Senior forward Nkem Ezurike sits on the bench at the U-M Soccer Stadium, looking out at the field she dominates. Sunday, she became the greatest goal scorer ever to play at Michigan, in the greatest era since the 1990s, on perhaps the greatest team Michigan has ever had.

It is dreary, quiet and empty, except for a groundskeeper on the field. The lights are off, the bleachers vacant. That will all change three nights later.

It wasn’t always like this, the confident dominance around the program. When Ezurike came to Ann Arbor, the rise of Michigan women’s soccer was in its infancy. There was no stadium, no field and no bench. The uniform she wears did not exist, nor the nets she hits with every goal, nor the supporting cast alongside her.

Ezurike is outside the lines of the field, so she is calm, unassuming and soft-spoken. When she is on the field, she is a terror, eager to beat anyone in the way of her journey.

“It’s really funny to me because she’s not like that at all off the field,” said freshman forward Madisson Lewis. “She’s such a jokester, and she’s always so calm. She’s a completely different person on and off the field.”

Ezurike sits here at the crossroads of two journeys: one to become the greatest goal scorer in Michigan history, the other to take the Wolverines to the top tier of women’s soccer. The first journey is over. The second? Well, that’s just getting started.

* * *

In 2008, Michigan coach Greg Ryan’s first season, assistant coach Dean Duerst called Ryan from a college showcase tournament in Canada with a message: There’s a kid up here you’re going to want to see.

Her name was Nkem Ezurike, which is Nigerian, meaning “What I have is greater than anything else.” She has lived up to that name.

“If there’s a player we need to try to get into our program as soon as we can, it would be Nkem,” Duerst said. “She also was the right fit in terms of what we call a target player.”

In Ryan’s first two years, Michigan survived on 1-0 wins and scoreless ties. The Wolverines won four games in his first season and six in his second, with just one in the Big Ten each season.

He knew there was a ceiling for his teams as long as they kept playing like that. He needed a natural goal scorer, like he had in Abby Wambach when he coached the U.S. Women’s National Team.

In his first year, Ryan asked a fellow coach how many Big Ten-caliber players he had on his roster. The answer was one. His goal was to rebuild the program, and he knew if he could nab Ezurike, that would be a start.

The coaching staff promised Ezurike an immediate role on the team — there was no adjustment period. The journey to the record started then.

“I don’t know if I ever put it in perspective of that,” said senior midfielder Meghan Toohey. “But I knew she was going to be by far one of the best forwards this program’s ever had. When she started scoring and scoring and thinking about the record, I knew for sure that she was going to beat it.”

Ezurike is quiet about her individual impact on the team, but her teammates and coaches aren’t. They know the difference between Michigan with and without her. The truth is, the Wolverines go where Ezurike takes them — from nine goals in 2010 for an NCAA Tournament appearance, to 15 goals in 2012 for a Sweet 16 berth, to 10 so far this year as Big Ten contenders.

But Ryan knew he needed more than a goal scorer. He needed a team of leaders and pure, die-hard competitors. Ezurike was that, too: when she steps inside the lines, a strange transformation happens. She goes from quiet to loud, unassuming to assertive, shy to fiery.

“She just becomes Nkem,” Ryan said. “She becomes that other Nkem that everybody loves to see on the field.”

A referee ignores contact against her, and she yells across the field to him. Another player pushes her, and she gets into the player’s face. She misses a shot, and she glares.

Why? Because they have one thing in common: they’re all in the way of Ezurike’s journey.

“In the previous years, all the seniors had that sense of urgency, like it was their last shot,” Ezurike said. “You definitely don’t understand it until you’re actually a senior. It’s kind of like desperation, that urgency to do well and end on a high.”

Three years after she first stepped onto the field as a freshman, Ezurike is on her last go-round. There is no next season, no alternative to winning now.

* * *

Ezurike’s career has not been a smooth ride. Within every striker is the pressure to score goals and carry the team every game. Ezurike needs to be a contributor, and when she’s not, it weighs on her.

“I wouldn’t say that it worried her pulling her confidence down, but it definitely challenged her,” Toohey said. “One reason Nkem is as good of a player as she is, is that she is hard on herself but doesn’t put too much pressure on herself that takes away from scoring an easy goal.”

Ezurike said the hardest time of her career was her sophomore year, when Michigan returned the bulk of its 2010 NCAA Tournament team. Ezurike, of course, expected more, perhaps a further run into the tournament.

