Nearly eleven months after Northwestern beat the UNC Tar Heels to win its fifth consecutive national championship 21-7, the visiting No. 2 team won 18-16 in a rematch against No. 1 Northwestern at Lakeside Field in Evanston early Sunday afternoon. The loss broke Northwestern’s overall 41-game winning streak and 58-game home winning streak.
Despite a career day for senior Katrina Dowd and solid performances from others, Northwestern struggled to find its typically dominating form against an equally matched UNC squad that entered the contest with a 12-1 record with a single loss in overtime against Virginia.
A quick 2-0 run by Northwestern to begin the game was quickly erased at 23:30 mark of the first half, and halftime saw the match deadlocked at 12-12, with a last-second goal by UNC’s Laura Zimmerman.
The first half featured two separate 6-0 runs by each squad that swayed the advantage to both sides, but the second half featured gritty defense from both teams. UNC scored its 14th goal early in the half to make it 14-13, and for the remainder 21:10, they would not fall behind again. Twice, Northwestern would cut it to a one-goal deficit, but the offense could not find the same dominant spark and struggled to force turnovers late in the game for additional possessions.
“A loss is never a fun thing, and this one is a tough one to take. I don’t necessarily subscribe to the notion that a loss can be a good thing, but now that we have lost, we need to see what we can take from it,” head coach Kelly Amonte Hiller said. “There are a lot of little things we didn’t do well today, and credit North Carolina for playing a great game. We just need to get better now as we move forward.”
The Wildcats look to press forward in their quest for a sixth-consecutive national title and continue through their last homestand against another top-10 opponent in No. 9 Vanderbilt next Saturday at 7:00 p.m. at Lakeside Field.