The Stanford lacrosse team’s season came to a close this afternoon with a 15-8 loss to No. 2 Northwestern in the second round of the NCAA tournament.

After knocking off No. 9 Notre Dame on Friday for the program’s first NCAA tournament win, the No. 20 Cardinal was looking to pull off a second consecutive upset against Northwestern, which have won seven of the last eight national championships including the last two.

Stanford hung close with the Wildcats through halftime, but ultimately the firepower of Northwestern’s attack proved too much to overcome.

Twenty-five minutes into the game, the score was tied 4-4 as sophomore Kyle Fraser, junior Rachel Ozer and freshmen Meg Lentz and Lucy Dikeou each scored once to match the Wildcats goal for goal. Northwestern scored twice in the final five minutes of the half to take a 6-4 lead at halftime, but freshman Julia Burns scored just over a minute into the second half to keep the Card within one.

At that point, Northwestern scored seven of the next eight goals–broken up by a Hannah Farr tally for the Cardinal–to take a controlling 13-6 lead with just under eight minutes remaining. Burns added two more scores in the final seven minutes, but the Wildcats put away the final two goals of the game to wrap up the 15-8 win.

Stanford junior goalkeeper Lyndsey Munoz made two saves on the day.

The Cardinal ends the season with a 14-6 overall record and as the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation champions.

Stanford now looks forward to the 2014 season, in which it will return all but two players from this year’s roster.

Contact Jana Persky at jpersky ‘at’ stanford.edu.