This Week's Outlook: The College of Wooster women's lacrosse team (16-1, 6-1 North Coast Athletic Conference) walked off third-seeded Kenyon College (9-8, 5-2 NCAC) 18-17 on Wednesday evening at John P. Papp Stadium to advance to Saturday's NCAC Tournament championship game at top-seeded, and No. 6 nationally-ranked Denison University (17-1, 7-0 NCAC). Opening draw is at 1 p.m. Denison routed John Carroll University (9-7, 4-3 NCAC) 19-7 in Wednesday's other semifinal.
 
Ticket Information: Ticket prices for the NCAC Tournament are set by the conference office. For Saturday's game, ticket prices are $7 for adults, $3 for children (18 & under), and free for students with a valid student ID card from a NCAC institution. NCAC students from all member institutions are admitted free of charge, but must have a valid student ID card from a NCAC institution. The NCAC has recently partnered with Hometown Ticketing for online ticketing for all conference championships. You can purchase your tickets online in advance HERE. As of posting time, Denison is not shared if they will or will not have onsite cash sales available on Saturday.
 
Media Coverage: Fans can follow along via the live stat and live video links provided by the host school and read the recap following Wooster games at WoosterAthletics.com.
 
Tournament History: This is Wooster's 29th appearance in the NCAC Tournament, which the Scots have won six times (2002-04, 2007, 2009, 2010). Wooster is 26-22 all-time in the NCAC Tournament and 7-11 in true road games. As the No. 2 seed, Wooster sports an 9-6 record and the Scots are 5-12 all-time against Denison. Wooster is playing in the NCAC Tournament championship game for the 16th time and fifth time since 2018.

Postseason Drama: Wooster found itself down 17-14 with 6:37 to play in Wednesday's semifinal. Wooster scored four unanswered goals, capped by a horn-beating, walk-off free-position goal by senior Sophia Mellis (Pittsburg, Pa./Oakland Catholic), who scored a career-high seven goals in the win.

A Look at the Regular Season Wooster-Denison Game: Strong defense kept Wooster even with then-No. 9 Denison early, but a key yellow card and crisp passing by the Big Red's Mk Barnhart turned the tide in the Big Red's 17-9 win on April 8. Senior Lizzie Hardy (Gibsonia, Pa./Aquinas Academy of Pittsburgh) and senior Sidney O'Rourke (Wayland, Mass./Wayland) combined for 10 of Wooster's 14 draw controls. Barnhart's seven assists had Denison's offense rolling, as the Big Red had assists on 13 of the 17 goals.
 
Building on History: Last year was a historic season for Wooster's women's lacrosse team. The Scots won a NCAA Div. III Championship game for the first time in program history, topping Hope College 20-9. With that win, Wooster won a record 17th game. Wooster has won at least 11 games in nine straight full seasons (2020 and 2021 are exempted from this streak, per NCAA guidelines, as 2020's season was halted due to COVID, and the team only played 10 games during a modified 2021 season). This is the first time Wooster has won at least 13 games in back-to-back seasons in program history.
 
One of the Last Three: Wooster started its season 10-0 before Denison snapped the winning streak with a 17-9 victory over the Scots on April 8. Wooster was one of the last three remaining undefeated teams in Div. III this spring, joining national powerhouses Middlebury College and Salisbury University.
 
Top-10: Through games played April 29, Wooster continued to rank 10th in this spring's NCAA Power Index (NPI), which will be used when it comes time to select teams for the NCAA Div. III Championship on Sunday night in advance of Monday's online selection show. The NPI is a system that houses the division's statistical data and objectively applies the selection criteria based on the sport committee's established weighted criteria. NPI is a combination of the following: winning percentage, strength of schedule, home-away multiplier, quality win bonus, and overtime results (when relevant).
 
Find Yourself a Hardy: Hardy became Wooster's all-time leader in draw controls this spring and hit 400 in Wednesday's NCAC Tournament semifinal win. Her 121 draws this spring are seven shy of Hannah Shaw's single-season record 128 from 2022. Hardy's 2026 season marks the fourth time in program history a player has hit the century mark in draws in a season. Hardy became the second in program history to scoop 200 career groundballs in Saturday's 23-13 win at DePauw. Healy continues to hold that career program record at 241. Hardy's 55 goals are a career-high.
 
Top-10 Scorer: Senior Brynne Snaguski (Rolling Hills Estates, Calif./Palos Verses Peninsula) leads the Scots with 56 goals this spring, four shy of Ellie Hudson-Heck's single-season record of 60 from a decade ago. Snaguski is one of three Scots with at least 50 goals this spring and that has led to Wooster leading Div. III with 18.41 goals per game. Wooster is eight goals away from breaking its single-season team record of 320 from last spring.

Two in the Top-Five: Wooster's dominated the draw controls of late, with the entirety of the program's top five graduating within the last eight seasons (includes this year's graduating class). Draw controls have been an officially-tracked NCAA statistic since 2000. Senior Sidney O'Rourke (Wayland, Mass./Wayland) is now in the program's all-time top-five with 244. O'Rourke tracked down 94 in 21 games last year and an impressive 83 over 15 2024 outings. This spring, O'Rourke has 61 draw controls, third on the team behind Hardy and sophomore Mizan Jacobs' (Santa Fe, N.M./Santa Fe Preparatory) 71. Wooster is second nationally with 17.53 draw controls per game.
 
Century: Mellis hit 100 career points at Wooster in Saturday's 23-13 win at DePauw. She has 53 goals on the spring and needs seven to join alumna sister, Alexa, as a 100-goal scorer.
 
Show Stopper: Junior Audrey Richardson (Southborough, Mass./Algonquin Regional) joined the program's career top-10 for saves in the semifinal win over Kenyon and made arguably her biggest career save with about two minutes remaining to keep Wooster's deficit at one. Richardson has a career-best 8.90 goals-against average this spring and has stopped a career-high 44 percent of on-goal shots faced. She has 104 saves, a few shy of the 118 from last spring.
 
The Helping Stick: Sophomore Rowan Pilon (Deep River, Conn./Valley Regional) has quickly closed in on the program's single-season assists record of 43 set by Britta Treu in 2023. Pilon hit 40 for the regular season with nine over the final two games. Her two in the semifinal moved her one away from tying and two from breaking Treu's single-season record.