In the heart of the Big Ten season, a sloppy win snagged despite poor pitching or mental mistakes counts just as much as a flawlessly played 1-0 shutout.
But early-season tournament tune-ups are another matter for the Northwestern baseball team (5-3), which came away from the Rawlings/Oakland A’s Spring Training Tournament in Phoenix this weekend with both a championship and some disappointment.
“We would have liked to come back 4-1, 5-0 – like we probably should have,” NU pitcher Mike Nall said. “We have the talent where we should have gone in and swept the weekend.”
The Wildcats instead brought home a 3-1 record from the six-team round-robin tournament and a 3-2 mark for the weekend.
Most disappointing, in the tournament-clinching 5-3 win over Northern Iowa (1-3) Sunday morning, NU kept the game unnecessarily close by handing out three unearned runs on five errors.
“It was an ugly game,” Nall said. “(Pitcher Gabe Ribas) had to battle through a lot of errors and mental mistakes on the field. But it was a big win because it ended up getting us the title.”
Ribas threw 6 2/3 innings, striking out eight and walking none. But NU’s fourth strong pitching performance of the weekend was dwarfed by an unusually shaky defense.
Against Northern Iowa, the Cats booted the ball around the infield more often than they did in the weekend’s other four games combined.
“That was pretty uncharacteristic,” rightfielder Brandon Ackley said. “We haven’t had many errors at all this year, which is surprising since we had been practicing in the indoor turf room. Usually when you start out, you’re pretty error prone, but all of our games have been low scoring and our defense has been the crux of the team.”
NU entered the final game of the tournament riding the momentum of a 5-4 victory over Kansas (6-1) and a 3-0 shutout of St. Mary’s (5-8) in a doubleheader Saturday. But the Cats dropped the first game of the tournament on Friday, a 3-2 loss to the University of the Pacific (7-6) that was decided in the bottom of the ninth.
Kansas also had a 3-1 record after the final game of the tournament, but NU’s win over the Jayhawks on Saturday dealt the Cats the tournament title.
NU then played an extra game against St. Mary’s on Sunday afternoon. The rematch provided freshman Dan Konecny with his first start of the season, but the combination of freshman jitters on the mound and weekend burnout at the plate left NU with a 5-3 loss and the 3-2 record.
The consecutive doubleheaders – resulting in five games in three days – gave the Cats a preview of the upcoming Big Ten grind.
When the conference season starts March 30 against Illinois, NU will regularly play four games every weekend.
“I’m not trying to make excuses, but with all the games adding up in a short amount of time, we were probably getting tired,” said second baseman Eric Roeder, who had seven RBIs this weekend. “On Sunday, we were thinking about coming home, worrying about other things we had to do.”
But while the weekend left the Cats questioning their stamina, it also gave them new confidence in their pitching staff.
NU now has five hurlers with an ERA less than 2.63, and both Nall and junior Ryan Bos picked up their first wins of the season in a bid to join the starting rotation behind Ribas and junior Zach Schara.
“I think coming into the year everybody was very worried because our pitching is not very deep, as far as numbers,” Ackley said. “But I’ve been really impressed with how our pitchers have come out and shut other teams out. Each game you can tell we’re taking huge steps.”
