The Sarasota, Fla., Park District gave new meaning to enforcing curfew when it cleared out the ballpark in the middle of one of the Northwestern baseball team’s nonconference games last week.
After waiting out a rain delay and relocating to a new field, NU (10-12) and the University of Vermont found themselves in the ninth inning of a tied baseball game at 11 p.m. – just when an automatic timer kicked in and the lights shut off.
The game resumed three days and two NU losses later. And after enduring the downpour, the darkness, a 72-hour ninth-inning stretch and a whole morning of warmups, the Wildcats played about 20 minutes of baseball before giving up a solo home run in the bottom of the 10th for the loss.
“For about half an hour after the game, we were walking around with our jaws down,” pitcher Mike Nall said. “The whole situation was nerve-wracking. We hadn’t won in a couple of days, and it was getting a little bit weird.”
The Cats then returned to their hotel, regrouped and rebounded to beat Harvard that night behind Nall’s one-hitter.
“We’ve gone through more adversity in the early season than we’ve gone through in previous years,” Nall said. “We’ve had some injuries and then that was a weird scene.”
But Nall’s performance – what he considers to be the best outing of his NU career – illustrates a strength coach Paul Stevens is counting on with the conference season just around the corner.
Although his team’s sub-.500 record contrasts sharply with last year’s 13-6 start, Stevens exudes confidence.
With only one early-season tune-up remaining before the Big Ten schedule starts this weekend, he insists that the adversity has better prepared his squad.
“Our record right now is not exactly stellar, but I’m not worried about that at the moment,” Stevens said. “We’ve had great starts in the past and not done anything in the Big Ten. But these guys are all capable of dealing with things.”
The Cats face Wisconsin-Parkside (13-8) this afternoon in their home opener before heading to Champaign this weekend to play a four-game series against Illinois.
The game will be NU’s last chance to work through the kinks – namely a bruised elbow, a few hamstring pulls and a mess of growing pains on the field – before the contests start counting toward the postseason.
Three of the Cats’ upperclassmen were injured this spring. Senior Wes Robinson should return to the field this weekend after hurting his elbow, and juniors Steve Haake and Todd Morgan are recovering from hamstring pulls.
In addition, the Cats will be trotting out a very young lineup in Rocky Miller Park, having lost four of last year’s starters. And Stevens isn’t just hiding the newcomers – and their errors – in left field.
Rightfielder David Gresky will be batting in the three-hole. The freshman, one of six underclassmen who could take the field today, has hit better than .300 through the first month of the season. And sophomore shortstop Ken Padgett, a converted catcher, anchors the defense up the middle.
“We’ve moved some people around and put them in spots that they’ve never been in before,” Stevens said. “(Padgett) has gotten a lot more comfortable. Not that I believe he’s Mark Loretta yet, but he’s a kid who’s capable of making routine plays.”
The moves, just as much as the youth and injuries, have dealt the Cats some additional hurdles to clear.
Nall, last year’s closer, has stepped up to the challenge and evolved into one of the team’s most reliable starters.
A strong pitching staff, built around Nall, Ryan Bos – today’s probable starter – and returning starters Zach Schara and Gabe Ribas should help offset the defensive miscues and the mental lapses of youth.
Anything else that comes along shouldn’t come as too much of a shock.
“We’re a pretty closely-knit group, which is good because a couple of more strange things will probably happen,” Nall said.
