For the Northwestern baseball team, the 2003 season will beviewed as a year full of surprises.

The Wildcats graduated their three top starting pitchers butonly one other starter from 2002. So it came as a surprise thisseason when NU’s bats were held at bay, and the young pitchingstaff was forced to carry the team.

But compared to last year’s Cinderella Big Ten tournament run,the No. 5-seed Cats went two-and-out this year.

The Cats were strongest at the beginning of the season, tallyinga 6-2 nonconference record — NU’s best start in 16 years.

And a sunny April weekend marked the first time in five yearsthat NU swept a conference foe, taking four from Illinois on April25-27.

Capping off their winning season (25-25, 15-14 Big Ten), theCats secured a tournament berth before their last regular-seasonseries — a far cry from last season’s clawing to sixth place.

But this NU team, which coach Paul Stevens has repeatedlydescribed as “blue-collar,” could have done more.

While the Cats notched early season wins against ranked teamslike Missouri and Southern Mississippi, and enjoyed a six-gameconference winning streak in April, they ran out of gas in mid-May.NU finished 2-6 in its last eight contests.

The preseason polls picked the Cats to finish at the bottom ofthe conference, but the NU players didn’t quite live up to theirown standards finishing fifth place in the Big Ten.

“We were pissed,” senior Travis Tharp said. “We could have doneso much better.”

A number of losses could have gone the Cats’ way, had theyexecuted timely hitting and left fewer runners on base.

For the second consecutive season, NU finished dead last inconference batting average, tallying a .267 mark, down from .273last year. Only two NU starters hit above the .300 mark –sophomore shortstop Jon Mikrut (.317) and junior center fielderDavid Gresky (.313).

Notably, the batting averages of the four starting seniors wentdown this season compared to 2002, while most of the youngerplayers improved. But the seniors’ numbers didn’t take a dive untillate in the year. In fact, seniors Eric Roeder and Ken Padgett eachpicked up a Big Ten Player of the Week award in February.

But the Cats’ pitching staff made up for whatever the offensewas lacking. Written off by critics in the preseason as weak, theNU pitchers notched the second-best conference ERA at 3.99.

Junior Dan Konecny served as the Cats’ ace, finishing the seasonwith a team-best 3.24 ERA and a conference Pitcher of the Weekaward to his name. In the No. 2 spot, sophomore J.A. Happ had a3.58 ERA, and freshmen Dan Brauer and Mark Ori made a smoothtransition to the collegiate level, filling in the last twospots.

Happ earned conference Pitcher of the Week honors three timesand once nabbed the national award after striking out a career-high16 Hawkeyes — en route to 94 for the season — as NU beat Iowa 6-1in early May.

Finishing sixth in Big Ten fielding percentage, the Cats managedto decrease their total number of errors from 95 last season to 63miscues in 2003.

Padgett not only broke a personal record, but also a schoolrecord. The starting catcher took his 32nd hit-by-pitch on May 13against Western Michigan, making him No. 1 on NU’s career-beaninglist.

Unfortunately, hit-by-pitches don’t automatically translate intowins.

“We exceeded a lot of people’s expectations, but still came upshort of our own,” Konecny said. “I think we lost the chip on ourshoulder early, like at the beginning of the conference season whenwe beat Ohio State.”