After 10,000 miles, six games and one loss, they’re finally home.
The long roadtrip now over, the No. 2 Wildcats return to Evanston this weekend for two top-10 matchups.
The mayhem begins today at the Thomas Athletic Complex on the lakeside fields, when Northwestern takes on No. 5 North Carolina at 3:30 p.m.
The second half of the weekend takes place 1 p.m. Sunday, when the Cats go up against division-rival No. 8 Johns Hopkins. After the game, they’ll receive their 2005 National Championship rings.
While the two games will play a major role in deciding the future of this season, the Cats are thrilled to have the year’s biggest test take place in Evanston.
Still, NU coach Kelly Amonte Hiller is careful to make sure her team stays focused on each game.
“I think we approach it like a Final Four,” Amonte Hiller said. “You can’t get to the second game until you get past the first game, and you can’t focus on Hopkins unless you win that first game. And I think this is a good setup. This is a very difficult weekend, and if we want to be good in the long run, this is what we’re going to have to go through.”
Amonte Hiller was initially skeptical when scheduling two difficult games for the same weekend, but she and her team feel they are ready. The Cats watched a lot of film to prepare for the games and spent practice focusing on what they called the “little things” – ground balls, draw controls and communication.
They’ve also worked on their aggressiveness. Early in the season NU put away opponents with major scoring runs early in the first half, but much of its recent struggles have stemmed from slow starts.
Over the past roadtrip, the Cats were down early before eventually defeating Syracuse and UConn and were never able to come back from a six-goal, first-half deficit in their loss against No. 1 Duke.
Players said that sluggishness should no longer be a problem for the Cats.
“I think in the last couple of games we’ve been working up to this,” senior Sarah Albrecht said. “In the early season, we weren’t working as hard and doing what we needed to do to really dominate, and I think that if we do that this weekend, I’ll be really happy.”
NU will be looking to both its senior leadership and what Amonte Hiller called its “youth” to step up this weekend. The coach said she is anticipating two especially physical contests, as North Carolina and Johns Hopkins are exceptionally aggressive teams.
Sunday’s game also will mark a showdown between two of the NCAA’s top players – Cats junior Kristen Kjellman and Johns Hopkins junior Mary Key. Both Kjellman and Key, as well as NU senior Lindsey Munday, are among the 21 nominees for the 2006 Tewaaraton Trophy, awarded annually to the nation’s top player.
“They have one serious weapon in Mary Key, and we’re going to have to be really aware of her,” Amonte Hiller said, “but they do have other players that can score as well. So we’re going to just try to go in and play our game and play aggressive and set the tone right from the beginning.”
After bouncing back from the Duke loss with a 19-9 beating of then-No. 18 Penn State, NU will face its first true tests since the fall of its 31-game win streak. And despite the pressure of the weekend, the Cats are confident.
“I just think we’re ready for another big game,” junior Aly Josephs said. “We’re prepared to bring it.”
Reach Ben Larrison at [email protected].