EVANSTON, Ill. — The last time Northwestern faced a mid-game weather delay this season, it didn’t end in its favor. In an April 11 regular season game against Maryland, the Wildcats led the top-ranked Terrapins by as many as three goals before weather forced a delay. After the break, the Wildcats lost their calm, coach Kelly Amonte Hiller said, and then lost the game 17-13.

When weather forced a lengthy delay once more, this time in Saturday’s NCAA quarterfinal against Syracuse, Northwestern would not let that happen again.

The Wildcats, fueled by a 7-0 first-half run, hurdled a host of obstacles — rain, fog, lightning and a late-game Syracuse comeback attempt — to beat the Orange 18-14 at home in Evanston. The win earned Northwestern a place in the semifinals for the first time since 2014.

“When you get down to these games, every team has a similar chance of getting there, it’s just about what team shows up,” senior attacker and Tewaaraton finalist Selena Lasota said. “Syracuse is a phenomenal team, but I think our team is as well. And I think that we played a great game today, and deserve a spot in the final four.”

On an afternoon in which star attackers and leading scorers Lasota and Izzy Scane spent most of the day face-guarded it was the Wildcats’ depth that shined and powered them to the win. Eight different players scored for Northwestern, including three off the bench.

“That’s why I think this group is so good, because they have such a depth of talent, and really anyone can step up at any moment and we’ve had that all along,” Amonte Hiller said. “When you have that it gives each of them confidence. Someone else steps up if someone’s down. When you have players like that, you’re going to be in a position to win.”

Even as Syracuse’s defense, led by defenders Kerry Defliese and Sarah Cooper, focused much of its efforts on shutting down Lasota and Scane, the Wildcats’ offense was able to find openings. Northwestern hopped out to an early 3-0 lead, finding goals from midfielder Megan Kinna and attackers Claire Quinn and Lauren Gilbert.

Syracuse answered with a pair of goals from freshman Megan Carney and then another from star attacker Emily Hawryschuk to cut the deficit to one. But following Hawryschuk’s goal, it was the Wildcats who swung the momentum in their favor, scoring seven in a row to build a 10-3 lead with more than seven minutes left in the first half.

“A 10-3 lead’s tough to come back from, and we didn’t stop the run when we needed to,” Syracuse coach Gary Gait said. “We talked about it, that we needed to be able to do that to have success today, and we didn’t do that.”

Northwestern entered halftime with a 10-4 advantage, but was cautious of coming out of the break with too much confidence, Lasota said. In its second-round matchup against Notre Dame last Sunday, the Wildcats had held a six-goal halftime lead, but let the Fighting Irish score four in a row right after the break.

That threatened to happen again, as Hawryschuk and midfielder Natalie Wallon each scored within the first three minutes of the second period. But instead, the weather intervened, sending both teams to the locker rooms and all 850 spectators indoors for nearly two hours with the score at 11-6.

Both teams used that lengthy delay to refocus. For the Wildcats, it was a mindset they hadn’t had after dealing with that weather delay against Maryland in April.

“The biggest thing was just staying calm. I don’t think that we did that well in the Maryland one,” Amonte Hiller said. “We knew that Syracuse would come out of the locker room hard and ready, but we responded. I was proud of the way the girls handled the break, and I do think that experience paid dividends for us, because we knew what to do this time around.”

Northwestern came out of the weather delay and put three more on the board, but the Orange responded with six of the game’s next seven goals. Attacker Meaghan Tyrrell collected three of the six on her own, her final one of the day cutting the Wildcats’ lead to two with under nine minutes to play.

But Northwestern responded with two more goals in a less than 20-second span, the first from Megan Kinna to put the Cats up three and the second by a wide-open Lindsey McKone to build the lead to four.

Hawryschuk scored Syracuse’s final goal of the afternoon, finishing her season with 75 goals, good for the second-highest total in a single campaign in program history.

Northwestern advances to the NCAA semifinals to face Maryland, setting up its third meeting with the Terrapins this year. The Wildcats beat the Terps in the Big Ten championship game at Homewood Field in Baltimore, the same site where the semifinal will be played.