The Northwestern softball team brought the aura of Mudville to Sharon J. Drysdale Field on Sunday.
“Somewhere men are laughing,” the poem goes, “and little children shout,” but there is no joy in Evanston – the Wildcats have fallen out.
NU will sit at home during the Big Ten tournament for the second straight season after a series of tiebreakers eliminated the Cats from the playoffs.
“Obviously we’re heartbroken,” NU coach Kate Drohan said. “I don’t think this team was done playing.”
The Cats were smiling after Thursday’s doubleheader sweep of regionally ranked Illinois-Chicago. It seemed inconceivable that NU could fall short.
The Cats sat in fifth place entering their two-game weekend series against Iowa, and they could secure a spot in the six-team conference playoffs in three ways. A single win over the No. 22 Hawkeyes would give NU a slot. Otherwise, an 0-2 weekend for either Penn State or Minnesota, which both faced tournament-bound squads, would keep the Cats alive – or so NU thought.
The Cats dropped both their games to the Hawkeyes, but NU did receive the 0-2 gift from the Golden Gophers.
After hearing the Minnesota final, the NU players left the athletic complex assuming they would be making the postseason trip to Columbus, Ohio, as the sixth seed in the tournament.
But then things got a bit more complicated.
Eighth-place Illinois swept Purdue, creating a three-way tie for fifth place between the Fighting Illini, the Cats and the Lady Lions. The prevailing belief was that Illinois had already been eliminated – even the team’s own Web site had posted that “fact.”
The Big Ten’s tiebreaking procedure is complex, involving head-to-head records with the tied teams and records against the top six conference finishers.
With the Illini moving into the top six, they created a situation that required the compilation of records against seven teams, instead of just six.
After applying the revised records for the second tiebreaker, the Cats were left on the outside.
“It’s especially difficult for (the seniors),” Drohan said. “They left the stadium thinking they were going to play again in a Northwestern uniform.
“It’s hard to swallow.”
To make things even tougher for the Cats to handle, they almost avoided this ugly matter – twice – by nearly defeating Iowa in both of this weekend’s games.
Junior Lauren Schwendimann held Iowa to just three hits in Game 1, but the Hawkeyes capitalized, turning their few opportunities into four runs.
With the Cats down 4-3, Gretchen Barnes, NU’s all-time home-run leader, came to the plate with a runner on and two outs. The senior almost added another blast to her tally, but her shot to left fell just short – into an Iowa glove.
“My heart sank, as did everyone’s on the team,” Drohan said. “It was a well-hit ball and was short by about half a foot, that’s going to break anyone’s heart.”
The Cats moved on to Senior Day on Sunday crestfallen but confident.
“We talked about the look on Iowa’s face when we shook their hands (for Game 1),” Drohan said. “They were scared.”
The Cats fed off that feeling early, jumping out to a quick 3-0 lead. And despite an Iowa run in the third, NU seemed to be in complete control of the game – and headed for the postseason.
But when Brie Brown relieved Schwendimann in the fourth, the Cats’ defense disintegrated. The Hawkeyes took advantage of three infield errors and notched five runs in the bottom of the fourth.
“Brie pitched great outs,” Drohan said. “We just didn’t make the plays. That’s not something you can do on May 5.”
Bobbled groundballs and errant throws, led to six errors, matching the Cats’ total of six hits in the contest.
“I think as a team we sometimes feel the pressure,” Barnes said. “And today that’s not what we needed to do.”
The 8-3 loss took the Cats’ hands off the steering wheel for the first time all season, and the coaches and players had to sit and wait to find out their plans for the tournament weekend, which starts Thursday.
Minnesota’s loss brought temporary elation, but a call from the Big Ten office late Sunday afternoon replaced that feeling with emptiness.
“It makes me sad to think about them not taking the field together again,” Drohan said. “But I certainly appreciate and see very clearly what this team has accomplished both on and off the field.”
