It was all smiles in Northwestern’s last postgame huddle of its 2025 season as it celebrated a comeback 2-1 win over Ohio State on Friday.
The Buckeyes (6-10-0, 3-7-0 Big Ten) had better looks at goal early on, but halftime adjustments from fifth-year Wildcat (8-6-3, 3-5-2 Big Ten) coach Russell Payne made it all purple in the second half. With the win, NU sealed its third consecutive winning season, the first time the program has strung three such seasons together since 2012 to 2014.
“It’s another winning season under our belt, but we are not satisfied by far,” Payne said. “This is a playoff contender type of team, and we have to get there, so we are going to be supremely dedicated to that quest.”
Ohio State put NU on the back foot early on, as its narrow four-man diamond midfield gave it the upper hand in the middle of the park. Redshirt junior defender Dyland Onwona-Agyeman streamed down the right flank throughout the first half and nearly drew a penalty kick in the fifth minute, but referee Austin Saini ruled after video review that senior forward Alejandro Martinez Santamaria’s contact was minimal.
The visitors’ persistence was rewarded in the 41st minute when 6-foot-3-inch sophomore defender Nick McHenry rose highest to head an Onwana-Agyeman corner kick off the post and in. By the time Saini blew the halftime whistle, Ohio State had seven shots to NU’s four.
Conceding first was not ideal, but the team knew they had what it took to come back, freshman defender Andrew Johnson said postgame. Payne said he changed the team’s setup to allow fewer passes into their defensive third, but it was an attacking adjustment that had the biggest impact.
“We started playing our wingers a little bit wider, giving ourselves a chance to use the width and stretch them a bit,” he said. “If you stretched them a bit, we looked a little more threatening in behind, and we were going to actually be able to play through our midfield more.”
The ’Cats outshot the Buckeyes 12-to-3 in the second half, in no small part due to the acres of space that NU’s wingers found in the wide areas. Johnson, a left back, forced two point-blank stops from Ohio State goalkeeper Max Trejo as he combined with his left-wing counterpart in Santamaria.
Johnson said he developed his attacking instincts from playing as a winger at an old club team. Those instincts paid dividends when graduate student midfielder Joe Suchecki sent a free kick around the wall, bouncing awkwardly in front of Trejo. The Buckeye goalkeeper was barely able to chest the ball away, but Johnson followed up the play to tap it home from close range.
The goal encapsulated NU’s mentality in the second half, freshman forward Aaron O’Reilly said postgame.
“We had to come out aggressively, nothing to lose,” he said. “We were relentless. I mean, we got the goal from our left back, just because he’s crashing the box.”
After several more opportunities forced save after save from Trejo, O’Reilly flicked a long ball past two Ohio State defenders to put junior midfielder Peter Riesz through on goal. Riesz unselfishly fed the ball back to O’Reilly, and the freshman finished near the penalty spot.
In the postgame huddle, Payne said each of the team’s graduating seniors — representing his first “real” recruiting class after the COVID-19 pandemic — spoke about what their time at NU meant to them. They said the team’s culture is better than anything they could have ever imagined.
In the end, a pair of freshmen sent the graduating seniors off with a win.
“I wasn’t sure what it was going to be like playing college soccer (after) coming from a club I was at for so long, but I feel at home here,” O’Reilly said. “The guys here and the coaching staff made this place great for my first season, and I can’t wait to continue for next season.”
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