In a highly competitive match against No. 4 Northwestern, the No. 7 Stanford women’s lacrosse team battled back-and-forth before falling in a 12-11 defeat. Northwestern, which has won four of the last five national championships, clinched the game with only 23 seconds to play in the second half.

Midway into the first half, Stanford fell behind Northwestern, 3-0. After the initial rust had worn off the Cardinal players, the upperclassmen stepped up to bring their team back into the game. In a four-minute span, goals by redshirt senior midfielder Lauren Schmidt, junior midfielder Emilie Boeri and senior midfielder Leslie Foard evened the match at three.

With 5:46 left in the first half, Shannon Smith, the Wildcats’ leading scorer, knocked in a free position shot to put Northwestern back on top. As was the case all match long, the Wildcats’ lead was erased quickly, this time by a shot to the back of the net by Boeri. Going into the half, Northwestern led 5-4, but the fight was not over yet.

The second half provided more back-and-forth action, as the Cardinal fell behind further, 6-4, but then came back to tie it at 7-7 with 20:04 to play. Goals by sophomore midfielder Jacqueline Candelaria, junior defender Catherine Swanson and Boeri put Stanford back into the fight against the Wildcats. A goal by sophomore midfielder Carolyn Bradley with 11:28 left to play ended a three-goal streak by Northwestern and cut the Wildcat lead to 10-8.

The last eight minutes of the match proved as intense and nerve-wracking as the rest of the game. After a quick goal by the Wildcats pushed their lead back to three on Stanford, the Cardinal refused to quit. Schmidt put another goal in the back of the net to make the score 11-9 with 7:52 left.

A Wildcat turnover gave senior attacker Sarah Flynn space to fire a shot behind the NU goalkeeper Brianne LoManto and leave Stanford trailing by just one. Minutes later, Foard scored for a second time to bring Stanford all the way back to a tie at 11-11 with 1:33 to play.

After Foard’s goal, the Wildcats gained possession off the draw and held on for one final shot. Smith, who scored seven goals in the game, set up her teammate Alex Frank, who captured the lead with only 23 seconds left in what turned out to be the game’s decisive goal.

The game against Northwestern wrapped up Stanford’s regular season. Next up for the Card is the MPSF Tournament, hosted at St. Mary’s. The top-seeded Cardinal will play Cal in the semifinal on Friday at 1 p.m. in Moraga, Calif.