BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Its weekend may have been a comedy of errors, but the Northwestern softball team was hardly left laughing.
If not for a couple of costly mistakes, the Wildcats — who won two of four games at Purdue and Indiana — could have potentially claimed their weekend contests.
Those miscues were most apparent in NU’s 5-4 loss to Indiana Sunday, when two baserunning gaffes cost the Cats victory. That followed NU’s 4-3 win over the Hoosiers Saturday.
With the Cats (17-18, 5-3 Big Ten) already down 4-0 in the first inning of Sunday’s game, Jenn Shull slammed a three-run blast to left, scoring Erin Jancic and Brooke Siebel.
Or so it seemed.
As it turned out, Siebel missed home plate, and an Indiana (13-28, 3-9) appeal resulted in the loss of both her run and Shull’s run. And suddenly Shull’s home run turned into a double.
“It doesn’t make sense, but it does happen,” coach Sharon Drysdale said. “Whether they picked it up or one of our fans yelled ‘Go back and touch!’ and alerted them, she didn’t touch home plate, so it was a good call.”
Siebel’s miscue could have been easier for the Cats to swallow if not for another error in the bottom of the seventh. Faced with a 5-2 deficit and down to their last out, Alyson Schulz rapped a bases-loaded, two-run single to center, only to have Jones — who began the play on first — thrown out at third to end the game.
That meant the Cats lost by one run, which they could have made up had the hot-hitting Gretchen Barnes — who was on-deck — knocked in Jones from second or if Siebel had touched home plate.
For the road trip overall, NU once again displayed flashes of brilliance, dominating Purdue 17-5 in a sloppy game to start a Friday doubleheader. However, NU couldn’t stop shooting itself in the foot from start to painful finish.
In Game 2 Friday, the Cats made five errors — three by shortstop Tami Jones and two by second baseman Mikie Chambers — in a 6-2 loss to the Boilermakers (26-21, 3-5).
But aside from the oddball mistakes, NU can take a couple of positives from the weekend. First and foremost was the pitching of freshman Lauren Schwendimann, who, despite going 1-2, carried the Cats.
Schwendimann pitched 13 2/3 out of a possible 14 innings Friday, then came in to save Saturday’s game with a scoreless seventh. And she went the distance in Sunday’s loss, bringing her weekend total to 21 2/3 innings.
Not only did Schwendimann pick up a victory in the first game Friday, she also picked up a save, thanks to a quirk in softball scoring.
Schwendimann pitched the first four innings of the game, at which point Drysdale brought Siebel in to pitch with a 7-1 lead. But when Siebel struggled, allowing four runs in one-third of an inning, Schwendimann returned and shut down Purdue, earning the win and the save.
“I think we got quite a bit out of Schwendimann,” Drysdale said. “I don’t think that she was as fast as she is when she pitches less. But I think that as she gets more experience, more stamina, more confidence, she will be able to pitch harder and be even more effective.”
Still, even with Schwendimann’s effort, the team can’t help feeling a game or two slipped through its fingers. The Cats are currently in the middle of the Big Ten tournament hunt, having lost the opportunity this weekend to have a big edge at 6-2 or 7-1 in the conference.
With Michigan State and No. 11 Michigan heading to Evanston next weekend, the Cats will need to erase the errors — and the memories — of this road trip.
“There were so many odd plays and momentum shifts,” Drysdale said. “This was a strange weekend.”
