ORONO, Maine — Northwestern University’s Wildcats showed why they have played in the last two NCAA Division I championship games during their matchup with the University of Maine on Friday afternoon.
The No. 3-ranked Wildcats and 2021 national champs turned in an impressive performance against the hardworking Black Bears at the UMaine field hockey complex, earning a 3-0 victory for head coach Tracey Fuchs’ 200th career win.
Northwestern freshman fullback Ilse Tromp scored her first career goal at the 25:26 mark of the second quarter, and junior midfielder Lane Herbert expanded the lead at the 39:24 mark of the third period.
Dynamic freshman forward Olivia Bent-Cole exhibited why she is a member of the U.S. national field hockey team at such a young age with a brilliant goal with 1:59 remaining in the game. She stickhandled neatly around four Black Bears before firing the ball past UMaine fifth-year goalie Mallory Drayer for her second goal of the season.
Drayer finished with a career-high 15 saves in an exceptional performance.
Northwestern, now 4-1, had 26 shot attempts to UMaine’s five and had an 11-4 edge in penalty corners.
Northwestern will play No. 20 UMass at 1 p.m. Saturday at UMaine, and the 2-3 Black Bears will entertain UMass at 1 p.m Sunday.
Senior Annabel Skubisz made two saves for Northwestern, including a nice one with her stick late in the game off a Mallory Mackesy shot following a penalty corner. Northwestern was leading 2-0 at the time. UMaine had a series of penalty corners with just under four minutes remaining, and Poppy Lambert had a good attempt only to have it sail wide to the right of Skubisz.
Northwestern controlled the play after the first minute of the game when UMaine had a glorious opportunity to open the scoring.
Pittsfield fifth-year midfielder Madisyn Hartley, one of UMaine best’s players on the warm afternoon, worked a nice give and go with Tereza Holubcova, and Holubcova slid the ball across the goalmouth to Zoe Furber.
But Furber wasn’t able to get her stick turned around to tap the ball into the empty net.
Northwestern constantly applied pressure, and it paid off.
Tromp fed Lindsey Frank in the circle, and Frank got off a shot that was saved by Drayer. But the rebound came to Tromp, and she sailed her shot into the far corner from the right side of the circle.
“I’m not normally in the circle, but I got the ball and shot it on goal,” said Tromp, who is from The Netherlands.
Herbert scored her first of the season and fifth of her career off a penalty corner taken by Katie Jones.
Bent-Cole corralled the ball of the insertion by Jones and set it up for Herbert, whose powerful low shot sailed by Drayer and deflected into the cage of UMaine back Lambert’s stick.
The Black Bears defended valiantly throughout the game and had a handful of rushes only to have Northwestern’s rock-solid defense break the plays up. UMaine was guilty of overhandling the ball at times, and Wildcats gave their opponents very little time and space with the ball.
“It’s all about defense. Defense wins championships,” said Northwestern graduate student forward and captain Peyton Halsey. “It starts in the back. The goals will come.”
Halsey called UMaine a “good team. They were gritty.”
“We played a gutsy defensive game,” said UMaine head coach Josette Babineau. “And I was proud of our goalie. She faced a lot of shots and had a lot of confidence in herself.”
Senior Lambert agreed, saying she thought the team played a “really good game” and Drayer that was “amazing.”
“We worked a lot this week on defensive positioning and how we’re going to go into tackles and just working together as a back unit,” she added. “We did really well on that and we were really composed on the ball, which is a nice switch for us.”
Draper said her performance was made possible by her backs.
“All kudos go to my backs. They’re super helpful. They kept me calm and composed,” said Drayer.
Fuchs said she was pleased to get her 200th win and that her back line is “one of our staples.”
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