It was bound to happen eventually.
Heading into a rematch of the 2009 National Championship game against No. 2 North Carolina, No. 1 Northwestern had a 41-game winning streak and had not lost in Evanston since 2004-an NCAA-record 58 straight home wins.
Both streaks hit zero Sunday.
After a high-scoring first half ended in a 12-12 tie, the Tar Heels’ attack struck first and let their defense do the rest. The Wildcats converted only four of their 15 second-half shot opportunities and never reclaimed the lead from North Carolina, which held on to stun NU 18-16.
“This team needs to step it up,” coach Kelly Amonte Hiller said. “This has been something that I’ve been saying for the past four weeks, and it hasn’t really penetrated. I think it has just penetrated their minds and their hearts.”
In Amonte Hiller’s nine seasons at NU, the Cats have never allowed more goals than they did Sunday. NU jumped out to a 6-2 lead midway through the first half, but North Carolina bombarded NU with six unanswered scores in less than five minutes to pull ahead 8-6.
The Cats mimicked the outburst, immediately following the Tar Heels’ run with a 6-0 streak of their own. With two minutes to go and NU leading 12-8, North Carolina roared back with four goals to end the half, including two in the final 15 seconds.
“It was little things like we couldn’t come up with a ground ball or we’d turn the ball over, and that led to two or three goals on their end,” Amonte Hiller said. “Those are things that I’ve been saying all season long that we’ve been doing.”
The final statistics mirrored the close score. NU took two more shots and recovered three more ground balls, but North Carolina had one more save and four fewer turnovers. The teams finished even with 18 draw controls.
Yet with the game on the line, the Cats’ offense faltered while North Carolina goalie Logan Ripley stepped up. After Jenn Russell put the Tar Heels ahead 18-15 with 7:31 to play, Ripley shut NU down on three free position opportunities. The Cats converted both such chances in the first half but did not find the back of the net on their five looks in the second stanza.
Ripley, last season’s IWLCA National Goalkeeper of the Year, was taken out of the game during the first half to settle her down and reignite the defense. Her struggles in the opening minutes did not carry over into the second half, as her seven saves prevented NU from mounting a comeback.
“(Ripley) is a great goalie, and I’m glad that she finished as strong as she did,” North Carolina coach Jenny Levy said. “She was the margin of victory down the stretch.”
While the Tar Heels got all six of their second-half goals from different players, the Cats relied mostly on Katrina Dowd. The senior attacker scored three of NU’s four goals in the half on her way to tying a career high with seven.
Though the Tar Heels had difficulty stopping Dowd, they successfully contained her fellow attackers and Tewaaraton Trophy nominees. Sophomore Shannon Smith scored twice and senior Danielle Spencer failed to record a goal for the second time this season.
“I just have to find a way in practice this week to work on my dodging and shooting and improve that shooting,” Spencer said. “I’m disappointed in myself, but from a team perspective maybe a loss is what we needed, a little jump start forward.”
Since its creation in 2007, Lakeside Field had never hosted an NU loss. The record-setting 1,705 fans at the game saw the scoreboard flash a Cats’ defeat for the first time. More than half of the NU players lost their first collegiate game.
NU’s streaks are over but the season is not, and the schedule remains tough. Next up is No. 9 Vanderbilt, followed by the only team to beat North Carolina, No. 5 Virginia.
Less than one month after their loss to Pennsylvania in 2008, the Cats got a second chance to beat the Quakers in the National Championship game. NU got revenge, captured its fourth consecutive title and kept the momentum going for 35 more games. For the upperclassmen who experienced the loss to Penn, the mentality is the same-learn from the mistakes, step up and move on.
“We have to look inside ourselves, we have to let this fuel us and we can’t forget this easily,” Dowd said. “Never in my career have I lost on this field, so it means a lot. We can’t get down on ourselves. We have to push that much harder.” [email protected]
