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The national anthem stretched on for what felt like forever. Long, electric guitar riffs that hung in the humid Evanston air, bouncing off the lake and reverberating through the temporary bleachers at Martin Stadium. It was theatrical. It was loud. It was exactly the kind of spectacle you might expect from a league that has been touring throughout the country this season.
For the second straight year, professional lacrosse had descended upon Northwestern’s campus. Last summer, it was the Premier Lacrosse League, the men’s professional circuit that has been building a following since 2019. This time, the PLL brought company. The Women’s Lacrosse League, the PLL’s sister entity, was sharing the weekend. Two leagues, two days, one campus, a plethora of matchups and a growing sport continuing to find its footing.
The WLL is in its first full season, a step forward from last year’s inaugural round-robin format that crowned Izzy Scane as MVP. Scane, the two-time Tewaaraton winner and Northwestern legend, had already established herself as the face of the league. Now she was back on the field where it all started, leading the New York Charging against the Maryland Charm on July 11.
The game that followed lived up to the moment. The first quarter alone produced eight goals apiece, the highest-scoring opening frame in WLL history.
For the former Wildcats on both rosters, the result was secondary to something bigger. This was a homecoming. This was proof that the roots this sport has planted in Evanston run deeper than any one weekend.
The Charging dressed eight former Northwestern players. Scane. Erin Coykendall. Kendall Halpern. Sam Smith. Grace Fujinaga. Madison Doucette. Delaney Sweitzer. Riley Campbell. A collection of talent that could have fielded its own college team.
Leading them all was Colleen Magarity, who won three national championships on this very field, and Charlie Leonard, who helped guide two Northwestern teams to national championship appearances as an assistant coach. For Magarity, returning wasn’t just another stop on the schedule.
“It’s why we’re sitting at this table is because of this place,” Magarity said. “To be back on a field that we didn’t know if we’d ever play on again, and playing at a pro level is a very exciting thing.”
She had shown her players where she used to live on the bus ride in, pointed out the buildings that had changed since her playing days, and they returned the favor. It was an opportunity for Lake Show alumni to marvel at a facility that had grown so much since they played there, and get the opportunity to share those memories with new teammates who had only known Evanston as college opponents.
The sense of home was shared.
“It’s very comfortable for all of us,” Coykendall said. “It feels like we’re back home a little bit. We’ve been looking through our photo albums and reminiscing on our experiences here.”
She called the return a blessing.
“Just running into old facility staff that were here when we were here is pretty cool,” Coykendall said. “I think it just kind of makes you really take a step back and appreciate the time and the place and all the people that came with it.”
Doucette, who had last played on this field against some of the women now in her own locker room, saw the reunion as its own reward.
“I think the last time I played here was against these guys, and the fanbase is no joke,” Doucette said. “It’s way better to have them in the same uniform.”
Doucette’s path back to campus was winding. She graduated from Northwestern and spent a graduate year at Johns Hopkins, spending an extra season in college before turning pro. That pro path wasn’t always guaranteed, which is why she put so much effort into balancing the life of a student-athlete with completing the demanding curriculum of the McCormick School of Engineering. Multiple professional women’s leagues had come and gone before the WLL, leaving players with little stability and fewer opportunities.
When the Charging took the field in their sky blue uniforms, it was a small but fitting detail: a combination of Hopkins colors, Northwestern teammates, the home field where it all began, and the so-called “Purple Pride” that all ‘Cats fans emanate.
“I think if you would’ve asked maybe me and [Izzy] the last game we played together collegiately in 2022, I don’t think we’d be expecting to play together in 2026,” Doucette said. “But to be back on this field with these players and the new faces with us, Colleen leading the charge, we’re thankful for that.”
The Charm had their own Northwestern connection. Jenika Cuocco, who had backstopped Northwestern to a national championship on this field just months earlier, was waiting on the sideline. She had watched the first half from the bench, studying the Charging’s offense, waiting for her chance.
