After playing the top two teams in the country on consecutive days this weekend, the Wildcats’ field hockey team closed out its regular season with a pair of losses to fall to 7-11 overall.
The Cats lost 9-0 to No. 2 Duke on Friday. Northwestern got off to a slow start in the first half, only managing six shots while giving up four goals to Duke.
“I think we didn’t start off the match at the level we needed,” coach Kelly McCollum said. “We didn’t have a sustained enough attack to keep our team in it.”
NU’s offense improved in the second half, even though the scoreboard didn’t reflect it. The Cats were able to get off 13 second-half shots while surrendering five more Duke goals.
McCollum was very pleased with freshman goalkeeper Emily Kyle, who made her second start and had a career-high 10 saves. McCollum felt Duke’s nine goals were more of a reflection on the play of the defensive players around Kyle than on the play of Kyle herself.
The Cats followed their Duke loss with a 7-0 loss to No. 1 Wake Forest on Saturday. Just as with Duke, the game was a tale of two different halves. In the first half, NU allowed Wake Forest to take 26 shots, six of which were goals. In the second half, NU held the Demon Deacons to just 11 shots and only allowed one goal. Kyle started the game at goalkeeper and recorded seven saves, but Big Ten saves leader Sheri-Anne Nyberg replaced Kyle during the first half and recorded nine saves of her own.
“We gained a new level of respect for this game and how much is involved in it,” McCollum said. “The players saw a new level of play and were able to be competitive with these teams.”
The Cats faced two completely different styles of play between Duke and Wake Forest.
“Duke focuses on attacking offensively and getting shots on goal, making the keeper play the ball,” sweeper Christina Foley said. “Wake, on the other hand, is more of a settled, poised team that works the ball around to find seams, relying less on speed than Duke.”
Even though the Cats were shut out in both games, McCollum and Foley considered the trip to North Carolina a success.
“The purpose of this weekend was to challenge ourselves,” McCollum said. “We aren’t focusing on outcomes, results or scores. Scores don’t indicate the level of play our team competed at this weekend.”
“I think it was a success as far as what we were looking to get out of the weekend,” Foley said. “Wake and Duke are great teams, and to be the best we have to play the best. The outcomes weren’t in our favor, but we grew as a team by playing these top teams. That was our goal for the weekend.”
The Cats face Indiana in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament in Iowa City, Iowa on Friday. In the regular season, NU lost to Indiana 3-1, but they are optimistic after this weekend’s experience.
“The tournament is really open to anybody,” Foley said. “We have played really well against every team we played in the Big Ten. We are just looking to come out with a win and show the conference what we can do.”
Reach Michael Schlossberg at [email protected].
