The DoubleTree Dynasty: Inside the Culture that Fueled Northwestern

It’s 2 p.m. on the Wednesday after Memorial Day, and Maddie Epke is still wearing the same t-shirt and hat she was given on the field after Northwestern’s NCAA championship game win over North Carolina three days prior.

“Don’t worry, I’ve washed it,” she says.

Epke sits in the airport awaiting to board a flight to Washington, D.C, where Madison Taylor will be crowned the 2026 Tewaaraton Award winner the next evening. Some 30 Wildcats are in the traveling party to support their teammate.

Road trips are one of the Wildcats’ favorite activities. Somehow, this was the first one since Northwestern traveled to Ann Arbor, Mich., for the Big Ten tournament at the end of April.

Even though Northwestern hosted championship weekend in Evanston and was the home team for every other round of the NCAA tournament as the No. 1 seed, the Wildcats didn’t want to feel at home. For all the hullabaloo from outsiders who claimed there’d be an unfair advantage if Northwestern made it to the final four, Wildcats head coach Kelly Amonte Hiller simply didn’t see it that way.

So, she worked with director of operations Kiera Shanley to book hotels just 4.2 miles away from Northwestern Medicine Field at Martin Stadium. The DoubleTree by Hilton in nearby Skokie became the Wildcats’ home away from home. They stayed there the night before their second round and quarterfinal games before checking in the Wednesday night before championship weekend began.

“When we really broke it down, we were thinking of, ‘If and when we make it, we want to simulate what it’s like to be in the final four,’” Shanley says. “Because that’s also part of the fun of being in the final four. The other piece was that, this year, we noticed our girls really loved spending time together. Sometimes when you’re home, you can get in your normal routine. Being in the hotel, all we have is each other, and that’s the fun part about it.”

When playing at home, players stick to their own schedules. Some might eat dinner with family who came to town the night before. They might go to bed at different times or have other external distractions.

Staying in hotels the night before home games is a common practice in college football and basketball, and Amonte Hiller spoke with Northwestern football coach David Braun for pointers.

“When we’re on away trips, we do everything together,” Epke says. “We live the same life.”

Northwestern suffered each of its three losses this year at home. A 10-9 loss to Colorado on Feb. 9 was the first sign of concern for those inside the program, then consecutive losses in March to Syracuse and Ohio State raised red flags. At that point, Amonte Hiller was concerned Northwestern would miss the NCAA tournament outright.

“This year was unique because of those three losses,” Taylor says. “That record was pretty bad. Nobody’s used to that here. That’s not the standard.”

Part of why road trips were so welcomed was because of just how much this team enjoyed spending off-field time together. Getting a roster of 40 college-aged athletes to row in the same direction is far from a guarantee. Personalities can clash.

But that didn’t happen with this Northwestern team. That’s why Epke chose to transfer in from James Madison in the first place. “I didn’t have to pretend to be anyone I wasn’t,” she says. “I could be myself — a little nerdy, a little silly. We use that as our culture.”

They channeled that culture and hunkered down across 20 rooms on the sixth floor of the DoubleTree, playing board games and watching movies while mentally preparing for the next day’s game. Their team room, a larger gathering space within the hotel, was decorated in a 1980s theme, and players were given necklaces, hats, glasses and fanny packs.

“That was the vibe,” Taylor says. “We wanted to act like we were in the 80s. Kelly showed us a video that had nothing to do with lacrosse. It was this girl living in the 80s and she had no phone or social media. People genuinely loved to be around each other.”

Booking hotel accommodations at home added a new wrinkle to final four planning for Shanley, but at least she didn’t have to book flights. And it was plenty helpful that she was familiar with the local eateries.

Shanley played for Northwestern and was on its 2023 national championship team. She’s been the director of ops ever since. But when she was a player, Northwestern never did anything quite like this.