She entered the game in the second half and made nine saves with a 64% save percentage. Nine saves. In one half of lacrosse. Where have we heard that before?
The turf that had seen her greatest college triumph seemed to bring the best out of her once again.
“It kind of feels surreal because, honestly, I left this field on such a high, and this place on such a high,” Cuocco said. “I woke up really happy this morning stepping on and just remembering all those memories that came flashing back.”
The confidence from that national championship run carried over.
“I just kind of use that and just, whenever I doubt myself, you know, just remind myself that I came up on top, and there’s confidence to be had from that,” Cuocco said.
Cuocco is now in a two-goalie system with UNC-alum Caylee Waters, a lacrosse stalwart she idolized before she even arrived at Northwestern. She watched Waters in college. She looked up to her. Now they’re roommates on road trips, sharing a position and a sideline.
“There’s not enough words that could describe Caylee,” Cuocco said. “She brings such an energy and a childlike joy to the field and to the position that that’s something that I’ve really learned from her and admire about her.”
There’s another layer to this Charm roster worth noting. Sam Apuzzo, who scored five goals and added five assists in the win, is a Boston College all-timer. She was part of those fierce BC teams that faced Northwestern in countless high-stakes battles, and was on their coaching staff during the 2021 national championship game.
In June, she was announced as the new head coach of USC, a Big Ten foe Northwestern faces regularly. She’ll be bringing Cuocco with her as an assistant coach, which will definitely take some adjusting to for Wildcats fans who had become accustomed to seeing her on the home sideline. It might also prove that playing in the WLL could bridge gaps to coaching opportunities at schools players may not have graduated from. The lacrosse world is small, and its connections clearly run deep.
That said, the WLL regular season is short. Four games. A handful of practices. The Charging alums are still figuring out how to connect with that limited structure, and their frustration with the format was palpable.
“It’s hard to connect in the way that this is with so few practices,” Magarity said. “But I think they truly have done a really good job of maximizing their time together when we get it.”
Scane, who had watched the Charging drop from 2-0 to 2-2 on the season, tried to find the positives.
“Looking at the schedule going from 2 wins to 2 losses, on paper it looks pretty bad, but I do think some areas where we wanted to improve we’ve worked on throughout the season,” Scane said. “I think we have improved as a team despite that being how it looks.”
Representatives at the PLL estimated that they are quickly approaching 50% full-time players across the league’s eight squads. For the women in the WLL, the path to full-time professionalism still has a long way to go. Players and coaches are balancing the league with their everyday lives, which often include coaching lacrosse in some capacity at their alma maters or elsewhere. The short season and limited practices make it difficult to build the chemistry that comes with a full college season, but being back home was a good start. The field, the fans, the familiarity, the family.
Chicago has embraced lacrosse in a way that few cities have. Lacrosse Day/Night in Chicago, which has now happened twice at Northwestern, expanded this past season to include a men’s showcase on top of featuring the Lake Show. The national championship hosted at Northwestern set attendance records. The turnout for the PLL and WLL weekend defied expectations yet again.
Scane, who still lives in Chicago, has seen the growth firsthand.
“To calm down the travel a little bit has been good,” Scane said, “I live in Chicago, so being somewhere that I’m well-adjusted to and getting everyone to come experience what we’ve known about this community for so long is a really cool thing.”
Cuocco echoed that sentiment.
“I think we have the best field in the country, and anytime you get to play on this field, it’s an awesome opportunity,” Cuocco said. “Obviously we just have the best fans.”
Magarity, who has seen the program grow since her playing days, watched the crowd and thought about what it meant.
“Being able to walk into this amazing facility and how much it’s grown since it was when I was here, just being able to show all of our teammates where we used to live and all that stuff, It’s been a cool, I think, nostalgic thing for me,” Magarity said.
