US College Sunday: Northwestern Seal a Share of the Big Ten as Wake Forest Rout JMU
Sunday’s other big US college results sorted out a conference title race, ended a long winning streak, and kept the ranked teams honest. Here is what happened away from the Maryland, Richmond and Towson games covered in our first Sunday roundup.
The headline act was in Evanston. No. 2 Northwestern beat Rutgers 2-1, and the win clinched at least a share of the Big Ten title for the Wildcats. It went down to the wire. Rutgers scored first through Talia Schenck, on their first shot of the day, and Northwestern had to chase the game. Kiera Sack equalised after a scramble in the circle, and with under three minutes left, Ilse Tromp smashed home her team-leading 12th goal of the season from a penalty corner to win it. Northwestern are 16-1 now and 7-0 in the Big Ten. Rutgers saw a five-game winning streak end and drop to 10-7, but they took the second-ranked team in the country to the final minutes on their own patch, and that is no small thing.
No. 10 Wake Forest had a much easier afternoon. The Demon Deacons beat James Madison 4-0 in Winston-Salem, and the game was effectively over by half-time. Bianca Rees-Gibbs scored in the 3rd minute and again in the 44th, and Mia Montag added a fourth-quarter brace in the 53rd and 55th minutes. The numbers tell the story: Wake Forest outshot JMU 22-5 and won the corner count 9-2. The defeat ends a seven-game winning streak for the Dukes, their longest since 2008, and leaves them 0-3 against ACC opposition this season after earlier losses to Duke and Virginia.
Drexel just keep scoring. The Dragons beat La Salle 6-3 in Philadelphia, and they were 3-0 up by the end of the first quarter. Nicole Enslin opened the scoring from a penalty corner inside the first minute, Pili Lemoine scored twice, and Phebe Herlocher added her first collegiate goal to finish it off. Drexel are 14-3 now, which ties their highest win total since 2012, and they sit third in the country in goals per game at 3.80. La Salle could not live with that attack, even though they kept pushing to the end.
No. 6 Iowa got the job done on Senior Day, shutting out No. 19 Penn State 1-0 in Iowa City. It was a possession performance, exactly what head coach Lisa Cellucci asked for: collective pressure, sliding as a unit, one cover only. Penn State could not find a way through, and Iowa’s seniors got their day.
And No. 17 Lafayette edged Brown 2-1 in another tight one. Brown scored a late equaliser through Grace Almeida and looked like they had grabbed a point, but Naomi George answered almost straight away with the winner. Brown matched the ranked Leopards for chances, 13 shots to 15, but Lafayette found the goal that mattered.
Conference tournaments are nearly here, and the picture is getting clearer by the weekend. Northwestern have their share of the Big Ten. Wake Forest are rolling. And the teams chasing them know exactly what standard they have to reach.
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