Four and a half minutes into overtime against No. 7 Michigan, senior midfielder Maddie Zimmer controlled the ball near No. 1 Northwestern’s 25-yard line. She made a move past one Wolverine defender. She weaved down the sideline past another and then cut inside to beat a third, crossing the Michigan 25-yard line and firing a pass toward the shooting circle.
“I received the ball from (sophomore back) Ilse (Tromp) and thought to myself, ‘I think I’m gonna run now,’” Zimmer said. “(Sophomore forward Ashley) Sessa and (graduate student midfielder Lauren) Wadas are such amazing players, they were busting up the field. … I sent in the ball, hoping for the best, and they were there to put it in.”
Sessa received the pass and fired a shot at Michigan goalkeeper Hala Silverstein. Silverstein made a kick-save to deflect the strike.
Wadas poked the ensuing rebound into the back of the cage, securing a 2-1 victory and a share of the Big Ten regular-season title for the Wildcats (16-0, 6-0 Big Ten).
A dog pile commenced.
“I just love our resilience,” coach Tracey Fuchs said in a postgame interview on Big Ten Network. “We had such a great week of practice. I’m so glad it paid off for these players. They have been doing everything right, and now they get to hold up at least a share of the trophy today.”
If two teams standing atop the Big Ten at the season’s end hold the same conference record, the title is shared by both squads. The ’Cats can win the Big Ten outright with a win over Michigan State Sunday.
Seconds later, Fuchs’s players emptied a Gatorade cooler onto the architect of what is shaping up to be the best season in NU history.
On Phyllis Ocker Field Hockey Field in Ann Arbor –– the site of the NCAA Division I national championship, one month from now –– the ’Cats took the field against a tough squad in the Wolverines (11-3, 4-2 Big Ten).
The game started as what Fuchs described as a “battle.” Each team played a physical game, mostly controlling the ball within the midfield. The Wolverines logged the sole shot of the first frame.
NU picked up its offensive intensity heading into the second period, tallying four shots and forcing Silverstein to make two saves. With 30 seconds left in the first half, sophomore forward Olivia Bent-Cole whipped a shot that forced Silverstein into action, but it sailed wide.
The ’Cats struck first five minutes into the third period. Sessa teed up a penalty corner and found Zimmer, who set up a drag flick shot for Tromp. A drag flick is a shot with a running windup, often used on penalty corners, that accelerates shot speed.
Tromp’s drag flick found graduate student midfielder Chloe Relford’s stick and Relford redirected the shot into the cage to put NU up 1-0. Fuchs said the corner was drawn up to find a way to get around Michigan’s flyer –– the first runner to defend a corner –– who had been successfully blocking previous corners.
“It was a perfect ball to Chloe,” Fuchs told The Daily Friday. “We’ve executed that corner a lot this year, so I’m really happy with that, because it gives us more variety.”
Graduate student goalkeeper Annabel Skubisz stood firm in net through the second half, at one point making a stick save to keep a shutout on the board. She made seven saves in total. Fuchs told The Daily that Skubisz will be added to the U.S. National Women’s Field Hockey roster in January.
NU nearly made it 2-0 via the stick of Bent-Cole a few minutes into the fourth period. The Philadelphia native spun past a Michigan defender and deked another, firing a shot around Silverstein as a crucial insurance goal. However, replay review ruled the ball had hit Bent-Cole’s foot during the buildup and the goal was disallowed.
Michigan ramped up its offensive intensity following the review, recording four shots in the final 15 minutes of regulation. The Wolverines broke through on a penalty corner, with Michigan’s Emmy Tran punching a shot past Skubisz to knot the game at one apiece.
Though NU had an open look on net with about 30 seconds remaining in regulation, it could not capitalize and the two sides geared up for an extra ten minutes of hockey.
Wadas, the hero in overtime, got a miniature Gatorade bath from Fuchs in her postgame interview on Big Ten Network.
“I said this last year, I’ll say it again: the job’s not finished,” Wadas said. “Our goal is to win today, to win the tournament and to win the national championship.”
This is NU’s eighth Big Ten regular season title overall and the third during Fuchs’s tenure. It is the first time in program history that NU has won back-to-back Big Ten titles since the 1984-85 seasons.
Fuchs said the team would celebrate on the bus ride to East Lansing, Michigan, before shifting focus to Michigan State. Zimmer echoed that sentiment.
“We’re really optimistic, really excited about the rest of the year and what the rest of the season holds for us, but at the same time, we’re taking it one game at a time,” Zimmer said. “We’re only focused on Michigan State now and coming home with the outright title.”
Email: [email protected]
Related Stories:
— Field Hockey: No. 2 Northwestern sets new program record after dominating Stanford, UC Davis
— Field Hockey: the case for No. 1: how Northwestern compares to North Carolina
— Field Hockey: No. 2 Northwestern takes down No. 9 Harvard, improves to 13-0
