Creighton dominated every stat except the one that mattered most in the first half of Tuesday night’s home match against Northern Illinois. Despite owning a 14-1 advantage in shots, and a 7-1 edge in shots on goal, the Bluejays entered the locker room all even at 0-0 on the scoreboard.
But as was the case in the win over Tulsa on Saturday night, they came out of the locker room and kept pressing to get that goal. It finally came in the 62nd minute when senior midfielder Timo Pitter found the back of the net after receiving a cross from sophomore midfielder Lucas Stauffer, and giving Creighton (7-0-0) a 1-0 lead in the match.
“I was in the middle of the field, and I saw Lucas breaking through the end line,” Pitter said. “We kind of have our runs, one goes near post, one is going far post, and one is going to the penalty kick spot. I saw Fabian running to the near post, and I knew I had to get to the far post. Luckily the ball came through and I could put it in.”
Stauffer said he wasn’t looking for anyone in particular on the play, but trusted that if he played a ball across the box that one of his teammates would be on the other end to finish the play.
“If I’m being brutally honest, when I get to that point I just want to play it across the 18 and either it deflect off someone, or it goes all the way to the back stick to Timo and it’s an easy tap in,” Stauffer said. “I just tried to hit it pretty hard across the 18.
“I couldn’t score at all at the beginning of the season, so it’s nice to be able to make a run and play a ball in to Timo,” Stauffer continued. “For Timo to score that’s really the best thing. If I could give an assist to everyone that would obviously be ideal. Seeing somebody score a goal is the best feeling. It’s like doing something nice for someone, so hopefully we can keep it going, and it can set the tone for the rest of the games in the season.”
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See Exclusive photos from WBR photographer Adam Streur of the win.
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The goal came on Creighton’s 21st shot of a match that saw them finish with a 26-7 edge, including a 15-3 advantage in shots on frame. In the 82nd minute, junior forward Fabian Herbers iced the game away when he put home a penalty kick to make it 2-0. Herbers drew the foul himself when he was tripped up in the box after he gained possession and turned towards the goal.
Pitter and Herbers not only scored the goals, but the German duo also combined to take 11 of Creighton’s 15 shots on goal. Northern Illinois senior goalkeeper Andrew Glaeser made 12 saves on the evening, which is the 2nd-most any goalkeeper in entire nation has made in a game so far this season.
“Their goalkeeper had a real, real good day, and they defended their hearts out, and they played for one another,” Creighton head coach Elmar Bolowich said. “It’s a very talented young team that they have. They have a bright future, and they made it hard. In some ways we made it hard on ourselves, too. You finish one of those early on then life’s a little bit easier.”
While agreeing that the opposing goalkeeper was on his game tonight, Pitter echoes his head coach’s thoughts that they had chances to put the game away in the first half.
“We were in control, but we made it hard on ourselves,” Pitter said. “We could have put this game away in the first 15 minutes. I had good opportunities, Fabian had good opportunities. We made it hard on ourselves, and they got confident with a tie at halftime. But we also knew we were in control, so we just needed one goal to kind of break them and luckily that happened.”
Scoring only three goals on 55 shots in their last two games might be cause for concern, but Bolowich likes where his team is at with their level of play heading into Saturday’s Big East opener at Seton Hall.
“I think you see a certain consistency in our play. I think our style is coming through,” the Creighton coach said. “A lot of things we have going in the right direction. The expectations are obviously sky high, and everybody wants a 5-0 win, but that’s not realistic. These guys come in in the afternoon, out of the classroom, and then they have to play a game at seven in the evening mid week. We travel this weekend to the east coast, and play our first conference opener, so we have to be ready for that. We just have to plug away. We gradually want to work out the kinks and try to get better, and here and there you have a setback, too. That’s just the nature of it. To play 20 games at one certain standard, not even a pro team can do that.”
One thing that stands out to Bolowich is the lack of drop off no matter who he is putting on the pitch, and getting production from a host of different players. Against Northern Illinois, it was Lucas Stauffer making the key play to break a scoreless tie. On Saturday, it was junior midfielder Ricardo Perez scoring the game-winner on his first goal of the season in the match against Tulsa. For the season, six different Bluejays have scored goals, eight different Bluejays have recorded an assist, and four different players have contributed game-winning goals.
“You can see that there is really no let down in any momentum when we make any substitution,” Bolowich said. “Tonight we didn’t start Ricky Lopez-Espin, and we still had the momentum right away. It’s not like we are struggling if we change our lineup a little bit. I’m very confident in the players that we have, the 16 or 17 that normally do play. They can do a good job, and we can throw in players at any time. [Mike Paye] wasn’t feeling well, he was sick all week, and we had to take him out after the first half, and still you see a great performance from whoever comes in and fill the void.”
Tuesday night’s win gave Bolowich the 350th win in his 27 years as a head coach, which is good for 10th among active Division 1 head coaches. It also improved the Bluejays to 7-0-0 for the fourth time in program history. Next up they face the winless Seton Hall Pirates (0-5-1) on Saturday at 12:00 p.m. (CST) in South Orange, New Jersey. The Pirates fell 4-1 at Monmouth on Tuesday night. It will be the 2015 Big East opener for both Seton Hall and Creighton.