You don’t always need to go to the Big House or Assembly Hall to witness history.
These days, you can find it at the corner of Sheridan and Colfax.
That is where the women’s tennis team holds its annual spring beatdown of its Big Ten competition, casting aside the Michigans and Ohio States of the world with ease at a tennis court near you.
It’s become a Spring Quarter staple at Northwestern, like Dillo Day or overheated dorms. The formula is simple: the Wildcats take on side of the court, the Big Ten patsy of the day takes the other side, and about two hours later NU adds another win to an incredible streak.
This past Friday was the four-year anniversary of the Cats’ last conference loss (if you’re curious, they fell 4-3 to Illinois). Since then, the team has won 53 Big Ten duals in a row.
53. That’s 11 more than Memphis’ current conference winning streak in men’s basketball – and the Tigers have made Conference USA their personal stomping grounds.
Of those 53 wins, exactly none of them have been by the slimmest margin of 4-3, while a whopping 25 of the victories were 7-0 sweeps. NU has been even more impressive in the postseason, winning the Big Ten tournament each of the last nine years.
This is not your run-of-the-mill dominance. This is UCLA winning 10 basketball championships in 12 years. This is the Beatles throughout the 1960s. This is “Titanic” at the 1997 Academy Awards.
And this year, the team has taken its Demolition tour national.
Coach Claire Pollard’s squad is in the midst of a dream season. The Cats have been No. 1 in the country since Feb. 26 and have beaten (at the time) the No. 1, No. 12, No. 7, No. 12, No. 8, and No. 2 schools in the last three months. They’ve destroyed more teams than Isaiah Thomas. Four Cats – half the roster – are ranked in the top 50, including freshman phenom Maria Mosolova at No. 3 and junior Georgia Rose at No. 5.
These girls are more than just good – they’re bona fide dynasty material. Only Alexis Conill, a doubles specialist, is a senior, so NU will return all six of its singles starters next season. And with two legitmiate superstars in Rose and Mosolova, the Cats might bring home some individual NCAA titles as well.
With all this talent, it’s no wonder NU chews up and spits out its Big Ten foes from April Fools’ Day to Cinco de Mayo. It would be easy to assume that the rest of the conference is just bad, that Purdue and Iowa and the rest can barely pick up a racket. But the Big Ten is one of the country’s best leagues; No. 22 Michigan, No. 28 Indiana, and No. 29 Ohio State sport a combined 45-13 record this season.
Those three teams have more in common than a top-30 ranking: They were also all smoked by the Cats. This weekend, the Buckeyes and Hoosiers became the conference’s latest sacrificial lambs. NU didn’t just beat these teams, it destroyed them, dropping a total of four sets the entire weekend.
The Cats are so good that teams are thrilled to only lose 6-1. “No. 1 Northwestern just beat No. 2 Baylor 6-1, at Baylor,” Indiana coach Lin Loring said, according to iuhoosiers.com. “So we don’t feel too bad about the score today.”
The sad thing is that no one except NU’s opponents knows just how good this team is. The local and national media don’t care; there were more press at the Cats’ spring football practice Saturday than all the women’s tennis matches combined. Tyrell Sutton is a household name while Rose toils in relative obscurity. You couldn’t pay Jay Mariotti to show up at the Vandy Christie Tennis Center and write a story on the Big Ten’s most dominant team.
That’s too bad, because as Mosolova put it, these Cats are “too good.” Historically good.
