“This is my 30th season at Northwestern,” associate director of equipment services and softball equipment manager Meli Resendiz told The Daily, “and in all honesty, it’s the most excited I’ve ever been about a uniform.”

Resendiz was referencing the “Gothic Ices,” a sleek new slate of Under Armour uniforms unveiled on social media Tuesday that NU’s softball and lacrosse teams are set to debut this weekend.

Presenting: 𝔊𝔬𝔱𝔥𝔦𝔠 ℑ𝔠𝔢 ❄️

The newest edition from Northwestern's Gothic uniform series.

Coming soon to a field near you 🥶@NULax | @NUSBcats pic.twitter.com/O7N0DMovBV

— Northwestern Athletics (@NU_Sports) February 11, 2020

The design is a fresh spin on the iconic “Gothic Blacks” Under Armour uniforms worn and made popular by a variety of Wildcat teams, including lacrosse, men’s and women’s basketball, wrestling and football.

These uniforms, which incorporate symbols of the Gothic-style writing and architecture sprinkled around the Northwestern campus, are years in the making.

Resendiz and Assistant Equipment Manager Becca Huebner first came across this specific template design when meeting with Under Armour representatives in the fall of 2016, and then officially ordered the uniforms in 2018.

This week, a truckload of boxes filled with jerseys and pants — but also cleats, warm-up shirts, batting gloves, socks, helmets and more — arrived to the equipment room in the Ryan Fieldhouse basement.

The uniforms were unveiled to the two teams at the start of this week. The reveal came as a complete surprise.

“We literally showed up to practice and they were like, ‘Yeah, you guys can’t go in the locker room for this amount of time,’” said senior midfielder Lindsey McKone. “And we were like, ‘Well, that’s weird.’ So then we were really excited to be able to walk in there and see our uniforms.”

Both sports teams reacted positively. Player demand for all-white uniforms has been high in recent seasons, Resendiz and Huebner said, so they loved the Gothic Ice set for both the color and the attention to detail.

“Our team loves the uniforms, obviously as you saw, and I think they’ll be excited to wear them,” softball coach Kate Drohan said. “This is just one more piece to the commitment that Northwestern has made to the great experiences that our student-athletes have.”

The uniforms have also been made with a new, ultra-thin sublimated material to best enhance player performance, a far cry from the days when jerseys with ironed-on letters and numbers would weigh athletes down.

“Yes, it’s about looks, but our side as equipment managers, the player safety aspect is just our number one priority,” Huebner said. “To have something be lightweight, but they can wear it how they want it to fit and it won’t mess with the way they play is very important.”

While any new uniform debuts are significant at an Under Armour school like Northwestern, this one feels especially notable.

Many of the Wildcats’ brand-new uniform designs in the past have been introduced by men’s sports. Football originally launched the Gothic Blacks in 2014, and has worn a handful of specialty designs in the past seven years, and the men’s basketball team has a of wearing custom-made Under Armour creations every Senior Day.

This time, it’s the women’s teams debuting the new designs — two Top 25-ranked women’s teams, for that matter. It shows a continued investment in women’s sports, lacrosse coach Kelly Amonte Hiller told The Daily.

“Obviously it’s just a uniform, but it’s (also) a commitment to women’s athletics,” Amonte Hiller said. “It’s really cool that they’ve put a lot of attention to it, and it’s just special for our sports to get unique things like this.”

Both teams will wear the new uniforms in their games on Friday: For softball, an afternoon meeting with No. 15 Georgia in the opener of the ESPN Clearwater/St. Pete Tournament, and for lacrosse, a night matchup against No. 6 Notre Dame at Ryan Fieldhouse.

“When they go to step on that field on Friday, I’m telling you, it’s going to be next level,” Rodinez said. “They’re going to look good, they’re going to feel good, and I think they’re going to play good.”

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