Instead, the Wolverines took a step back: they finished just a shade over .500, won four Big Ten games and gave up three or more goals four times.

Now, in the dark stadium, the empty field seems emptier when Ezurike thinks about those moments, the moments that tested Michigan’s ability to rebuild.

“We knew we had the potential to be a really good team,” Ezurike said. “Not being able to execute, that was difficult and hard to handle. We grew from it, we learned from it and then we went on to have a good season the next year.”

Ezurike’s mother, Christie, knows her daughter. She knows how much pressure she puts on herself.

“It was really tough because (Ezurike) is sometimes too hard on herself,” Christie said. “When the team is not doing well, she gets really down. When that happened, she was disappointed. She was a little bit hard on herself, but she bounced back.”

That was not Ezurike’s last go-round.

The next year, Ezurike missed the first four games of the season to play in the U-20 World Cup for Canada in Japan. When she returned from a 13-hour time difference to a new team and a new season, she struggled. She didn’t score in the first four games — her longest drought since early in her sophomore season — and Michigan lost twice, including once in the last minute of regulation.

Ryan said he went to lunch with Ezurike and talked with her to ease her frustration. He taught her to move onto the next chance after she missed one.

In her fifth game, Ezurike scored twice to lift Michigan to a 3-0 win. She went onto score in 11 of the last 15 games, including the overtime winner in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

“Her freshman year was a great year for her,” Duerst said. “The next year was a good year. But I think last year was kind of like Nkem coming out.”

* * *

The lights are on and the stands are full now at the U-M Soccer Stadium, a far cry from when Ezurike sat there alone three days earlier. Michigan is playing Indiana to stay in contention for a Big Ten championship. None of the players are math majors, but they know this: there are 33 points possible in Big Ten play, and they have already lost five of them.

Ezurike knows this, too, so when she misses a shot high in the first minute, then again in the 12th minute, then wide right in the 14th and wide left in the 21st, she grows more and more impatient.

In the second half, with the game still scoreless, Ezurike battles with an opponent in the box and gets called for a foul. The competitiveness in her simmers, and she yells a few words to the referee.

But this is a different Ezurike than the one from three years ago, so Michigan is a different team. The 18-year-old Ezurike might have kept talking and been given a yellow card. The young Michigan team might have fired shots wide and high until the stadium lights went off, falling to yet another 0-0 tie.

Instead, Ezurike says her words, then roams around the final third for a few moments. These moments make careers, when players are struggling and still find a way to help their team win.

She stands in one spot, catching her breath and checking her emotions. Then she cuts inside, looking for a pass that can bring her one step closer to finishing one journey and continuing the other.

* * *

As with all questions about herself, Ezurike is mum when talking about the record.

She’s scored so many times on this field, but she hesitates to talk about them. The other players start to mill around, trickling into the stadium. Ezurike starts to credit them.

But the stats show Ezurike’s impact: last season, the Wolverines won eight of 11 games in which she scored and only four of eight in which she didn’t.

Sunday, Ezurike scored twice to break the record.

Ezurike claimed last week that she wouldn’t celebrate any differently than any other goal, but it was clear she knew what it meant. After the record-setting goal, she received a hug from almost everyone else on the field with a joyful smile. When the game ended, she went over to the opposite side of the field, where her mother, Christie, awaited after making the trip from Nova Scotia.

Ezurike insisted last week that she wouldn’t get swept up in the emotion, but she did.

“I think it would mean a lot to Nkem to achieve (the record),” Ryan said last week. “She’s such a humble person that she will be the last to mention it. The way she plays, she’s in the limelight, but that’s not who Nkem is. I think it’s one of those things that she’ll be very quietly proud of for the rest of her life.”

Mother and daughter met again later, and Christie beamed with pride. She knew how much went into that moment — all the hours of work, the frustration on the field, the phone calls home, the talks with Ryan, every one of those 45 goals and even a 1,000-mile trip from Lower Sackville, N.S.

“She’s a great daughter,” Christie said with a proud smile. “When she comes home, you know she’s home because everything will be taken care of.”

Every one of her 45 career goals has added something to the Wolverines’ program. Her 46th will, too, as will her 47th. It may be her goal that clinches Michigan’s first Big Ten championship ever, or her goal that moves the Wolverines along in the NCAA Tournament.

The numbers, at that point, are irrelevant. Ezurike is chasing history, but not the number 44.