Baseball

Senior shortstop Jon Mikrut began Tuesday batting .214, more than 80 points below his career average. But after a 5-for-7 performance from the plate, Mikrut improved his average by 24 points and got two batters worth of work on the mound while leading the Wildcats to an 18-6 win over Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

NU (18-17) racked up 24 hits, including five from both Mikrut and junior catcher Pat McMahon, and four from freshman center fielder Aaron Newman. The Wildcats had lost four of their previous five.

“We haven’t played a lot of mid-week games, and we need to start focusing on those a little more to continue to get us to swing the bat,” Stevens said.

The team also got a strong outing from sophomore pitcher Andrew Smith (2-4), who pitched six innings, allowing one run and four hits.

“This is something we needed to see from Smitty,” coach Paul Stevens said. “He had a rough night on Friday, and we just needed Andrew to go out and get comfortable again on the hill and do the things that we know he’s capable of doing. Obviously he threw six pretty good innings against a pretty good offensive team.”

Friday, Smith gave up eight runs in three innings of work but got the no decision.

“After my bad outing on Friday I wanted to get out quick today, ” Smith said. “I came out to work on a few mechanics. I threw strikes and got guys out. It felt good.”

In the top of the fifth inning, after a Wisconsin-Milwaukee (17-19) home run tied the score at one, the Panthers put runners on first and second with one out.

With the count at 1-1, McMahon threw out a runner attempting to steal third. The batter popped out the next pitch, ending the threat.

“(McMahon has) been phenomenal defensively,” Stevens said. “I don’t think you could ask anything more of him. He’s a young man that’s done everything that we could possibly ask him to do all year.”

The Cats responded with three runs in the bottom of the fifth, putting NU up for good.

Mikrut started the inning off with one of his three singles. He also had a double and a triple in the game while driving in four runs.

“It’s good to see,” Stevens said. “He and I had a long talk about the second half. It’s not what you’ve done to this point, it’s how you finish it. We’re hoping he can get there and do what he did today because we definitely need his bat in order to make some noise.”

Mikrut said the mid-week game gave him the chance to work on mechanics.

“Mid-week games are time to work on things, and coach helped me out before the game by adjusting my swing,” Mikrut said. “I was trying to be more patient at the plate and it paid off.”

He began the ninth inning on the mound, and after giving up a single he got the second batter to pop out and was replaced and sent back to shortstop.

Last season Mikrut pitched in 17 games and was 2-2 with a 5.06 ERA and five saves.

“I haven’t been out there all year,” Mikrut said. “It felt good to go out and work my arm. I kind of wanted to stay in, but coach was watching my arm.”

The mid-week game also allowed Stevens to get players in the lineup that normally don’t get the opportunity. Stevens used 13 position players and five pitchers, including four in the final three innings

“You have to see some of these guys sometime,” Stevens said. “We get to play some of the guys that don’t get to play a little bit. I’d like to play them a little bit more, but this is a big weekend. I really needed to get a lot of the guys that have been playing a few more at-bats to start getting their confidence.”

With his 5-for-6 performance, McMahon improved his league-leading batting average to .435, 17 points higher than the conference’s next best hitter.

“I’m not even commenting on him,” Stevens said. “I’m not saying one single word. I’m staying away from that.”

Reach Abe Rakov at [email protected].