When junior Andrew Smith forced a groundout to cap off Northwestern’s 9-8 win on Sunday, he earned his first save of the year and helped his team salvage a series split with Minnesota.
But he certainly didn’t make it easy on himself.
Smith relieved starter Julio Siberio in the sixth inning with the Wildcats leading 6-3. NU (19-27, 16-8 Big Ten) tacked on three more runs in the next two innings to extend the lead to 9-4.
Then the eighth inning came.
With one out and runners on first and second, Minnesota left fielder Mike Mee grounded a ball right to Smith. Instead of turning a double play to end the inning, Smith short-hopped Tommy Finn at second base, and all the runners were safe.
A single and a bases-clearing double later, the Golden Gophers were within one run at 9-8.
“I guess I tried to give it away there,” Smith said.
Smith forced a double play to end the threat and finished out the win for the Cats.
He said he thought coach Paul Stevens was going to pull him after giving up four runs in the eighth.
“I’ve got to give a lot of credit to Coach for having confidence in me,” Smith said. “He told me I was the guy.”
Sunday’s win over Minnesota (24-23, 11-13) gives the Cats a 10-2 record in one-run games during the conference season.
“I’ve spent a lot more money on heart medicine,” Stevens said. “The drug store knows me like the back of its hand. These kids don’t give in and they don’t give up, and that is a side of them I absolutely love.”
NU split two one-run games the day before, winning the first game of the doubleheader 1-0 and losing the second by the same score.
Junior Dan Brauer pitched a complete game in the first game, giving up only four hits. Junior George Kontos was the losing pitcher in the second game, though he only surrendered one run on two hits and struck out nine.
“They were throwing the ball as well as I’ve seen them throw it all year,” Stevens said. “We hit a lot of balls hard at people. We just didn’t find holes. It was just not our day that way.”
Brauer struck out 10 in his win, moving his Big Ten-leading strikeout total to 75.
He got out of bases-loaded jams in the first and sixth innings and changed speeds on hitters all day, mixing in curveballs and fastballs to get five strikeouts looking.
“When you get somebody to strikeout looking, you feel like you beat them,” Brauer said. “If they swung, they at least saw the pitch and might have missed it.”
Brauer also helped wake up the Cats’ bats the next day, launching a three-run shot over the scoreboard in right field to give NU a 4-0 lead in the first inning.
Left fielder Anthony Wycklendt also went deep for the Cats on Sunday, knocking a two-run homer to left field in the sixth inning to extend the lead to 8-3.
Wycklendt was 0-for-10 with five strikeouts on the series before his bomb.
“It was a long weekend,” he said. “I got a good pitch, stayed with it and got the job done that time.”
The Cats scored four runs in the first three games of the series before putting across nine on Sunday.
“(Rocky Miller Park) is a bear to hit in when the wind is blowing in,” Stevens said. “In batting practice, we worked on a few little things with certain individuals, and it paid off big time.”
NU is tied with Michigan for the Big Ten lead going into the last two conference series.
Reach David Morrison at [email protected].
