Nov. 14, 2004
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ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- In a Big Ten Tournament championship match between two schools that had never won the championship, it was Michigan State claiming the school's first title Sunday afternoon in Ann Arbor, Mich., defeating Northwestern, 1-0.
With the win MSU improves to 12-6-1 while Northwestern falls to 14-5-2. The Spartans earn the conference's automatic berth to the NCAA Tournament while the Wildcats await tomorrow's 3:30 p.m. CST draw announcement televised live on ESPNews.
With two minutes remaining in the match, Kevin Earnest (Lemont, Ill./Lemont) crossed the ball into the box and sophomore Brad North (The Woodlands, Texas/The Woodlands) headed it toward the upper near post corner, but Spartan goalkeeper Jason Tillman got his hand on it to push it over the post.
"We gave everything we had today," NU head coach Tim Lenahan said. "We are disappointed but our season is not over. Tonight we'll think about this loss but tomorrow we will be celebrating Northwestern's first-ever bid into the NCAA Tournament."
With NU completely pushed up at the end of the match, the Spartans countered with a one-on-one situation that Justin Pines (Media, Pa./Strath Haven) turned away to keep the Wildcats within one. The sophomore made five saves in the match -- all of them in spectacular fashion.
Michigan State scored the match's only goal in the 57th minute. A ball played long to Jordan Gruber slipped past Pines, who could not recover in time to get back to it before Gruber put it in for a 1-0 lead.
The goal was the first allowed by Pines during the entire tournament and snapped a 308-minute shutout streak dating back to the regular-season finale with Wisconsin.
"We always talk about making plays and today they made two of them," Lenahan said.
Sophomore Gerardo Alvarez (Aurora, Ill./Marmion Academy) and junior Sammy Semwangu (Getzville, N.Y./Williamsville North) were named to the All-Tournament team.
The match was televised by CSTV and will be tape-delay broadcast at 8 p.m. CST Monday night.