For a Northwestern squad that recorded just one conference in its last campaign and hasn’t had a winning Big Ten slate since 2022, there’s one thing to hope for: young talent to breathe life into a team that desperately needs it.
In its season-opening 2-0 win at Loyola Thursday night, the Wildcats (1-0, 0-0 Big Ten) proved they might have just that.
After the first minutes of a new season hummed on with few scoring chances for either side, two players coming off the bench for their first-career minutes gave the visitors the offensive jumpstart they needed.
In the game’s 40th minute, NU recorded its first goal of the season when freshman midfielder Selma Sol Sigurjonsdottir drilled a kick from the corner and sophomore forward Mary Stroebel directed it to the back of Loyola’s net off her head.
Though Stroebel was on the ’Cats’ roster last season, she didn’t play in a game — let alone record a goal — until Thursday’s opener due to back-to-back ACL injuries.
“Her work speaks for itself,” sophomore forward Kennedy Roesch, who led the team in goals last season, said of her teammate’s performance. “We’ve seen her on the practice ground, just day in and day out scoring goals.”
Meanwhile, downfield, Nyamma Nelson — coach Michael Moynihan’s freshly minted goalkeeper and the first freshman to start a season in goal since 2022 — stood firm between the pipes through the game’s opening half, recording her first two collegiate saves as her teammates secured an early lead.
Before the ’Cats led, just shy of the game’s 22nd minute, Loyola forward Meghan Economos took advantage of a series of NU players tripping in front of Loyola’s goal in quick succession.
Blazing across the full length of the field a half-step ahead of the ’Cats’ closest defender, Economos passed the ball off to her teammate, Ramblers’ midfielder Maggie Schmidt, who rattled off the game’s first shot on goal.
But after learning that she’d start the game just a day prior, Nelson wasn’t willing to let a goal scored against her so early in her career. She crept out just steps in front of the net and easily made the save.
“That first save, I kind of blacked out,” Nelson said postgame. “All the sounds kind of went quiet, but I was really happy that I was able to make that save and keep us in the game.”
Less than 10 seconds later, the previous play’s passer launched a shot of her own, but it sailed way wide, off target.
A few minutes later, Econonos came rushing down the field again, but this time NU defenders stopped her in shallow friendly territory, regained possession and delivered a stronger defensive performance in the subsequent minutes.
Moynihan attributed his team’s success in part to their willingness to show up to campus and start practicing together without coaches before the team officially got rolling.
“We just take one game at a time, and it’s always good to get off the mark with a win,” Moynihan said.
Throughout the game, Nelson never lost her poise, and the backline ensured that by allowing just one shot on goal in the second half.
But newcomers weren’t the only ones to make a splash as NU commenced its season.
Late into the second half, Roesch scored after an assist from sophomore midfielder Alex Fallon. In a dominant freshman campaign last year, Roesch scored six goals, while no other player had more than three.
On the heels of her own first-year successes, Roesch said she was thrilled to see such promising performances from her freshman teammates in Thursday’s contest.
“We’re this good right now when we’re young, imagine what we can be like when we’re all juniors and seniors,” Roesch said.
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