Road odyssey awaits Wildcats women’s soccer
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Northern Michigan University's Beckett Ferry, left, vies with a Wisconsin-Stevens Point opponent during their exhibition women's soccer game played at the NMU Soccer Field in Marquette on Aug. 24. (Photo courtesy Cara Kamps)
It's just that these Wildcats will have to wait awhile.
NMU begins a five-game road trip today when it travels to Chicago to take on conference foe Roosevelt at 1 p.m. EDT.
That will be followed by a trip back north along the Lake Michigan shoreline to Kenosha, Wisconsin, to face Wisconsin-Parkside at 1 p.m. EDT Sunday, another game in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.
Northern plays three more on the road during the following two weeks, including its annual Upper Peninsula clash in Houghton against Michigan Tech, before returning for a home game at the NMU Soccer Field at 3 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 9, vs. Purdue Northwest.
Fans can livestream the matches at FloCollege and follow along with live stats at nmuwildcats.com, as well as follow official NMU women’s soccer social media channels.
Northern just wrapped up a tough weekend at home, playing the top-two rated teams in the GLIAC and not scoring a goal over the entire 180 minutes, losing 3-0 to No. 5 Grand Valley State and 2-0 to Saginaw Valley State, the team picked No. 2 in the league coaches preseason poll.
"We've got a very important weekend ahead," Wildcats head coach Erin Egolf in an NMU Sports Information news release previewing this weekend. "We're 0-2 in the conference, so we've dug ourselves a little hole here, but it's not insurmountable.
"It's early in the conference slate. We've got to bounce back, and we've got to come and perform well on (today) so that we can take that into Sunday. We're looking forward in hopes that we can go find our first conference win and then get back on the winning side of things."
The good news for Northern is that today's opponent, Roosevelt, was picked last in the preseason and is living "up" to that with records of 0-2 in the conference and 0-4-2 overall. The Lakers lost 5-0 at Parkside and 3-1 vs. Davenport at home to start their GLIAC season.
"Roosevelt's had a tough start to their season, but again, just watching them, they're gonna put up a fight," Egolf said. "They're not going to let us walk in there and just do whatever we want. We're gonna have to earn it."
On the other hand, Parkside has compiled records of 2-0 in the league and 4-1-1 overall, and was picked a position ahead of the Wildcats in the preseason in fourth.
They're also 3-0-1 at home so far.
"Being on the road is not going to be new to us," the NMU coach said. "We just did that when we went to Cedarville (a scoreless draw on Sept. 3), and we had a couple of exhibition games on the road as well, back-to-back to try and simulate what it was going to look like once we got to conference."
After last weekend's scoring drought against the cream of the GLIAC crop, Egolf also wants to find out who wants to take the reins on offense.
"We're going to replicate a lot of attacking moments in training this week," she said a few days ago. "Muscle memory is a real thing, confidence is a real thing, and being able to do that over and over again and know that yes, I can do this, is a very real thing.
"Who wants to step up and be the one who's going to break that seal, take charge of the situation, and find us a goal? I feel like once one goes in, the monkey's off your back a little bit."
Story contents based on Northern Michigan University Sports Information press release previewing the games. Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee's email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.