilt suffered a lopsided 16-5 loss in its most recent test, a home matchup with Ohio State.
• Spearheading the 'Dores offense is a three-pronged attack -- senior attacker Abby Wheeler, sophomore midfielder Kelly Chandler and sophomore attacker Mallory Schonk. The trio has combined for 69 goals -- more than half of the team's 135. Wheeler, who scored five against Harvard last week, leads the team with 27 goals.
On The Horizon
Northwestern's American Lacrosse Conference schedule continues on Sunday when the Wildcats welcome 13th-ranked Johns Hopkins (10-3) to the Evanston lakefront. The Blue Jays will arrive at Northwestern well-rested and hungry for a victory after suffering back-to-back one-goal defeats in conference play at the hands of the aforementioned Vanderbilt (12-11) and Florida (10-9).
••••••
Be the first to know what's going on with the 'Cats -- Follow @NU_Sports on Twitter, become a fan of Northwestern Athletics on Facebook, subscribe to the NU Sports Express e-newsletter and sign up to receive promotional text alerts for the latest news, schedule updates and video and to interact with NU. For more information on following specific Northwestern teams online, visit our Social Media page!
