Cape Henlopen alum flexes dual-sport bonafides in college
When Alia Marshall hit the practice field for the first time with Northwestern lacrosse, questions floated in her mind that hadn’t been there before. “What if I just don’t cut it?” “What if I don’t have it anymore?” Marshall had excelled at every sport she tried at Cape Henlopen, earning Player of the Year honors in field hockey and lacrosse as a senior for the state champion Vikings. But now, after a field hockey career that included three trips to the national championship, Marshall was wielding a lacrosse stick in an organized practice for the first time in five years. And she was doing so surrounded by the best players in the country.
“Something that was really stressing me out was that I didn’t know what I was capable of,” Marshall said. “We’re all awesome in high school. It’s a different playing field when you get to college, let alone the best team in the country.”
Looking back, those butterflies — the worry of how she looked playing a particular ball or how she would digest a fresh set of rules — subsided quickly. Her athleticism took hold and her instincts for defensive positioning carried over from the hydro-soaked field hockey field to the lacrosse turf. But the transition is still remarkable. Marshall has since become a regular for Northwestern on defense, playing in 13 of 15 games this season, as the Wildcats vie for a second consecutive national championship.
The Cape Henlopen midfielder who scored 47 goals as a senior in 2019 did not envision her college career playing out this way. When Marshall committed to Northwestern, she was content with playing only field hockey, excited to partner with a national-caliber recruiting class. Her multi-sport prowess would be left behind in the First State.
Multi-sport Delaware record playing out at college level
Those accomplishments in Delaware are worth repeating. Marshall won a total of seven state championships at Cape and was named first team AllState in field hockey and lacrosse six times. In between, she played basketball for three seasons then switched to indoor track and field as a senior. At the state meet, she finished third in the 400 meters, eighth in the 200 meters, second in the long jump and fifth in the triple jump.
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As originally scheduled, Marshall’s time at Northwestern would have been up after the 2022-2023 academic year, but interruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic afforded her an additional year of eligibility. When she decided to use that fifth year, Marshall started to think about playing lacrosse in the spring.
Tracey Fuchs, the Wildcats field hockey coach, shares a floor with lacrosse coach Kelly Amonte Hiller. Fuchs had introduced Marshall to Hiller when she first arrived on campus five years ago. The coach, who at some point had received a call from longtime Cape coach PJ Kesmodel about Marshall, took an interest, asking Fuchs about Marshall from time to time. Now, Marshall was asking Fuchs to help set up a meeting.
“If I’m going to be here, I would kick myself in the future if I didn’t get to ask Kelly if there was any way I could join or any way I could help out,” Marshall said.
After multiple conversations, Hiller signed off on the move in the summer. Helping Marshall’s cause was that Lindsey Frank, a two-sport star at Richmond for the last four years, had decided to transfer to Northwestern for her fifth year. Marshall could follow her formula.
Return to lacrosse leads to another possible championship run
Marshall picked up a lacrosse stick that summer, but began her preparation in earnest the following winter after the field hockey season. Her brother, A.J., an All-State defender who graduated from Cape in 2015, put Marshall through drills during winter break. Then came those early pressure-packed days of practice at Northwestern’s indoor facility.
Marshall’s 9-5 centers around lacrosse. She finished classes for a certificate program in specialized studies in the winter and plans to begin a masters in speech language pathology in the fall. Most days, she heads to the team practice facility around 12:30 p.m. and has lunch with teammates before practice starts at 2 p.m. A few times a week a lift follows, ending around 5:30 p.m. Then, the team will catch a bite.
Northwestern finished the regular season Sunday with a 13-2 win over No. 4 Michigan. The Wildcats are 13-2 and ranked first in the country. They will next play in the semifinals of the Big Ten tournament Thursday, May 2. The NCAA tournament will begin the following Friday. The Wildcats could win back-to-back national titles for the first time in 12 years, which ended a stretch of seven championships in eight years.
It wouldn’t be Marshall’s first experience in a national championship setting. In 2021, Marshall started 20 contests as Northwestern field hockey made an unexpected run to the title game.
The Wildcats had lost in the first round of the Big Ten tournament, then drew powerhouse North Carolina to open the NCAA tournament. Marshall and her teammates spun the conference-tournament loss into a positive, telling each other they would have fresh legs for UNC. They ended up carrying a “nothing to lose” mentality to a national championship win over Liberty, the first in program history.
“It felt like that should have been our season, that was going to be the story of that season,” Marshall said of the Big Ten tournament loss. “That we had the talent, but we weren’t quite getting the results.”
Instead, the win raised expectations for the program. The Wildcats’ season ended with losses in the national championship the next two years, Marshall’s final years. Marshall said this fall was, “the best last year I could have asked for.” It included a sweep of the Big 10 regular-season and tournament titles and a national championship game loss to UNC that ended in a sudden-death shootout.
“A pretty tough way to go,” Marshall says.
Marshall hasn’t closed the door on her field hockey career.
When she decided to pursue lacrosse, Marshall also had the option to contend for a spot on the U.S. Olympic field hockey team. It would have required her to forgo her fifth year at Northwestern, at least temporarily, and move to Charlotte, North Carolina, where U.S.A Field Hockey has been based since 2022. Unsure if she would make the team, Marshall elected to return to Northwestern, but she’s still in their ecosystem as a candidate for future teams.
“If it ever gets to a point where it gets to be too much or I need to make choices in terms of career versus field hockey I’ll cross that bridge when I get there,” Marshall said.
Brandon Holveck reports on high school sports for The News Journal. Contact him at bholveck@delawareonline.com.