She and Amonte Hiller have already talked some about treating future home playoff games the same way but say it could also be “team dependent.” This team just happened to thrive living out of a suitcase.

“We didn’t want to enter into it feeling like we were home and that we were fine,” Shanley says.

Amonte Hiller decides roommates. It’s all intentional. Freshmen won’t share rooms, and some pairs are chosen with an eye on building chemistry. The duos last for the entire spring.

Epke lives with Gaby McCollester, the 5-11 freshman hero who scored four goals on four shots in the NCAA championship game, coming in for a significant run after senior Lucy Munro went down in the first quarter with an ACL injury. McCollester, who entered that game with just six career goals, looked overwhelmed in the postgame press conference.

It was the biggest moment of her career.

“If I was a freshman, I couldn’t even imagine it,” Epke says. “I feel like I would have been so afraid. I’m so inspired by her.”

Munro’s injury was a catalyzing moment. Especially for Taylor. Amonte Hiller likes to avoid living arrangements that put two people in the same class together when she can. Taylor and Munro ended up together as sophomores, and it’s been that way ever since. They’re roommates off the field, too, and refuse to be split up.

“She’s so positive all the time, which I think has helped me a lot,” Taylor says. “When she went down, her being able to tell me that I’ve still got this, that just shows how close we are.”

Munro’s teammates rushed to her side while she lay on the turf because of a non-contact injury near the middle of the field. They put their hands on her cheeks as if to promise her things would turn out alright.

Taylor says the Wildcats told each other to win it for their downed teammate during huddles. She tearfully spoke of her friend during a post-game interview on ESPN. When Munro returned to the sideline on crutches, they greeted her with a hero’s welcome. She danced from her chair and brought the energy even though she couldn’t play. As the clock struck zeroes, one teammate on each side hoisted her up and carried her onto the field.

“Lucy’s a really, really special kid,” Amonte Hiller says. “She’s a super smart lacrosse player, but she’s an incredible connector. She’s always hyping people up, smiling. Normal kids, in that adversity, would be like, ‘Poor me.’ She’s never like that.”

The Northwestern faithful packed Martin Stadium for the championship, with the crowd of 8,316 setting a record for the largest attendance at a home women’s sporting event. An additional 470,000 people watched on ESPN, the worldwide leader’s largest viewership ever for a women’s lacrosse game.

At game’s end, a wave of relief washed over the Northwestern sideline. It was palpable.

“Toward the beginning of the season, there was pressure, like an underlying pressure,” Amonte Hiller says. “I was even feeling it.”

This was a different kind of pressure, one unlike the weight of the world Amonte Hiller seemingly placed on her own shoulders when Northwestern experienced a championship drought from 2012-23. She became so used to winning after capturing seven titles in eight years (2005-09, 2011-12) that 10-plus years of not getting it done took its toll.

She learned she had to evolve, just as the athletes were evolving. Her mentor, Cindy Timchal, was critical in helping frame her new mindset. By winning her ninth title, Amonte Hiller passed Timchal for the most by a head coach in Division I lacrosse history.

“I am so grateful to Cindy,” Amonte Hiller said. “I feel like my championships are her championships. She is everything to me.”

Without Timchal giving Amonte Hiller her shot as an athlete at Maryland, she might never have gotten the itch to coach. She might never have made her way to Northwestern, the school at which Timchal coached in the 1980s before it went on a decade-long lacrosse hiatus.

And championship weekend might never have found a host outside the East Coast for the first time in its history this spring.

For as much stress, or pressure, or nerves that hosting the final four placed on the Wildcats, it paid off when the gold streamers shot into the air and settled on the Martin Stadium turf.

Almost every team claims to love spending time together. This Northwestern team wasn’t kidding around.

By learning what worked for them, the Wildcats embraced the unorthodox and won it all at home — while pretending to be away from home at the same time.

“Northwestern is a very special place,” Amonte Hiller said. “I’m just really happy that people got to experience that.”