No. 18 Penn State Continues B1G Road Trip at Northwestern
Nittany Lions look to return to win column in Sunday showdown on the banks of Lake Michigan
#18 Penn State at Northwestern
5-4-2 | 1-2-1 B1G
4-1-6 | 0-0-4 B1G
EVANSTON, Ill. – No. 18 Penn State women's soccer wraps up its weekend swing through the state of Illinois this Sunday, September 28, as the Nittany Lions prepare to square off against the Northwestern Wildcats in a 2 p.m. (ET) kick from Northwestern Medicine Field at Martin Stadium. The match will stream live to a worldwide audience of authenticated subscribers via B1G+ and the B1G+ app.
Follow the Action
For fans of the Nittany Lions unable to attend Sunday afternoon’s Big Ten Conference matchup in Evanston, the Nittany Lions’ contest against the Wildcats will stream live to a worldwide audience of authenticated subscribers via B1G+ and the B1G+ app on connected devices. Click the link here to be redirected to the live stream of the broadcast and sign in with credentials for access. Live stats provided by the Northwestern University and StatBroadcast are available here.
KICKIN’ IT
In a raucous back-and-forth affair from Champaign, Illinois, Penn State dropped a 4-3 decision to the Illinois Fighting Illini on Thursday night, September 25. The final statistics told a wildly different story than the final score would indicate, with Penn State dominating the run of play throughout. The Nittany Lions racked up an eye-popping 18 total shots with a team season-high 13 shots on goal, surpassing the previous high of 10 set against Saint Louis in the second match of the year. PSU secured an additional statistical win in the corner kick competition, amassing seven corners against four allowed for the Fighting Illini. Penn State’s attack was led by a trio of goal scorers, including sophomore forward Aubrey Kulpa, senior midfielder Olivia Borgen and graduate forward Kaitlyn MacBean.
Kulpa, a native of Cromwell, Connecticut, found the back of the net for a Big Ten-best eighth time on Thursday, marking her first tally since potting her first B1G goal of the league slate against Maryland on September 11. The Hanson, Massachusetts, native Borgen celebrated her first goal in the Blue & White this season in addition to her first score since logging the match-winner on the road at Princeton on September 5, 2024. MacBean, meanwhile, continued her torrid stretch in conference action with her fifth goal in four league fixtures, finding the back of the net for the sixth time in her final collegiate season. In the passing game, Penn State saw a quartet of student-athletes record a helper, with redshirt senior midfielder Julia Raich logging an assist in her second-straight match, while freshmen Riley Cross and Hannah Jordan, as well as junior defender Kaelyn Wolfe mustered one-point outings of their own.
THE PEOPLE’S KICKER: MANAGER CARSON ALBRIGHT ON COLLEGE GAMEDAY
Penn State’s women’s soccer program gained national attention during Saturday morning’s broadcast of College GameDay from Old Main Lawn on the PSU campus, as freshman student manager Carson Albright was selected to participate in the Pat McAfee Kicking Contest. Albright, younger brother of graduate student manager Zach Albright, drilled the kick before a national television audience on ESPN, splitting the $300,000 prize winnings with a friend who invited him to attempt the kick on set.
The People’s Kicker.
— Penn State Women’s Soccer (@PennStateWSOC) September 27, 2025
Shoutout to Penn State women’s soccer freshman manager Carson Albright for an absolutely GENERATIONAL kick in Pat McAfee’s Kicking Contest this morning on College GameDay🏈#WeAre | #PSWS
🎥: ESPN/College GameDay pic.twitter.com/hKl0rDmCKR
Next Up: Northwestern
WATCHING THE WILDCATS
Under the direction of head coach Michael Moynihan in his 14th season with the Wildcats, Northwestern enters the weekend battle boasting a 4-1-6 overall record coupled with an 0-0-4 start to Big Ten Conference competition. In one of the more fascinating starts to conference play in recent program history, the Wildcats enter Sunday's matchup coming off four consecutive ties in conference play. Northwestern opened the league slate with back-to-back 1-1 road results against Iowa and Washington before registering consecutive scoreless draws against Oregon and then-No. 23 Ohio State most recently on Thursday, September 25. The pairing of Alex Fallon and Kennedy Roesch are off to strong seven-point starts through the early going this season, with Fallon boasting two goals and three assists while Roesch owns three tallies and a lone helper on the campaign. Between the pipes, Nyamma Nelson has played all but 19 minutes and has mustered an .876 save percentage with 38 stops in 2025.
STORY OF THE SERIES
Penn State and Northwestern prepare to square off in women's soccer for the 36th time in program history this weekend in Evanston, with the Nittany Lions boasting a decisive 29-5-1 overall record coupled with an 11-3-1 record in matches played on the campus of Northwestern University. The Blue & White are unbeaten against the Wildcats in each of the last three meetings, with Penn State booking a pair of wins and a draw against Northwestern dating to the last NU win in Happy Valley on September 23, 2021, a 2-1 final score. In Evanston, PSU is unbeaten in each of the last two fixtures taking place in the spring of 2021 and fall of 2023. Northwestern's last win at Martin Stadium over the Nittany Lions came on September 20, 2018, a 1-0 finish. Last year's meeting on Jeffrey Field saw the Nittany Lions publish a 1-0 win thanks to another highlight-reel tally from forward Kaitlyn MacBean, who notched her 10th goal of the year a season ago in the win over the Wildcats. MacBean's score in the 49th minute of play marked her fourth match-winning goal of the 2024 season, a statistic she would eventually rank seventh nationally in with six result-clinching scores.
Follow the Nittany Lions
Visit GoPSUSports.com for more information on Penn State women’s soccer. Fans can keep up to date with the Nittany Lion women’s soccer team on X and Instagram @PennStateWSOC, in addition to the team’s Facebook page at /PSUWomensSoccer.
The 2025 Penn State women's soccer season is presented by Highmark.