Coach Tracey Fuchs was candid in her assessment of No. 1 Northwestern’s first half display against No. 11 Ohio State on Friday.
“It wasn’t our best half of hockey,” Fuchs told the Big Ten Network broadcasting crew at halftime.
The top-seeded Wildcats (17-1, 8-0 Big Ten) played a scoreless opening 30 minutes against the Buckeyes (14-6, 4-4 Big Ten) in the semifinals of the Big Ten Tournament. Still, Fuchs wasn’t happy with the attacking momentum Ohio State generated ahead of the intermission.
The Buckeyes outshot Fuchs’ squad 7-3 in the first half, forcing senior goalkeeper Annabel Skubisz to make a quartet of timely saves to keep the game scoreless. Ohio State also threatened NU with three penalty corner situations, which, regardless of her team’s defensive corner prowess, concerned Fuchs.
Fuchs, who said the ’Cats needed to get back to playing their style of hockey, got the response she wanted in the third quarter.
On its fourth penalty corner of the game, freshman back Ilse Tromp rifled a shot into the back of the cage — her fifth goal in six games — to hand NU a 1-0 advantage.
The ’Cats would double their lead on another penalty corner in the nearly the same duration as a Super Bowl commercial. Thirty-nine seconds after Tromp’s goal, senior midfielder Lauren Wadas’ shot deflected off a Buckeye defender and into the back of the cage.
Graduate student midfielder Peyton Halsey capped off NU’s third quarter flurry with 31 ticks left on the clock.
Alia Marshall, another graduate student midfielder, sprung a counter attack following an unsuccessful Ohio State penalty corner, finding fellow graduate student midfielder Lindsey Frank down the sideline. Frank swiftly passed the ball downfield to senior midfielder Chloe Relford, who connected with freshman forward Olivia Bent-Cole in the circle.
Bent-Cole maneuvered around the Buckeyes goalkeeper keeper before slipping a pass to Halsey, who tapped in the team’s final score of the day.
“We had a corner outbreak,” Halsey told the BTN crew postgame. “Alia (Marshall) had a really nice ball up the field and everyone was just working their butts off to get up the field … (I) just happened to be there to touch it in, but everyone else did all the hard work.”
Halsey’s goal capped off a three-goal, 184-second attacking burst from the ’Cats, which put the game to bed.
Halsey, who increased her team-leading goal tally to 12 following the score, told BTN postgame that the team’s halftime “mindset change” precipitated the third quarter showing.
Although Ohio State did break Skubisz and NU’s shutout bid in the fourth quarter, Fuchs’ squad nabbed a 3-1 victory.
The ‘Cats will face Maryland in the championship game on Sunday, as the program looks to lift its second conference tournament title.
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