There is no team in the country that is more resilient than Northwestern.
Eleven days after suffering its first loss of the season — a heartbreaking one at that — the ‘Cats found themselves down early against the then-No. 1 Terrapins on a cool and windy Thursday night. By halftime, the path to victory seemed skewed.
Then, Olivia Bent-Cole took over. The rest was history.
The theme this weekend: experience wins, especially in the biggest moments. On Thursday, Bent-Cole pushed Northwestern across the finish
line. On Sunday, Ilse Tromp did the job in the clutch. A team that can lean on its cornerstones down the stretch is a team that goes far.
As far as a winning national title for the third straight year, perhaps, success is defined by unbelievable resilience.
“Bend, don’t break,” is a phrase we usually use to describe Northwestern football, but it felt like it rang true for Northwestern field hockey this past weekend. The defense gave up more offense than usual against Maryland and Rutgers, but what mattered was its ability to fire back.
The identity of this team is much like a rubber band: you can place a heap of tension on it, but once you let it go, even for a split second, it snaps back with more force than you could imagine.
Exhibit one: after a perfect deflection on a penalty-corner shot bounced over Northwestern goalkeeper Juliana Boon for the Terps’ first score, Bent-Cole and the Wildcat offense ground their way into the circle and capitalized.
And by the emotion that Bent-Cole showed, you can tell that Northwestern was ready for a battle.
That battle, for the first three quarters, was making Maryland goalkeeper Alyssa Klebasko work between the pipes. The ‘Cats lost it (a shocker). Aside from the score above, Northwestern hadn’t had a shot on goal through the first three quarters of the game.
That brings us to exhibit two: stepping up when it matters most.
Knowing that the Wildcats were 15 minutes away from their prominence coming into question, they cranked up the intensity to a 10 as soon as the whistle blew to begin the fourth. The tone was set just 50 seconds in, when the Terrapins watched Bent-Cole put away her second goal with a howitzer from the edge of the circle to the opposite corner of the cage.
Bent-Cole wasn’t ready to take a back seat yet, and Northwestern took heed. Tromp gave up her best opportunity at a score that night to allow her senior counterpart to complete the hat trick.
On every one of these plays, the common denominator was confidence — confidence that NU believed it was better than its opponent in the biggest moments. That’s how it clinched a share of the conference title on Sunday.
Exhibit three: controlling the clutch.
If someone hid the scoreboard in Northwestern’s matchup against Rutgers, nobody would realize. That’s because the ‘Cats were firmly in the driver’s seat all game, even after the Scarlet Knights took the lead. Its offense simply looked better and it was only a matter of time before the breakthrough. After Kiera Sack evened the game up at one apiece, the predictable became inevitable.
Weekly Awards
Player of the Week: Olivia Bent-Cole
It wasn’t going to be anyone else. What Bent-Cole did against the No. 1 team in the country may have a case to be one of the best single-game performances in program history. Then to add to it with the stick stop for the game-winner against Rutgers solidified this past weekend as the best of her career.
Unit of the Week: Midfielders
This was a down week for the Northwestern defense. Allowing three goals in two games is great for any other team. For NU, its subpar. But when it needed to reset quickly and go on the attack, the midfield did its job in advancing the ball between the 25-yard lines. Did it to a tee, actually. It’s a major reason reason why the ‘Cats found such a quick response to the first Maryland score and a major reason why they rattled off three scores in the final 15 minutes of that contest.
Play of the Week: Tromp’s score to secure a share of the Big Ten title
Tromp’s drag flick on the penalty corner is nearly unstoppable from the top of the circle. It’s blur to watch it zoom past a defender’s face. There is a reason Northwestern falls back on it for the most important shots.
Last year, it got NU to the national title. This year, it got NU a share of the conference title.
No reason to go to anything else down the stretch if it keeps working.
Up Next
No. 14 Penn State awaits in Happy Valley after taking a brutal 1-0 loss to No. 6 Iowa, eliminating it from conference title contention. Before then, the Nittany Lions raked in eight straight wins, including overtime victories over Ohio State and No. 19 Lafayette. The Ella Gaitan-Sienna Dunn duo was the centerpiece of PSU’s dominance this season — Gaitan as Penn State’s leading scorer with 11 goals this year, Dunn as the faciliator with a team-high 13 assists.
No slouch to Northwestern. But after what we saw a week ago, it’s hard to give Penn State much of a chance against the red-hot Wildcats.
