For those who have ever read Choose Your Own Adventure books and somewhat enjoyed them, today’s version of Pitch Perfect is your lucky day. If you’re an aspiring data nerd like I am, scroll down for some charts and other visualizations of Northwestern Women’s Soccer I spent all of last night toiling over. If you’re just here for the game recaps, keep on reading. And if you want both? Have a cookie. Until next week!
For the first time this September, the Wildcats have added three points to the scoresheet.
Northwestern kicked off its Big Ten home opener against Michigan in style. Elle Phillips found Alex Fallon in the 85th minute who buried the ball in the top corner of the net to help the ‘Cats best the Wolverines 1-0.
A lot of things looked like they were going well for the ‘Cats against the Maize and Blue, notably in the intangibles. Northwestern, having just come off non-conference play against weaker opponents, sped up its tempo across the board and worked to put stress on the Wolverines. Michigan matched Northwestern’s energy on the attack, forcing goalkeeper Nyamma Nelson to make a season-high five saves.
With injury ruling her out of the game against Virginia and suspensions taking her out of a few other games, Nelson hasn’t had the opportunity to step up too much this season. The Michigan game reminded us all, however, just how nice it is to have someone who knows what they are doing in net — and that Nelson will probably have to further her high-level performances well into conference play.
On Sunday, the ‘Cats went on the road to take on No. 14 Wisconsin. Though they lost 2-0 to the Badgers, it was, all things considered, a relatively even match (at least in the first half).
Wisconsin’s first goal came in the 13th minute from Anya Gulbrandsen off a weird deflection on a free kick — Nelson couldn’t see the ball and didn’t move an inch, and that sentiment seemed to resonate with most of the field even as the Badgers celebrated.
Northwestern held its own in the first 45 minutes, spending a lot of time in Wisconsin’s defensive end, maintaining possession and managing to outshoot the Badgers 3-1. The second half, however, was all the home side, and Erin Connolly doubled the lead for Wisconsin in the 68th minute.
A few important tactical takeaways came from the above games, one notable point being that Amber Weaver replaced Audrey Alberts in the backline. The ‘Cats looked to be a lot more comfortable shifting the ball overall across the field, and they didn’t seem boxed in (at least in the opening minutes of each game) by pre-determined expectations.
Minute Clinic: Defenders
Now, with that recap behind us, we move into the special part of this week’s column: The two opening games of the Big Ten marked the halfway point of Northwestern’s regular season schedule. The natural way to celebrate, of course, is to break out some data visualizations that will walk us through the ‘Cats’ season thus far.
Given that Northwestern’s current lineup is probably the furthest thing that Head Coach Michael Moynihan thought it would be at the beginning of the season, I thought it would be an interesting thought experiment to look at the evolution of players’ minutes over the course of the season.
While omitting those players who have tallied less than 100 minutes over the course of the season, let’s track some of Head Coach Michael Moynihan’s personnel choices.
Audrey Alberts, who was the team’s most-utilized outfield player last season, has quietly exited the ranks this season. Though obviously the rationale is unknown to us (and she might be suffering with injuries), I was surprised to see the decrease in Alberts’ minutes be so gradual, like this decision from Moynihan has been deliberate.
Olivia Elliott was always going to be a bit of a wildcard. She didn’t play much at all last season, and frankly, I was surprised to see her get the starting nod from the season opener against Virginia. Not as consistent as other options off Northwestern’s bench, Elliott’s role has turned into more of a supplementary one when the game plan requires it. She has most recently played in the 30-40 minute range mark per game.
When Brooke Miller left Northwestern’s defense this past year, the question was who was going to replace her consistently. The answer? Maddie Finnerty and Ava Goodin, the centerback and outside back duo. The senior and junior are extremely versatile and work in a three-back, four-back and even five-back scenarios – Goodin being especially deadly as she can play on the left or the right wing without a problem.
One thing about Coach Moynihan is that he recruits deliberately and isn’t afraid to use underclassmen in the starting lineup.
