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There haven’t been many highlights for Northwestern’s baseball team this season, but Wednesday night could make up for a lot of the disappointment.
The Wildcats (9-23) defeated Notre Dame (20-13) at U.S. Cellular Field 5-1, behind Eric Jokisch’s strong arm and clutch hitting.
“I can't tell you how proud I am of this team," NU head coach Paul Stevens told reporters following the win. "They've battled all year and have faced a lot of adversity. Today that persistence paid off.”
Unfortunately, it was difficult to see. Despite playing at the major league park, the game was not picked as a featured contest for the Big Ten Network. That’s probably because the network felt Northwestern would be overmatched by the hard hitting Irish.
Not to fear though. The Northwestern News Network chose to cover the game live on their Web site, streaming the feed over the internet.
But that stream failed to meet expectations. I have one of the fastest laptops available, and the stream locked up to the point where I couldn’t even watch anymore.
Despite that, flashes of Northwestern’s brilliant night came through.
Jokisch faced just two more than the minimum in his five innings, striking out three. He left the game with a 2-0 lead that his bullpen tried to lose for him, but managed to hold.
The sophomore pitcher is now 3-4 on the season with a 3.36 ERA.
Northwestern grabbed the lead in the first after Trevor Stevens beat out a bunt single. He then scored on a deep double to left by Chris Lashmet. The ‘Cats then added runs in the third and seventh to extend the lead to 3-0.
Jeremy Barnes put the Irish on the board with a solo home run in the Notre Dame half of the seventh, but Northwestern’s pitchers managed to avoid giving up the big inning. The Irish again almost tired the game in the eighth but a double play helped the ‘Cats to avoid any damage.
The game was then put out of reach in the top half of the ninth when Tony Vercelli smashed his second home run of the night, a two-run affair for his team-leading sixth on the year. Vercelli is now slugging .517 on the season for the Wildcats.
Northwestern faces Iowa for a three-game set starting Friday. The Hawkeyes are on a eight-game losing streak since beating Purdue in the opener of their three-game set back at the beginning of the month.
The first pitch is set for 3 p.m. for the first game and 1 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.
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