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Last set of Wildcat Awards honor NMU’s unique top performers

By STEVE BROWNLEE 9 min read

MARQUETTE -- Some very specific types of awards were also included in the 22 NMU Wildcat Awards announced in mid-spring.

This is the third and final story in this series about the awards.

There were also awards made to student-athletes who proved how tough or how caring a Wildcat athlete can be.

Here are today's eight awards, one award having both a men's and women's recipient:

Moment of the Year

It took the efforts of close to a hundred people and the non-cooperation of Mother Nature to bring about this moment.

On the morning of the second Sunday in November, Nov. 9 to be exact, the Wildcats men's soccer team was planning to host a Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference tournament game for the first time in program history.

Exciting, certainly, but for just about any other area in the country, instead a disaster when Marquette woke up to 3 to 6 inches of heavy, wet snow that fell overnight.

Starting before sunup with goalkeeper Bryce Beckley and his father starting to clear off the regulation soccer field -- a significantly larger area than an American football field -- the shovel brigade turned into nearly a hundred firends, family, coaches, other athletes and community residents.

They were able to get the field cleared off by 1 p.m., shortly before the scheduled game time.

With a background of snow piles surrounding the field, what followed was an opening-round game vs. Purdue Northwest, a school from the southern end of Lake Michigan. Four hours of soccer included a regulation 90 minutes, a pair of 10-minute overtime periods, and finally a shootout that Northern prevailed 6-5 in the eighth round after Ian Weimer knocked in the final penalty-shot kick.

NMU Sports Information describes it as "an incredible, emotional, exhausting match that Marquette will never forget."

Northern head coach Alex Fatovic was effusive with his praise.

"This was a full community win today," he told NMU SI. "We had people out here for five-plus hours clearing the field this morning so our guys could play and have this opportunity.

"I'm so grateful for everyone who showed up (Sunday) and helped make this an amazing day for NMU Athletics as well as our program."

And he was just as grateful for his charges' efforts.

"This was the moment we have been practicing for for a year," the coach said. "In our practice sessions in the (Superior Dome) during the wintertime, we're not calling fouls at practice, being physically harder on ourselves, going through all the pitfalls of (the 2024) season, (and when we got to penalty kicks), we just reminded them that they've been here before and that you're prepared for this moment.

"Overtime cramping, injuries, it didn't matter. Our guys rose to the challenge."

What made it even sweeter was that the Wildcats parlayed this home-opening win in the playoffs into two more wins in the semifinals and finals, both played at No. 1 seed Saginaw Valley State and culminating with a 1-0 win over the host Cardinals in the championship game.

It earned Northern the league's automatic berth to the NCAA Division II tournament, with both the GLIAC tourney title and NCAA berth firsts for the program.

Play of the Year

With all the crazy amount of yards that redshirt freshman Noah Dobert gained in the second half of the season -- he totaled 892 yards in just the Wildcats' three late-season wins -- it was a running play that netted him exactly zero in the rushing column that proved to be the Play of the Year.

One of those three wins was NMU's second encounter of the season with Davenport after the Panthers prevailed 35-16 in Marquette on Sept. 20.

This time, on Nov. 8, it was in Grand Rapids for a nonconference matchup three weeks after Northern's first win in three seasons and just one day after Northern head coach Shane Richardson resigned and previous offensive coordinator Billy Lindquist took the reins.

For the second straight win, Dobert, a Dearborn native, rolled up a whopping 243 yards rushing despite his team barely ever attempting a pass.

While the Wildcats had the game in hand until DU came back for two fourth-quarter touchdowns to force overtime tied 28-28, the teams played through three overtimes still knotted 45-45.

Then in OT No. 4 -- tying this for the longest game in NMU history -- Dobert powered through for effectively a 2-point conversion run after the Panthers fumbled away their earlier attempt in that OT.

Like a regular 2-point conversion, the yardage doesn't count in team statistics. But it counted huge for NMU's 47-45 win, capping off with a sweet, juicy cherry to top off his day with four TDs and second straight 243-yard running performance in a Wildcats' win.

Best Individual Record-Breaking Performance

It took the dramatics of a four-OT win to send Dobert's even greater achievement into another category -- Best Individual Record-Breaking Performance.

After those pair of 243-yard games, who could know what more Dobert would be capable of?

