By Ben LarrisonThe Daily Northwestern
After a season of inconsistency, the Wildcats have started to click at the perfect time.
Northwestern coach Tim Lenahan and his players have said while the Cats have played well all year, the results have finally caught up with their performance.
The breakthrough came in Friday’s 3-0 victory over Cincinnati in the first round of the NCAA tournament. NU (12-7) now faces a road matchup with No. 11 Saint Louis (13-4-2), a school with 10 national championships to its name, at 7 p.m. tonight.
The win against Cincinnati was NU’s widest margin of victory on the season. NU junior and St. Louis native David Roth referenced his beloved St. Louis Cardinals to make the point that it’s not about who has the best regular season; it’s about what you do in the postseason.
Lenahan said the Cats have been on the verge of such a scoring boom for the last 10 games.
“Look at the goals we scored (against Cincinnati), though, they were phenomenal goals,” Lenahan said. “That’s different. We’ve missed easy goals this year … And I think what happens at this time of year is just that you’re really focused on the task at hand – you know that there’s no tomorrow.”
Much of the credit for NU’s recent triumphs belongs to three seniors: forwards Brad North and Gerardo Alvarez and keeper Justin Pines.
North, the All-Big Ten First-Teamer who leads the team with eight goals this fall, has scored in each of the last three games.
Alvarez, on the other hand, had struggled with injuries and a goal-scoring drought through much of the season. His breakthrough came in the seventh minute against the Bearcats, when he scored on a lunging header to put NU up 1-0. Alvarez later sealed the victory in the 83rd minute, when he connected on a penalty kick that gave him his second goal of the game and the Cats a 3-0 advantage.
“If Gerardo’s playing the way he’s playing now, and finishing the way he’s finishing now, you’re looking at one of the elite players in the country,” Lenahan said. “So if we have a Gerardo Alvarez that’s scoring like that all year, we’re probably … one of the top teams in the country. Well, he is scoring like that now, so that makes us a very dangerous team.”
NU has been anticipating major contributions from North and Alvarez, but Pines’ efforts during the NCAA run were less expected. After redshirt sophomore Will Briley started the first 16 games of the season, Pines got the call in the Cats’ regular season finale, in which he shutout then-No. 24 Northern Illinois.
Pines has started both NU games since, including Friday’s blanking of Cincinnati.
Lenahan said Pines, who has suffered multiple injuries over the course of his collegiate career, benefited from the lack of playing time early in the season.
“Will Briley was our ‘inning-eater’ this year, to kind of get us to that point where we could close out the season,” Lenahan said. “Justin’s trained phenomenally all year, but I also was trying to protect maybe his body a little bit so that we would have him down the stretch, and he’s been great the last three games.”
Reach Ben Larrison at [email protected].
