Northwestern fell to Ohio State 6-2 to in game three and dropped the series 2-1 in a hard-fought series. Both games came down to the final two innings, and the Cats let both contests slip away in the final innings.Credit the Buckeyes for mustering late inning runs, Northwestern hung tough in both games but couldn’t quite get it done.

Game two was Senior Day for Northwestern. The five seniors, Jack Havey, Zach Morton, Trevor Stevens, Luke Farrell, and Colby Everett were honored before the game. All five seniors have accomplished much during their phenomenal careers at Northwestern, and have turned in solid performances this season.

Game two was tied 3-3 heading into the top of the ninth. The closer, Kyle Ruchim, took the mound and issued a leadoff walk, then fanned the next batter. The next batter roped a single through the left side of the infield, which the sprawling Trevor Stevens couldn’t corral. After a Buckeye stole second, the scenario was a runner on 2^nd and third, 1 out. Buckeyes’ Aaron Gretz smashed the ball to second which Zach Morton was unable to haul in as the ball trickled to the outfield, allowing two Buckeye runs to cross the plate to make it 5-3.

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Saturday was a great day to play baseball in Evanston and the Wildcats made the most of it. Northwestern blanked the favored Ohio State 8-0 thanks to a phenomenal 2 hitter, 8 k, no earned-run performance from senior Luke Farrell on the mound to take the first game of the three game set. The Wildcat bats scorched the undefeated pitcher Buckeye pitcher Brad Goldberg with 7 runs off 8 hits, tallying 13 hits for the contest.

After the game, Farrell delved into what was working for him today: “My control was there, and I was able to throw my fastball on both sides of the plate. Their lineup had a little bit of trouble with that and it kept them off balance- especially the left-handers, being able to come inside on them.  I threw my slider for a lot of strikes and got a lot of batters swinging and missing. And hey, there’s no pressure when you’re up 8 runs.”

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Northwestern dropped a tough one by the score of 5-2 at home against Western Michigan on Wednesday afternoon. The Wildcats couldn’t muster anything offensively, and squandered   their few opportunities to put extra runs on the board in the fourth, sixth and seventh innings. ’The Cats’ had numerous fly outs and couldn’t quite figure out Bronco hurler Will Nimke until the sixth inning , before being relieved of his duties in the seventh.

The Broncos jumped on the board right off the bat, scoring the first run of the game in the first inning off Northwestern’s Matt Portland. Western Michigan would tack on 2 more runs by the bottom of the fourth inning to make it 3-0 heading into the bottom of the fourth.

Before the bottom half of the fourth, the Broncos had 7 hits while the Cats’ hadn’t registered a hit all afternoon up until that point. Kyle Ruchim stepped up to the plate and hit a leadoff single off the pitcher who bobbled the ball at the mound.

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The Wildcats pulled out a hard-earned victory against an inferior opponent in Chicago State on Tuesday afternoon, defeating the Cougars 3-1. The Cougars came into Rocky Miller Park a lowly opponent with a record of (6-31) Northwestern utilized a 3 hit, 3 run fourth inning by swaying the momentum in their favor and never looking back.

Southpaw freshman hurler Reed Mason showed his “Cali swagger” on the mound, tossing four innings of solid baseball for the Wildcats. Mason fanned 5 Cougars out of the 16 he faced, which equivocates to more then a quarter of the batters, and he only gave up one run.

Chicago State got on the board first in the second inning. Northwestern had two errors to allow Cougar runners to get on base. The damage could have been two runs but Trevor Stevens made a heads up play seeing a Cougar trying to cross the plate for the 2nd run. Stevens gunned him out at home from short to lessen the damage to only 1 run.

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It was quite the weekend for Northwestern sports, particularly the NU women. We’ll run through everything — including our weekly softball coverage — here.

Softball

After sweeping Penn State in State College the previous weekend, Northwestern swept Purdue to improve to 28-18 overall and 12-7 in the Big Ten. The Wildcats used a combination of timely offense and solid pitching to take down the Boilermakers as the regular season starts to wrap up.

Game 1: Northwestern 6, Purdue 4

InsideNU Player of the Game: Kristin Scharkey
Doug Meffley Weather Report: Simply, stunningly delightful
Box score

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Winning is never easy in the game of golf, but that long, agonizing wait for that maiden first place finish makes victory all the more satisfying.

Northwestern felt the brighter side of this concept Sunday. In French Lick, Ind., the Wildcats captured their first ever Big Ten Championships title, finishing the tournament as co-champions with Purdue. This was after a long history of futility in the event for NU, as the team failed to take home the Big Ten crown in its first 31 tries.

The win served as another first as well: the opening victory of coach Emily Fletcher’s tenure at the university. Fletcher came to NU in 2007 and had been able to get the team close to that elusive first win, but came up with sixth third place finishes and a single runner-up showing instead.

That all changed on Sunday, as Fletcher not only earned her first win, she got it at one of the most important tournaments of the entire season.

It was a satisfying performance in many ways. The Wildcats won by the hardest method possible, grabbing the lead from the begin and fighting not to relinquish it from there. The team was six shots ahead after day one, kept it at five after the second round and, despite a hard-charging Purdue squad, held on just enough to finish in a tie with the Boilermakers at the end.

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After dropping game two of the doubleheader on Sunday afternoon, the Northwestern Wildcats won the series against the Michigan Wolverines in epic fashion, taking game three in a thriller.

The televised doubleheader on the Big Ten Network lived up to the billing. But game one of the doubleheader was the “Evan Hill” show for the Michigan Wolverines. The freshman southpaw stifled the Wildcats, blanking them 5-0, hurling 7 innings of shutout baseball, surrendering only 4 hits, and giving up only 3 walks, 2 strikeouts on 83 tosses. With the win, Hill improves his record to an outstanding 7-1 and his era to an astounding 1.52.

Sophomore Brandon Magallones pitched a pretty solid game, tossing a complete game. Even though he gave up 5 runs on 9 hits the box score didn’t do him justice. But in the third inning with 2 on, Travis Maezes raked a liner into right field. Wildcat right fielder Walker Moses bobbled the ball, and it rolled to the fence, causing a rare inside the park home run to put the Wolverines up 3-0, which was the turning point of the game.

The Wildcats’ lone opportunity to make the contest a ballgame came in the bottom of the sixth. With Michigan up 4-0, The Wildcats had the bases loaded with 1 out as pinch hitter Scott Halen came to the plate. But as Hill did all day, he caused Heelan to ground into the inning-ending double play. Hill’s movement gave the Wildcat batters fits and caused numerous groundball outs. After the Wildcats squandered their only opportunity, the Wolverines held the Wildcats scoreless the rest of the way, while adding an insurance run in the ninth, to take game two of the series 5-0.

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