With three regular season matches remaining, Northwestern men’s soccer is in the hunt for its first NCAA tournament appearance since 2014.

Twenty years ago, the Wildcats punched their first postseason ticket in program history, accumulating a 15-6-2 record and advancing to the tournament’s second round.

This is how an improbable NU victory helped vault the 2004 squad to unprecedented heights.

***

Ahead of his team’s Oct. 17, 2004 matchup with No. 3 Indiana, Northwestern men’s soccer coach Tim Lenahan paced around the visiting locker room before approaching the whiteboard. Dry-erase marker in hand, Lenahan prepared perhaps the most powerful pregame speech of his coaching career.

He wrote down several numbers, including the Hoosiers’ 31-game home undefeated streak and their 50 regular-season conference matches unbeaten. 

Then, Lenahan penned “26” on the board.

“(He said), ‘That’s how many people in this stadium right now believe we can win this game, but the good thing is, all of those people are right here in this room,’” said Rich Nassif, a walk-on goalkeeper on the 2004 squad who later became Lenahan’s assistant coach. 

Entering the game, the Wildcats had not won a Big Ten game since 1999. They had never beaten the Hoosiers.

However, Brad North’s first-half goal and a dogged defensive display dealt the Hoosiers a 1-0 defeat, signaling the once-dormant program’s arrival as a potential national power.

First crossing paths on the recruiting trail during the late 1990s, Lenahan and assistant coach Erik Ronning arrived in Evanston ahead of the 2001 season. They spent late nights plotting an improbable rise in Lenahan’s office before grabbing dinners at the Coaches’ Cafe on Orrington Avenue just before its 11 p.m. closing time. 

“We had to in part go out and recruit great players — but break down a losing mentality, tear it apart and rebuild it brick-by-brick,” Ronning said.

Three years later, those countless hours recruiting and fine-tuning a culture came to fruition, as NU downed the defending and eventual repeat national champions in Bloomington, Indiana.

“This is exactly why I went to Northwestern,” then-forward Gerardo Alvarez said. “Had I gone to IU, maybe I’d have a national title. We wanted to be the founding fathers of the program.”

The ’Cats secured the road victory nine days after a 2-0 lead over No. 9 Penn State evaporated in just 44 seconds. Although NU saw out a 2-2 overtime draw, then-defender Brad Napper said it felt like a loss.

“I remember that one more than the (Indiana) win,” Napper said. “I don’t think I’ve ever been as close to nearly throwing up on a field. I was so sick.”

The ’Cats bounced back two days after the tie with the Nittany Lions, blanking Western Illinois 3-0. The game gave NU a chance to recollect itself, said then-defender Sammy Semwangu, but the prior game was fresh in the team’s memory.

For 89 minutes, the ’Cats had Penn State’s number. Lenahan said they wouldn’t repeat the same mistake.

“My legs went numb when that second goal was scored,” Lenahan said. “We kicked Penn State’s ass that day.”

NU returned to the training ground reinvigorated on Monday. Looking to emulate Indiana’s hostile environment, Lenahan instructed assistant coach Justin Serpone to blast the Hoosier Fight Song from his car stereo. 

Lenahan said by the week’s end, his players knew the opposing fight song by heart. He quipped that they could hardly piece together the “Go U Northwestern” lyrics with significant focus shifted to the challenge at hand.

Preparation required far beyond the 15 players who received regular minutes. Calling themselves the “Stray Cats,” players typically buried on the bench challenged the starters in 11 versus 11 scrimmages.

“We took real pride in trying to beat the starting XI,” said Semwangu, a founder of the “Stray Cats,” who departed the pack after earning the team’s starting left back role.

One day before its program-altering feat, NU boarded its bus to Bloomington — with the film “Hoosiers” cued up on the televisions. Just outside of Indianapolis, the bus broke down, and the ’Cats sat on the highway for about three hours awaiting their replacement ride.

Several pizza deliveries and a replacement bus ride later, NU reached its hotel at 11 p.m. It was too late for a walkthrough, but Lenahan took his players to the field where they would make history in less than 16 hours. 

With a light breeze drifting through Jerry Yeagley Field on a fateful Saturday afternoon, the ’Cats jumped in front and carried a 1-0 halftime advantage. Lenahan told his team at halftime that it had awoken a “sleeping giant.”

“I said to the guys, ‘Do you want the real deal, or coach bulls—? We’re about to get f—king pounded, but we’re not giving up a goal,’” Lenahan said. 

The Hoosiers peppered 11 second-half shots, but none found the back of the net. 

Meanwhile, Alvarez — Lenahan’s “superman” at center attacking midfield — toyed with MAC Hermann Trophy winner Danny O’Rourke. Once Indiana’s band cued up its fight song with less than two minutes remaining, Alvarez couldn’t hide a smile as he and Lenahan locked eyes. 

The band unknowingly played NU’s tune.

When the final whistle blew, Lenahan stood stunned on the sideline, like he had eight days prior. Caught up in the moment, Lenahan said he forgot to shake Indiana coach Mike Freitag’s hand until Freitag came over and nudged him.

With the sun setting over the pitch, Lenahan teared up as he thought of his late mother, who died in 2003. 

“I went to call my mom to share the news and then remembered she wasn’t with me anymore,” Lenahan said. “I just remember looking back at the sun starting to set … and there was a big figure waiting for me.”

There stood former Indiana coach Jerry Yeagley, the all-time winningest Division I men’s soccer coach.

“He waited to congratulate me and hugged me,” Lenahan said. “He said, ‘I knew it would be your team. The way you guys were going about things, I knew it would be your team that beat us.”

About a month later, NU won its first-ever NCAA tournament game, defeating Western Illinois 4-1. Although the team’s season ended in a 3-2 heartbreaker at Creighton on Nov. 23, the legacy of Lenahan’s 2004 squad has permeated throughout the program ever since.

Twenty years removed from their ascension to national heights, the ’Cats have been groomsmen at each other’s weddings, gone on various group vacations and reunions and continue to reminisce on lifetime memories forged on the pitch.

“We broke the barrier in a lot of ways — winning the first Big Ten game, entering the (NCAA) tournament and winning the first game of the tournament,” Alvarez said. “What we were able to do led to that Big Ten championship in 2011 because we broke barriers previously classes didn’t think were possible.”

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