Gwen Zimmerman (an outside CB/outside back) and Amber Weaver (outside back) have proven to be two of his new prized picks on defense. Zimmerman was given the nod early in the year to play, and her minutes have generally gone above the 60-minute mark for a long while.
Amber Weaver, however, is an equally fascinating story. She played no minutes in the opening three games of the season, but as Alberts and Elliott’s minutes began to drop, Weaver gradually saw her minutes increase, especially after the Butler game. She has now started twice, including games against Michigan and Wisconsin.
Minute Clinic: Midfielders
Holland Carey has become one of Northwestern’s stalwarts on the field, and is a bit of a sleeper pick if I do say so myself. She hasn’t not played a full 90 since the first game of the season against Virginia, and she has become a critical aspect of the Wildcats’ midfield.
Similarly to Carey, first-year Naomi Lofthouse has settled nicely into the defensive midfield position that Caterina Regazzoni occupied last year. Though it took a second for Coach Moynihan to understand where she fit into Northwestern’s puzzle (I believe against Virginia she played at center back), Lofthouse has the strength, poise and game IQ that lets her get so many minutes.
Who remains a mystery to me is Elle Phillips. She constantly creates chances as a midfielder and is a very, very smart player, and yet she has not yet tallied a full 90-minute game yet, which is crazy to me. Her minutes, though largely consistent, are definitely less than I think they should be. Perhaps it’s because Northwestern’s midfield pool is so competitive.
Part of the reason why players like Phillips get relatively low minutes to their impact is because Fallon and Wagner are very much competing for a same spot. Fallon, who currently leads the team in shots, goals and points, is yet to make a full return from injury and play a full 90 minutes. Meanwhile Wagner, who has proven herself to be an agile threat on the attack and has started every single game, has also yet to mark a full 90.
Unfortunately for Mary Stroebel, the competitiveness of the midfield means that she’s often the one whose minutes are sacrificed. She played a lot against highly-ranked Tennessee, though that seemed to be a game where Phillips, Wagner, and Fallon all had lower minutes than the norm. It’s unclear the direction Coach Moynihan will take with Stroebel as the conference season continues to play out.
Minute Clinic: Forwards
I think this graph speaks for itself — particularly that orange line.
Though they say that correlation is not causation or whatever, I’m drawing the conclusion that when Norkett is out, Hennen and O’Donnell move to become the choice duo in that forward line. O’Donnell is most often used as a Roesch replacement at the 10, and so Hennen is necessary to replicate Norkett’s role on the wing.
Note that O’Donnell seems to have taken over Hennen as a first-choice forward (other than Norkett, obviously), but I think that’s just a warning sign that Roesch might not be coming back any time soon. This team needs a solid 10 to function (at least in Coach Moynihan’s eyes) and that’s the only choice it has.
Liz Cardwell remains the epitome of an impact sub. As an extremely athletic player, she’s an obvious choice off the bench to give opposing defenses a headache. That seems to have been her role for the majority of the season (with her minutes elevated when Norkett was absent), and that doesn’t seem like it will change soon.
The Crux of the Problem
This is a statistic I’m sure any average viewer would be able to pull from their own brain, but one that I wanted to emphasize through images.
Northwestern is, to put it bluntly, very bad at finishing. Are the goals that it scores pretty? Absolutely. But there’s no denying that even if the Wildcats’ volume of shot production is higher than that of their opponents, their accuracy is not. Northwestern faces around a 0.300 Shot:SOG ratio compared to opponents’ 0.390 Shot:SOG ratio.
If the ‘Cats want to have a fighting chance to make the Big Ten Tournament, this is something they need to rectify as soon as possible – in other words, they need to make more of those grey dots purple and also more of those purple dots green.
Up Next
Northwestern gets a weeklong break before heading to St. Paul to take on Minnesota next Sunday at 1 p.m. CDT (streaming on Big Ten Plus). The Golden Gophers sit at 5-2-1 overall and have pulled off some pretty decent results against ranked teams, including a 1-1 tie with No. 19 Georgia, a 1-0 loss to No. 15 BYU, and a 1-0 win over No. 25 Iowa.
With the condensed game schedule this time around, I’ll have a shorter column overall. See you next week!
