Having dropped eight of its last nine games, including the first two of a four-game series against Ohio State in Bradenton, Fla., Northwestern found itself trailing once again.
With the Buckeyes leading 1-0 in the fourth inning of Game 3, NU senior Brandon Ackley hit a fly ball to deep left field to score sophomore Jon Mikrut — then the floodgates opened.
NU (9-9, 2-2 Big Ten) scored six more times and starter Mark Ori pitched a one-run complete game en route to the Wildcats’ first conference win of the 2003 campaign.
The next day, NU’s bats were even more dangerous.
Senior second baseman Eric Roeder hit a home run during a seven-run third inning and collected four RBIs to propel the Cats to a 13-4 win — good enough to earn NU a split against an Ohio State team that was picked by Baseball America to win the Big Ten.
“Going down there (to Florida) we weren’t being given very much respect,” Ori said. “Splitting with a team with that kind of reputation gives us a lot of confidence.”
In the final two games, NU battered an Ohio State pitching staff that held the Cats to one run in 16 innings during the first half of the series.
“We tried to approach the first and the third game of this series the same way,” Ori said. “We just weren’t supporting the pitching in the first two games, but then we came out strong after that.”
The two victories were a positive finale to a spring campaign that was marred by close losses and soggy weather.
Before their series with Ohio State, the Cats fell to Northeastern 2-1 and South Florida 6-2, with a 3-0 victory against Army sandwiched between the losses.
A second game against Northeastern was rained out.
“It didn’t help to be rained out,” coach Paul Stevens said. “But the Ohio State series was extremely important. That was where we had to gear ourselves towards shaking off the cobwebs that had been accumulating the two weeks we were off.”
Stevens was pleased with how his team’s Big Ten season started, especially on the defensive end.
“It was a pretty doggone even series,” Stevens said. “We had one error in four games with pretty much no experience — I’m really excited about what I saw.”
The team has much to be excited about, including the outstanding play of underclassmen Mikrut and Ori.
Mikrut is leading the team with a .431 batting average and 13 RBIs, while Ori is undefeated so far in two starts while boasting a 2.31 ERA.
“It’s a definitely a lot more competitive than being in high school,” Ori said. “You have to worry about everyone, including the seven, eight and nine hitters .”
The freshman has also made an impression with his bat — he is currently third on the team in hitting.
Just as it did against Ohio State, Ori believes that the team’s future success will depend heavily on its ability to score runs.
“Our defense is really on and our pitching has been really persistent,” he said. “But the hitting was the difference — when we score, we win, and when we don’t, we lose.”