After last weekend’s games against No. 11 Penn State (14-2-2, 8-1 Big Ten) and No. 25 Ohio State (10-2-3, 4-2-3), the Northwestern women’s soccer team (7-7-1, 3-5-1) was right where coach Jenny Haigh wanted it to be.
“We’ve been in a good place mentally over the past couple of weeks,” Haigh said. “Last weekend, with games against Penn State and Ohio State, we didn’t come away with any wins. But we competed well, and we kept that momentum going through the last week of practice.”
That momentum paid off on Friday, as the Wildcats traveled to West Lafayette, Ind., and pulled off a 2-1 upset of No. 14 Purdue (9-3-3, 5-2-2). The win was the first against a ranked team since Haigh took over coaching three years ago.
From the first minute of the game, the Cats controlled the pace of play. NU struck first at 35:30 with a goal by junior midfielder Carolyn Hack that came off a pass from senior defender Molly Greene.
“We just kept running and attacking, and our speed was too much for them,” Hack said.
NU gained another goal with a ball that was accidentally headed into the net by Purdue’s Jenny Kinkead.
Except for the final 15 minutes of the game, when the Boilermakers were extremely aggressive and Purdue’s Lauren Sesselman scored at 88:59, NU played very strong.
“Purdue has three great forwards, and our backs did a great job of containing those three forwards,” Haigh said. “We also did a great job getting the 50/50 balls in the midfield. Because we were playing well in the midfield, we were able to take pressure off of our defense.”
Unfortunately for the Cats, the high from the performance against Purdue came crashing down on Sunday, as NU was shutout, 3-0, at Indiana (7-7-1, 4-4-1).
NU played a fairly strong game, but defensive mistakes cost the Cats through both halves of play.
“We needed to be more disciplined and more focused against Indiana,” Haigh said. “The game itself was a good game. But in areas where we expected IU to be strong, we had breakdowns.
“It felt like we beat ourselves. IU is a good team that can capitalize on opportunities, but we made some big mistakes.”
This weekend’s games left NU in 8th place in the Big Ten, ahead of Wisconsin (7-8-1, 3-6), Minnesota (5-8-2, 2-6-1) and Iowa (3-11-2, 0-8-2). With the final conference games for all Big Ten teams coming up on Friday, the Cats will have to beat or tie No. 20 Illinois (10-3-2, 6-1-2) on the road, in order to have a shot at a spot in the Big Ten tournament.
A win would give the Cats an automatic bid, while a draw would require Minnesota to beat or tie Wisconsin in order for NU to advance to the postseason.
Meanwhile, the Cats have one week to reflect on the loss, work out the kinks and prepare for another one of the nation’s strongest squads.
“We were up for both of the games,” Greene said. “We were able to get the win against Purdue, but against Indiana we just couldn’t pull it out.”
