ANN ARBOR, MICH. – It just wouldn’t be the Big Tentournament without the Northwestern softball team winning in extrainnings.
In a game in which a loss could have ended their season, theWildcats were down to their final out against Minnesota before atwo-out single in the bottom of the seventh inning extended thequarterfinal contest.
The fourth seeded Cats (32-17, 13-8 Big Ten) circled the wagonsand pulled out a 5-2 victory over fifth-seeded Minnesota (33-23,10-11) in eleven innings at Michigan’s Alumni Field onSaturday morning.
Third baseman Kristen Amegin hit a three-run walk off bomb overthe center field fence to allow NU to advance to a semifinalmatchup with No. 8 Michigan State (32-24, 9-12) at noon today.
With NCAA officals on hand for the conference tournament, thewin avoided a possible snub to next week’s NCAA Regionaltournament for NU. An early exit could have also meant a prematureend to the Cat’s season.
“I was little worried that if we would have lost thatgame, we would have been throwing ourselves right on thebubble,” NU coach Kate Drohan said.
Because of heavy rain on Friday, the Cats resumed their gamewith the Gophers at 8:00 a.m. this morning in the top of theseventh inning.
“I think that break kind of got us out of that rut we werein yesterday, ” Drohan said. “That wasn’t our teamout there yesterday. We played sloppy softball yesterday, fromevery aspect. I challenged them to be better than that.”
Facing a 2-0 deficit in their last at-bats early this morning,NU put two runs on the board to send the game to extra innings.Second baseman Carri Leto, who is on a 15-game hitting streak,started the charge by leading off the frame with a one-out singleup the middle.<p>
<p>After right fielder Erin Mobley’s single tocenter field, first baseman Garland Cooper grounded out toshortstop, but the hit drove in Leto from third to put the score at2-1.
Next up was clutch-hitter Amegin, who promptly found the holebetween the shortstop and third baseman with base hit to left fieldwith two outs. Mobley easily trotted home from third, and the gamewas now tied 2-2.
“Once we tied it up, we were like, ‘We’re notlosing. We’re winning. We came this far. We worked this hard.We’re not going home,'” Amegin said.
Big Ten freshman of the year Eileen Canney (18-2) struck out sixbatters and gave up two runs in eight and two-thirds innings ofwork for the victory. She has now won 11 straight decisions andhasn’t lost since March 24.
The score was knotted at 0-0 until the fifth inning when theCats ran into some trouble. After second baseman ValerieAlston’s single to center field plated left fielder LindseyErickson, pitcher Piper Marten hit a slow chopper to Canney, whocould not throw out the speeding Marten at first. Shortstop RachelKeeney scored on the play to give Minnesota a 2-0 lead.
The Cats had two great chances to score in the fourth and sixthinnings. NU loaded the bases in both innings with only one out, butleft fielder Jessica Miller and catcher J.C. Kira proceeded tostrikeout and flyout in each inning.
The sixth inning was particularly brutal for the Cats toswallow. After Miller struck out with the bases loaded and one out,Kira again appeared to pop the ball up in the infield to end theinning.
But because of miscommunication between the Keeney and thirdbaseman Tonya Mitchell, the ball dropped in the infield. Kira,however, did not run on the hit and Keeney promptly threw the ballto first to end the threat.
Kira was removed from the game after that play. First basemanJamie Dotson moved to catcher and designated player Garland Coopertook over at first.
Sophomore pitcher Courtnay Foster started the game for NU butwas replaced with one out in the third inning in favor of Canney.Foster had given up no runs and five hits before being pulled, andDrohan declined to comment on the move.
It took over 19 hours to complete the game for the Cats afterthe first pitch of the contest was delivered at approximately 2:45p.m. Friday.
