Lindsey Curnock was a late bloomer when it came to goalkeeping.

The sophomore, who is the reigning women’s soccer MAC Player of the Week and all-time leader in career shutouts at NIU, currently has 228 consecutive minutes without allowing a goal with five shutouts on the season.

Curnock, who has been playing soccer since she was 5, sort of stumbled into the net in middle school.

She was also involved in gymnastics growing up, but stuck with soccer after joining a traveling team.

“In middle school they needed someone to step in the goal for practice and I did and I ended up being kind of good at it,” Curnock said. “I didn’t start playing goalkeeper full-time until my freshman year of high school.”

Curnock had a lot of growing to do when it came to playing goalkeeper. Not only did she have to develop skill-wise, but she also had to develop the personality for the position.

“Honestly, some of the qualities I have don’t exactly make a good goalkeeper,” Curnock said. “Most of the time, goalkeepers are loud, obnoxious and crazy. I’ve kind of had to learn to be like that.”

She explained it is the goalkeeper’s responsibility to direct the defense. She said the goalkeeper is in charge and has to be an aggressive leader.

Coming into NIU with just a basic knowledge of the position, Curnock was surprised to set the shutout mark so soon in her career. She does not hesitate, however, to share her accomplishment with her teammates.

“I was really surprised that the career shutout number was so low (8), but you’ve got to look back at the teams before and they weren’t as successful as us,” Curnock said. “I really think we have such a good team. It’s my name on there, but really our whole team is just much better than the past teams.”

Getting Tournament Ready

NIU (6-5-4, 3-3-2) looks to continue that scoreless streak heading into the final home stand of the regular season. The Huskies host Central Michigan (7-8-0, 3-5-0) today at 3 p.m. and face third-place Eastern Michigan (6-5-4, 4-2-2) at 11 a.m. Sunday.

“Coming into this last weekend, I think it’s a big weekend for all of the teams in the MAC. The standings are so even and we’ve got to come out and play the best we can play,” said head coach Marci Miller-Jobson. “Eastern Michigan is scoring a lot of goals this year so we’re going to have to defend very well and put away our chances.”

Five Huskies will be honored for Senior Day before Sunday’s match. Michelle Christian, Elaine Eliadis, Karen Enockson, Marisa Oriente and Katie Sturges will receive recognition.

“It’s a great day and great game to celebrate what our seniors have done here at NIU,” Miller-Jobson said. “It’s going to be a bittersweet day and it’s a game I hope we go out and really play for our seniors.”