For the second time in a week, a referee’s late-game call forced Northwestern’s Misha Rosenthal to defend a decision-altering penalty kick.
After 95 minutes of hard play at Lakeside Field on Saturday, it looked like NU (7-2-4, 1-1-1 Big Ten) was headed toward a 1-1 draw with Wisconsin, (4-6-2, 2-2) but some jostling in the box on a Wisconsin corner kick prompted a whistle, sending Badgers midfielder Eric Conklin to the spot.
Rosenthal guessed wrong, and Conklin chipped the ball into the net for the golden goal. While the Badgers celebrated on the field, NU was jawing at the refs. Oliver Kupe’s post-game argument with the referees earned him a red card. Kupe became the first NU player to receive a red card in four years, and will sit out Tuesday’s match against Loyola-Chicago.
“Penalty kicks and red cards are all about a lack of discipline,” coach Tim Lenahan said. “So I’m disappointed in our team for that.”
NU looked to be the better team for most of the game. The Badgers’ only major scoring opportunity of the first 90 minutes of play came when NU defender Jack Hillgard slipped while controlling the ball in the NU third of the field in the 34th minute. Wisconsin’s Taylor Waspi took the ball and smashed a shot from just outside the 18-yard box into the back of the net to give the Badgers a 1-0 lead.
But other than that, this was NU’s game: The Cats had 16 shots and nine corners compared to nine and four, respectively, for the Badgers. The Cats played strong defense, only allowing three regulation shots on goal despite an ankle injury ending center back Cody Stanley’s day in the 30th minute.
Twice, the Cats beat Wisconsin’s substitute goalie, Jamal Habibi, who entered after starter Alex Horwath went down in the 30th minute with a knee injury, only to see a Badger defender block the ball at the goal line and clear it away. Despite putting seven regulation shots on goal, the Cats’ only score came in the 38th minute when Peter O’Neill found Kevin Valenta on a near post run.
“Peter saw me,” Valenta said. “We made eye contact, so he played it in.”
Regardless of the good play in regulation, things fell apart in overtime.
“We didn’t lose the game in the first 90 (minutes),” Lenahan said. “We didn’t really do anything in overtime. We never came out, and they pinned us down.”
The game’s deciding moment came on what seemed like a harmless corner kick. The ball was high and well over the heads of any potential Wisconsin goal scorer, but the call came anyway.
“There was a foul on the play,” Lenahan said. “The question to me was whether or not the ball was already out of play when the foul was made, and that’s (the referee’s) discretion.”
The game was similar to last Sunday’s matchup against Penn State, when what looked like a 1-0 shutout evaporated into a 1-1 draw when the referee called a questionable handball on Cody Stanley in the box with 39 seconds to go, putting the burden on Rosenthal to make a game-salvaging save.
“I really like being in net for penalty kicks,” Rosenthal said. “Because all the pressure is on the guy kicking it. He’s expecting to make it, and you have an opportunity to do something great. But unfortunately, I wasn’t able to.”
The calls made in both games weredecisive, and they have made for two difficult results for the Cats to swallow.
“It’s a tough way to lose,” Valenta said. “It’s hard to lose on a penalty like that.”
