[media-credit name=’GREGORY DIXON/Herald photo’ align=’alignnone’ width=’648′][/media-credit]Marcus McCarty, George Josten, Andrew Weidman, Bobby Warshaw. What do all these soccer players have in common?

For one thing, they all happen to be leading their respective teams in points this season (Marquette, Gonzaga, California and Stanford, respectively). But that’s not all they share.

Each player also has the dubious distinction of being shut out by the same person when they played Wisconsin — senior defender B.J. Goodman.

“B.J. sees what kind of strengths he can bring to a four back system like we have in terms of helping us get forward in the attack, but he’s also quick enough, fast enough and athletic enough to deal with some pretty tricky forwards,” Wisconsin head coach Jeff Rohrman said.

Goodman, however, was quick to distribute the credit for some of those performances to the rest of his defensive line and goalkeeper.

“Any one of us could have been the one to make the plays that I did. It was definitely a team effort back there,” Goodman said.

Many of the unconventional strengths that Rohrman attributes to the defender can be traced back to his pre-collegiate playing days when he racked up 208 career points en route to earning all-state honors each of his four years at Detroit County Day School.

“Back then, I was mostly an attacking player, something that I have been able to use to my advantage here (at Wisconsin) because I can make an impact on the offensive half of the field as well as on the defensive side,” Goodman said.

The transition to defense didn’t actually happen until last spring, when the speedy midfielder was called upon to add another dimension to the back line after it lost its two best playmakers to graduation.

Normally a coach brings on that kind of position change. In his case, however, Goodman was actually the instigator in his move from being someone looking for the back of the net to someone protecting it.

“Last year, B.J. saw that some of the skill he has could be used in that back line,” Rohrman said. “But even from a defensive position, he is certainly more than able to help up in the midfield, where he brings the kind of energy and athleticism that we really need.”

The versatility that Goodman brings to the team was on full display Saturday, as he actually started the game at midfield, a move that looks to be in place for the remainder of the year.

It didn’t take long for the move to pay off, as the Badgers scored in their quickest goal of the year, just 54 seconds into the game. Then they followed that score up with another one just five minutes later.

“Goodman and (senior midfielder) Erik Ortega certainly brought a lot of energy right from the beginning in the midfield,” Rohrman said. “The pressure they were able to bring made Penn State play faster and create turnovers. Their play was one of the main reasons we were able to get that early lead in addition to enabling us to get back into it after we gave up a couple of goals.”

Even though Goodman’s time on the back line seems to have come to an end with only three remaining regular season games on the schedule, he does still have a couple of defensive performances to hang his hat on, most notably the shutout of Josten.

“For most of our games, we don’t necessarily focus specifically on one particular player,” fellow senior captain Nick Carronna said. “But for that Gonzaga game, we definitely kept an eye on [Josten] at all times because we knew what kind of player he was.”

What kind of player attracts that kind of attention in a game that, as Carronna said it, “anyone on the field” can score? The kind of player that is named to the annual Hermann Trophy watch list, the college soccer equivalent of the Heisman Trophy.

With only nine forwards on the list at the beginning of the season, clearly Josten more than warranted the pressure he received — and then crumbled under — thanks in large part to the two senior backs.

With only three games left before the team heads to East Lansing for the Big Ten Tournament, Wisconsin’s opponents had better hope that Goodman’s move to the midfield doesn’t reignite the offensive flare he still possesses, transforming him back into the kind of player he normally would spend the game trying to shut down.