With fellow forward Oliver Kupe out after receiving the team’s first red card in four years, the pressure was on junior striker Matt Eliason. And he delivered.
Eliason played up front for the full 90 minutes as the No. 17 Wildcats (8-2-4) won 1-0 against Loyola-Chicago (3-5-5). Unsurprisingly, it was Eliason who hammered home an 84th minute goal, the game’s first and only score, for a game-winner.
“That’s why he leads the Big Ten in goals,” coach Tim Lenahan said. “He always seems to get one in these sorts of 1-0 games.”
With 11 goals, the NU striker has three more than any other Big Ten player, and eight more than Piero Bellizzi, NU’s second-highest goal scorer. The finish was Eliason’s fourth game-winning goal of the year, which gives him more game-winners than anybody else on the team has goals.
The game was an important one for the Cats: the team said it considers Loyola to be somewhat of a rival after scoring only one goal in two games last year against their crosstown opponents. NU won 1-0 in a regular season matchup at Loyola and won a 0-0 first round NCAA Tournament matchup against the Ramblers that came down to penalty kicks.
“It’s the Chicago derby,” Eliason said. “We knew they were out for revenge, and we know lots of guys on the team, so we were just fortunate to get out with the win.”
Things started off slow for the Cats. Despite controlling the ball for much of the period, NU didn’t record a shot-on-goal in the first half, with its only chance coming on an Eliason bicycle kick that dinged off the right post.
Freshman midfielder Kyle Schickel nearly unknotted the scoreless tie twice. First he skipped an open shot from the top of the box just wide of the right side of the net. Later in the game, Bellizzi served a ball to a completely unmarked Schickel on a far post run, but the freshman miscued and kicked the ball softly into the goalie’s hands.
“The goalie was just a sitting duck on that one,” Schickel said, “I should’ve had that one.”
But Schickel would go on to redeem himself. With Kupe, NU’s leading assist man out, someone else had to deliver Eliason an opportunity to score, and the freshman came through. Schickel had the ball on the left side of the field, and then crossed the ball to Eliason just outside the six-yard box. All Eliason had to do was control the ball, turn and fire, and all NU had to do was hold on until the final whistle to get the win and settle only its eighth game in regulation.
“I’m just glad it didn’t go into overtime,” Schickel said. “It feels like half our games go into overtime.”