For a sport that has a reputation for being East Coast dominated, the Chicago market consistently defies attendance projections. The PLL recently announced a $100 million funding round that will also support its sister corporate entity, the WLL, a financial commitment that signals serious investment in the women’s game. League officials have been incredibly encouraged by the passionate fanbases and the reception in metro areas like Chicagoland.
No details have emerged on whether Evanston will become a permanent stop, especially with the uncertainty surrounding the stadium’s fate once the football team finally moves to New Ryan Field, but the numbers suggest it should.
Late in the third quarter, the Charging needed a spark. They had been chasing the Charm all night, trading goals but never quite pulling even. Then Coykendall received a feed from Scane and unleashed something that nobody in the building would forget.
A behind-the-back, over-the-shoulder no-look goal. Filthy. Disgusting. The kind of thing that makes you shake your head and laugh because you can’t believe what you just saw.
The bench emptied. The crowd roared. Even the Charm players could only react with disbelief.
“Sam Apuzzo turned around and kind of shook her head,” Doucette said. “When another team can react to the opposing player scoring like that, that’s a level of respect.”
Coykendall doesn’t outwardly crave the spotlight. She didn’t do it for the attention. But the goal made waves nationally anyway, and Doucette was already predicting the fallout postgame.
“She hates the cameras, but if that’s not on SportsCenter, I will be upset,” Doucette said. “She’s going to have to deal with that. She’s going to get the reposts.”
It was, in fact, number two on SportsCenter’s Top 10.
Magarity wasn’t even surprised that Coykendall fired such a ridiculous shot.
“She does that a lot at practice,” Magarity said. “I was like, ‘Yes.’ I was like, ‘That one went in. Great.’”
The Charging got the momentum they needed. They pushed the Charm to the final seconds. They gave themselves a chance. But Cuocco was in the cage, and she wasn’t letting anything through.
The Charging’s final attempt to tie the game in the final 30 seconds was emphatically stopped by Cuocco, and just like that, the Charm had held on. 16-15. The Charging walked off knowing their championship hopes would now rest on the outcome of other games, and Cuocco had once again tamed the Windy City.
With the Charm beating the Boston Guard days later, the Charging need the California Palms to lose by nine goals or more on August 8 to sneak into the league’s final showdown. The Charm, meanwhile, are the first team to clinch a spot in the WLL Championship Game on August 15. However unlikely, it would be quite poetic if these two squads face off again when it matters most.
“We competed, we played tough, it was a battle,” Magarity said. “Obviously could’ve gone either way there at the end. But I was proud of the team for the way they fought.”
Scane nodded.
“We were down pretty much the whole game, came back, and had some good strings,” Scane said. “But it’s a game of runs, and they just kind of buckled down and finished it off a little bit better than we did.”
Doucette was more blunt, however.
“Not my best 48 minutes of lacrosse, and I don’t think anyone on the team thinks it was their best,” Doucette said. “That first quarter was a barn burner, brutal for the goalies.”
For the Charm, the season continues next month in Philadelphia. For Cuocco, the parallels are almost too perfect to ignore.
Before her one spectacular season at Northwestern, Cuocco played at Drexel University. The Dragons’ lacrosse team plays on campus, roughly a 35-minute drive north up Interstate 95 to Subaru Park. The championship game will be played in a place Cuocco knows well, in a city where she built the foundation of her game. Familiarity, it seems, might just unlock another level. It certainly did once again in Evanston.
“It’s a great place to play lacrosse, truly,” Cuocco said. “It just feels right for all of us to be back.”
Hours after the final whistle of the night, those same temporary bleachers emptied and the lights dimmed over Martin Stadium. The Charging had lost. The Charm had survived. But for one weekend, Evanston again became the center of the professional lacrosse world. For a league still searching for permanence, there may not be a more fitting home than the one that helped mold so many of its stars.
The WLL may be building something new, but the foundation was laid long ago, right here, on the shores of Lake Michigan.
