Northwestern coach Paul Stevens has thrown his youngest players into prominent roles on this year’s team knowing that their inexperience could cost the Wildcats close – and sometimes critical – games. But in a crucial weekend series at Michigan State, it was those freshmen who turned in the dazzling performances, earning NU a split in a four-game series in East Lansing, Mich.
The Cats (17-24, 6-10 Big Ten) won the first and third games of the series at Kobs Field to remain in seventh place in the conference, one game behind Illinois and one game ahead of Iowa. The top six teams make the postseason tournament, and NU still has to play fourth-place Penn State in two weeks and league-leading Minnesota in Minneapolis on the final weekend of the regular season.
NU will take another midweek break from its conference schedule today, facing Chicago State for the first time after last week’s game was rained out.
Freshman leftfielder Jason Krynski had one home run entering the weekend in East Lansing, but hit three more in the four games, including a grand slam in an 11-5 victory in the second game of Saturday’s doubleheader. Reliever and fellow freshman Dan Konecny pitched 2 1/3 perfect innings to earn his second save in NU’s 8-4 series-opening victory, and freshman outfielder David Gresky homered in the second game and had a run-scoring double in the third game.
“Last time I saw, the freshmen stopped being freshmen in fall ball,” Stevens said. “They’re part of a team.”
For NU – which kept its tournament hopes alive last weekend by taking three of four from Indiana – the series was an important one against a mediocre opponent. The Cats needed a series sweep to gain sole possession of sixth place in the conference, but a split is not what Stevens was looking for.
“You don’t gain any ground, you don’t lose any ground,” Stevens said. “I’m not going to smile about two losses: I would’ve rather gone 3-1 or 4-0. But if we can get it all going at one time, it’s going to be interesting.”
In Friday’s series opener, NU was down 3-2 in the fifth before scoring five runs and batting around, taking a 7-3 lead into the sixth and putting the game away with a sacrifice fly in the top of the eighth. Starter Zach Schara (5-4) earned the win, going 6 2/3 innings and striking out six.
But NU fell into its old habits in the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader. There were five lead changes before the Spartans (20-20, 6-12) scored two runs in the bottom of the seventh off reliever Mike Nall to earn the walk-off victory. Nall gave up two runs on one hit, walking two and hitting a batter.
Nall went back to the mound to start the second game. The Cats quickly jumped out to a 9-0 lead and never looked back, winning 11-5.
In Sunday’s 6-2 loss, the rain came at just the wrong time for NU. The series finale was delayed with the score tied 1-1 in the fourth and starter Ryan Bos pitching his best games of the season. After the nearly two-hour delay was over, Bos gave up four runs in the bottom of the eighth as Michigan State broke open a 2-2 tie to win.
Even so, Stevens said the team remains in the playoff hunt.
“There’s a lot of things to smile about,” Stevens said. “We just have to keep emphasizing the positive and working our backsides off on the negatives.”
