Even when making the NCAA tournament is a near certainty, getting that final affirmation can be rewarding. For Northwestern, affirmation came yesterday.

The Wildcats (12-4-3) reached the NCAA tournament for the third time in school history, earning the No. 9 seed and a first round bye for the first time ever.

“We hoped for maybe as high as a seven (seed),” coach Tim Lenahan said. “But it’s another first for this program to be seeded and in single digits. It’s how you measure the progress of the program and how we improved.”

NU will host the winner of the first round match between Illinois-Chicago (11-5-5) and St. Louis (12-2-4), played in St. Louis on Nov. 23, five days later at Lakeside Field.

Lenahan said the team is familiar with both teams they could face in the second round of the NCAA tournament. NU defeated Illinois-Chicago 2-0 last year. The Cats defeated the Billikens 1-0 in the second round of last year’s NCAA tournament and faced them in a preseason game this year.

NU last played Nov. 9, losing in the Big Ten tournament to Ohio State 1-0. When NU takes the field for its first NCAA tournament game, it will have been nearly three weeks since its last game action.

Senior midfielder David Roth said the team has been working on keeping mentally focused in practice and keeping the edge they had from the regular season.

“We’ve had a good season,” Lenahan said. “We had some devastating injuries. It may have cost us a game or two, but we didn’t really skip a beat. I certainly expect this group to be pretty good when it comes to tournament time.”

NU faced seven teams in this year’s tournament field – including No. 4 Indiana and No. 5 Ohio State. Boston College earned the top seed in the tournament.

The Cats reached the Elite Eight of last year’s tournament. At the team’s watch party at the Hotel Orrington’s Globe Cafe, Lenahan said to his team that they have gotten further in each successive NCAA tournament.

The Cats are coming off one of their best regular seasons, but Lenahan stressed they have to win one game three times to achieve its ultimate goal and reach the College Cup in Cary, N.C.

“We have an all new season here,” Roth said. “That old season is past. This season coming up is really where we define who we are as a team. All the games leading up to this basically mean nothing now. It’s basically just time to play.”

Reach Philip Rossman-Reich at [email protected].