Jenny Dunn shook off two defenders and shot the ball toward the net in last weekend’s game against Indiana. The senior forward’s blast hit the inside of the crossbar.
Then play stopped.
Did she score? There were no cheers at first, and then Northwestern realized what had happened. A one was put on the scoreboard, breaking the Wildcats’ two-game scoreless streak.
Dunn celebrated with her teammates, but also found herself in NU’s record books. That goal pushed her into the school’s top 10 for career goals with 16. Dunn, who has only five games left to play in her regular season career, has been a crucial element to the Cats’ program in the last four years.
It has been a long journey to becoming one of NU’s all-time best scorers.
A native of Southern California, Dunn started to play soccer when she was five. But she did not take the sport seriously until she was 10, when she joined a club team.
“I’d rather just sit in the grass and make necklaces out of flowers,” Dunn said. “I didn’t want anything to do with the sport until I was 10. I had a coach who really liked me and he started a club team and asked me to join. He got me really excited to play and that’s when I started taking it seriously.”
Although her high school did not place a heavy emphasis on soccer, Dunn played competitively at the club level. She played in the Premier League. Fellow seniors Jeannette Lorme and Amanda Hoffman also played in the league on different teams. Her team, Slammers FC, was ranked fifth in the nation by socceramerica.com.
“The ultimate goal was to play in college,” Dunn said. “So it was always kind of something in the back of my mind, and during sophomore year it became the goal to get in contact with coaches and come watch you at these club tournaments. So it started to become a huge focus sophomore year and at that point I knew I wanted to play in college.”
While choosing where to play, Dunn said she primarily focused on Ivy League schools, but fell in love with NU after her visit to Evanston.
“What really won me over was when I came on my visit with my mom,” Dunn said. “We drove down Lake Shore Drive. I thought it was one of the most beautiful places I’ve seen and knew I needed to be here. Coming from Southern California, I needed to be somewhere like that. It was a combination of really good sports and really good academics.”
Coach Stephanie Erickson, the assistant coach during the recruiting process, said she saw “incredible potential” in Dunn when she recruited her.
“I saw her as a youth player,” Erickson said. “You could see a lot of potential and room to develop. I think she’s come a long way from her first step on campus. She’s really embraced anything we’ve tried to do with this program.”
And Dunn has certainly made a mark on NU’s program. She has 15 assists with her 16 goals to total 47 career points, eighth highest in school history.
Even in her freshman year, Dunn was a major offensive threat for the Cats. She started in 18 games, scoring six goals to finish tied for the team lead. Dunn also added two assists to finish with 14 points, the team’s second highest.
“She’s really gifted one-v-one, and technically, she’s really clean,” Erickson said. “She’s able to do almost anything she wants to do when she has the ball. She has some of the best technical feet of any player I’ve ever seen. Her speed with the ball is almost as good as her without the ball. She’s very hard to shut down when she isolates defenders one-v-one.”
As a sophomore, she started all 20 games, this time doing more than scoring. She finished with a team-high five assists. During her junior year, she was still aggressive on offense, taking 46 shots, including 20 on goal.
“She was a very good soccer player from the get-go,” said Hoffman, who has played with Dunn for four years. “I always thought she was good, and a very dynamic and fast player. On the field, she’s just an inspiring player. Getting her the ball to take a shot, you know it’s going to be a good shot.”
With only five regular season games left in her career, Dunn does not want to leave without giving it her all. She has a chance to continue her legacy here, as NU will seek its third Big Ten win of the season when the team hosts Michigan State tonight and Michigan on Sunday in the final home games of her career.
“For myself, my expectation is to leave everything on the field and to not hold back,” Dunn said. “I only have five more games and I don’t want to walk away thinking I could’ve tried harder.”
