It’s pretty impossible to win games when you can’t put the ball in the back of the net.
That is the struggle Northwestern (1-7-0, 0-1-0 Big Ten) has faced throughout the beginning part of their 2011 campaign. The Wildcats are averaging just more than one goal per game, far less than the nearly two and a half goals they are giving up.
After scoring three times in a shutout victory over Loyola (Chicago) on Wednesday, NU returned to its offensive funk with a 3-1 loss to Nebraska on Sunday.
“It’s been urgency,” coach Stephanie Foster said. “It’s having the urgency and the hunger to finish your chances. We are creating chances; we just need to finish them like other teams do to us.”
The sole bright spot offensively for NU has been Kate Allen. The sophomore forward has tallied four goals on the young season, while only four other players have found the net. Foster said she expects a lot more out of Allen, but also that she has been the opposing team’s focus defensively without sophomore forward Bo Podkopacz to take the pressure off of her.
Another encouraging sign for NU has been the play of freshman goalkeeper Anna Cassell. The Utah native has started all eight games for the Cats in goal and collected her first career collegiate win and clean sheet in the victory over the Ramblers.
“She’s getting better, it’s a hard job, it’s a totally different level,” Foster said. “You’re asking a lot of someone to come up with the leadership every game as our schedule requires. We’re going to see Anna develop and the better we play in front of her, the better we make her look.”
The Cats came out of the gates and controlled the run of play on the road in Lincoln, but the Cornhuskers struck first when Morgan Marlborough went one-on-one with a NU defender and scored her 10th goal of the season with a chip shot. Marlborough struck again just seven minutes later with a deflection of Molly Thomas’s cross to bring herself into second place in the Big Ten in goals scored.
NU buckled down after the goal, limiting Nebraska to one shot throughout the remainder of the half. The Cornhuskers had five shots in the first 10 minutes of the second half, but only one threatened Cassell on frame.
The Cats caught a break to boost their own offense when Nebraska forward Stacy Bartels was called for a handball in the box. Junior defender Briana Westlund calmly put in a penalty kick with half an hour remaining to bring NU within one. However, Marlborough proved simply too much for the Cats defense as she completed her hat trick with a shot off the bottom of the crossbar.
“When she was in the right spot she was able to put her chances away,” senior defender Sarah Sroka said.
For Nebraska, the win got the Cornhuskers off on the right start in their first Big Ten match in any sport.
The Cats head on the road again on Friday and Sunday with stops at Penn State and Ohio State. Foster said NU will face a little bit of a different situation in those games as neither team has a dynamic scorer like Marlborough.
“You just take the positive and push aside everything else,” Westlund said. “We just need to look at what we did right and just build on that.”
