A new coach coupled with a young team can lead to serious growing pains, and so far the Northwestern field hockey team is hurting. On Sunday, the Wildcats lost 2-0 to Louisville, falling to 2-5 (1-0 Big Ten) on the season.
Despite the team’s early woes, new coach Marisa Didio is staying upbeat in her quest to restore the fallen NU squad to the glory it achieved just six years ago, during Didio’s previous tenure in Evanston. Through the early losses, Didio has seen the young squad’s offense progress as the conference season nears.
Didio, who coached the Cats to the NCAA Final Four in 1994, returned to Evanston in January after a successful three-year stint at Yale. Didio replaces Diane Loosbrock, whose teams finished 7-13 and 4-14 in her two seasons at NU.
NU’s slow start aside, Didio has enjoyed her return to the Midwest, describing her first eight months as “tremendous.” But at the same time, she has struggled to acclimate the Cats to a new style of play.
And to complicate matters, Didio is trying to teach the new system and formations to a squad of mostly underclassmen with little to no Big Ten experience. With such a young group, Didio has relied on her core seniors, midfielders Wendy Roberts and Jodie Condie, forward Lindsay Wright, defender Colleen Hotz and goalkeeper Jess Yates, a fifth-year senior.
It’ll be up to them to guide the Cats through the brutal Big Ten season, which gets into full swing this Friday when the Cats host Michigan State.
But before the Cats could even get to that slate, they stumbled through their early, mostly non-conference schedule.
NU jumped out to a relatively quick start, splitting its first two games. The big win in that stretch came in the second game, in which the Cats upended conference rival Michigan State, 2-1 in overtime. Wright scored the game-winner just 32 seconds into the extra frame. A win against Richmond put the Cats at 2-3, but they followed that up with a 2-0 loss to Villanova last Friday.
Even so, Didio was generally pleased with her team’s early play.
“Barring the first game (a 2-0 loss to Ball State), the first two weekends on the road we split, which is all you can ask for,” Didio said.
For the Louisville match, Didio shifted the team’s focus to working harder and playing with more emotion, two elements she said the team lacked against Villanova.
In order to regroup, Didio presented the team with several objectives to accomplish against Louisville, not the least of which was limiting the Cardinals’ offensive corners. The Cats responded, holding Louisville to just six corners, the lowest output of any of the Cats’ opponents.
Though the result was another loss, Didio saw improvement, as she estimated the Cats won the majority of individual battles on the field against Louisville. Villanova had dominated one-on-one play.
“We played gutsy and our heart was in it,” Hotz said. “I’m pleased with how we came out and hustled.”
Despite the better overall effort, Hotz couldn’t ignore the two glaring problems which prevented the Cats from beating Louisville.
“We couldn’t finish it in the goal area, and we had a few slip-ups defensively,” she said.
NU turnovers in the defensive zone provided Louisville with excellent scoring opportunities, while the Cats failed to capitalize on Louisville mistakes. The Cats outshot the Cardinals 7-5, and created plenty of scoring opportunities with a rejuvenated effort in the second half. But stellar reflex saves by Louisville goalie Janina Perna and sloppy NU turnovers in the penalty circle prevented the Cats from finding the back of the cage.
NU has many areas to address, Didio said, citing the need for more offensive corners and controlling the ball.
But she also has a much simpler evaluation of her team’s poor start.
“You can’t win without scoring goals,” she said.
In their five losses this year, the Cats have scored a grand total of zero goals. Didio doesn’t want to use inexperience as an excuse, but it’s tough to ignore the evidence. However, she is still confident that her team will adjust to the new system, and eventually the team will reap the benefits.
“The offensive scheme is young, as five out of six (players) are freshmen and sophomores,” Didio said. “We have to coach persistence in it and we will grow.”