Well, Wayne State found out one week later in the season finale.

After both his 243-yard games came on the road, Dobert put together a superb performance in the Superior Dome. And boy did he, to the tune of 406 yards in Northern's 45-11 drubbing of the Warriors on Nov. 15.

Like a lineup of dominoes on a high school gym floor, his total knocked over just about every game and season rushing record in NMU football lore.

The yardage broke the Wildcats' individual game record by almost a hundred yards, giving him the single-season mark by more than 150 yards with 1,656. He did it all that day in just 32 carries, a 12.7-per-carry mean, and accounted for four TDs to give him that season record with 15, one more than Jake Mayon earned in 2018.

It was such a good performance it made a run at the all-time, any-year NCAA Division II record in one game of 425 yards by South Dakota Mines' Connor Silveria in 2018.

He not only earned GLIAC Offensive Player of the Week, but also the national D2Football.com Offensive Player of the Week, and led to him soon after being awarded the GLIAC Offensive Back of the Year by the league.

That eventually led to Dobert, who had carried the ball three times for 12 yards in his true first-year freshman season, to being named a Second Team All-American by the Division II Conference Commissioners Association.

Best Team Record-Breaking Performance

The Wildcats men's basketball team won this award for its historic 2025-26 season, setting its new gold standard with 28 victories.

They weren't empty victories, either, as this NMU squad won a conference championship for the fourth straight season, alternating regular-season and tournament titles in the GLIAC. This year's was the regular-season crown at 16-4 to go with the 28-7 overall mark.

Under the tutelage of head coach Matt Majkrzak, who after the season moved up to Division I Northern Illinois, the Wildcats rose to No. 10 in the National Association of Basketball Coaches national poll, its best ranking since 1993, and also qualified for the NCAA tourney for the fourth consecutive season.

Dylan Kuehl's record-setting year led NMU after he finished No. 2 on the Wildcats' all-time scoring list.

Brian Franks "Too Strong" Award

With a top male and female winning this award, junior Lauren Esposito of Canal Fulton, Ohio, powered her way through health issues her sophomore year to return to the starting netminder position on the NMU lacrosse team she had won as a freshman.

Esposito, the granddaughter of NHL great and Michigan Tech hockey alumnus Tony Esposito, suffered from a rare condition that interfered with the daily tasks of life, let alone trying to play on the lacrosse field.

She had two major brain surgeries as a sophomore, then she recovered and returned to competition this past spring as a junior. Not just returned, but with a vengeance, getting her most wins in a season while surpassing 300 career saves, only the second Wildcat to achieve that.

The men's winner of this award for perseverance was graduate student Sam Privet of the men's basketball team. This native of Caledonia, Minnesota, has battled lung complications that some corners said might not allow him to play the college game.

Instead, he defied the odds to play in 133 games and was a key contributor to the Wildcats' 28-7 campaign. This year, he played in all 35 games as an efficient shooter, finishing at 56.7% from the field.

Team Community Engagement Award

Northern's men's and women's alpine ski teams went above and beyond in their acts of community engagement this school year to earn this honor.

Coached by Erik Lundteigen since the team became a varsity sport in 2020, these skiers combined for more than 900 hours of community service, being found at places high and low, narrow and wide, including at aid stations for the Marquette Marathon, raking leaves for the elderly on Make a Difference Day, ball-shagging for various NMU athletic events, volunteering at local youth ski races, and engaging people staying at the Beacon House for those traveling to the Upper Peninsula as the family and friends of hospital patients.

Humanitarian of the Year

Redshirt junior Kate Langworthy of the Wildcats' cross country team is being recognized for exceptional leadership and service within the athletic department and in the Marquette community.

As president of NMU's chapter of the Student Athletic Advisory Committee, she guided the group into one of the top fundraising totals nationally for the Make-A-Wish Foundation while organizing numerous initiatives that included a department-wide fall tailgate.

Joining with the GLIAC SAAC, this Big Rapids native was also involved in Athletes in Action, the NMU Athletic Council and continued her service with Marquette-area Special Olympics, Green Athletics and Cats Connect.

Just to boot, Langworthy was also selected among the 200 student-athletes throughout all three divisions of the NCAA to attend the Career in Sport Forum.

Story contents based on a Northern Michigan University Sports Information press release reviewing the awards. Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee's email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.

Starting at /week.