There was nothing inherently remarkable about Northwestern’s 1-0 win over Loyola Chicago on Wednesday night.
While the Wildcats dominated in the first half, connecting effortlessly in the midfield and attacking with gusto, they narrowly escaped with the victory after a lackluster second-half performance. In a sport that is not usually well-illustrated by box scores, Wednesday night’s statistics painted an accurate picture, with NU (7-5-2, 1-1-1 Big Ten) edging Loyola 11-3 in shots in the opening stanza but conceding control of that margin 3-7 in the second half.
So when coach Tim Lenahan said the win could be a “springboard” for NU, it sounded like a bold claim to make. This was not NU’s spirited 2-1 upset of then-No. 15 Ohio State or even Sunday’s hard-earned, double-overtime draw with Penn State. It was a non-conference game NU should, by all estimations, have won. Not exactly turning point material.
“This game has always been at a critical point in the season, every year when we play it,” Lenahan said.
But Lenahan’s prediction could prove oddly prophetic if history is any indication. Take last season’s matchup with the Ramblers when NU, sitting at an eerily similar 1-1-1 in the Big Ten, hosted Loyola exactly a year ago from Wednesday’s game. The Cats gutted out a 1-0 win in the final minutes of regulation after failing to post any shots on goal in the first half. The game-winner came from a likely source, with then-junior forward Matt Eliason recording his 11th tally of the season. After that, NU went on to win two of its last three Big Ten games and locked up a No. 9 overall seed in the NCAA tournament.
But NU will need to get a lot more bounce from this year’s “springboard” win over Loyola if it wants to land in NCAA tournament contention after being slotted 89th in this week’s RPI rankings. The Cats have no room for error in their last three regular season matchups against Big Ten competition, starting with a road trip to Wisconsin (1-10-2, 0-2-1) this Saturday.
“These are all must-wins,” said junior forward Oliver Kupe, who notched Wednesday’s game-winner for his team-leading sixth goal of the season. “Trust me, we know that’s the case.”
NU’s win over Loyola provided not just a needed result but an important template for the way the Cats can perform – and under-perform – in the home stretch. They will look to replicate the same sort of fluid play they exhibited in their first-half play against Loyola in order to check off another should-win against Wisconsin.
It was a performance Lenahan called NU’s best of the season but one the Cats will have to make a 90-minute affair if they want to pull off wins against Indiana and Michigan, both of whom received votes in this week’s coaches’ poll rankings.
“We were really pinging the ball around, and we were able to possess,” junior keeper Drew Kotler said. “It was a lot of one- and two-touch stuff, and that’s how we are able to break teams down. That’s what you saw in the first half and what we have to do in the future if we want to keep this up.”
The second half against Loyola was a cautionary tale for NU. Perhaps it was the gusting wind or maybe it was simply fatigue after playing 110 minutes against the Nittany Lions on Sunday, but the Cats looked considerably less efficient in their passing and were forced to play defensively after Kupe’s 56th-minute goal.
It’s a performance that NU can’t afford to repeat.
“We dropped our intensity after that goal,” Kupe said. “For whatever reason, we started playing stupidly and kind of playing selfishly, which is something we can’t afford to do against Big Ten teams. We’re gonna have to sharpen that up.”
