With the nice weather in Evanston this weekend, coach Paul Stevens might have rather been by the beach coaching baseball than at Rocky Miller Park.
With that in mind, Stevens compared Northwestern’s weekend to a surfer who couldn’t paddle fast enough to get the momentum to ride back to shore.
“We just got caught up on top of the wave, and it went to shore, and we’re still out there, still kind of looking for that perfect wave,” Stevens said.
The perfect wave never came. Despite catching a few breaks, the team’s inconsistent offense led to a three-game sweep by Illinois, leaving NU stranded at the bottom of the Big Ten standings.
The Wildcats recorded 15 hits on Saturday, more than both Friday’s game (six) and Sunday’s game (seven) combined. To add to the inconsistency, NU hit a season-high five home runs in game two, but hit only one in the other two games combined and scored no runs in Sunday’s finale.
In the first game, the Cats came out strong, taking a 1-0 lead after compiling four hits in the first two innings. But as NU’s offense tapered off, Illinois’ pitching settled down. The Fighting Illini allowed zero runs and just one hit in the last six innings.
On the other side, NU starting pitcher Joe Muraski struggled to contain the Illini’s offense, giving up six runs in five innings. The Illini added four more in the ninth inning off relief pitcher Brian Morgan, handing the Cats a 10-2 loss.
Friday’s struggles on the mound continued into Saturday, despite sophomore ace Eric Jokisch getting the nod. Illinois scored six runs in the first two innings against the reigning Big Ten Freshman of the Year, and another six in the fourth inning to take a 12-1 lead into the bottom of that frame. Since his five-run scoreless outing against Notre Dame in mid-April, Jokisch’s ERA has moved from 3.36 to 5.57.
“When that guy peels of his uniform there is a big ‘S’ on his chest,” coach Paul Stevens said. “But I don’t think it stands for Stevens. I think we think it stands for Superman. The fact of the matter is, sometimes I fully believe he is Superman. And when he doesn’t do the unbelievable, I’m sitting there going, what’s wrong with Jokisch?”
Illinois extended its lead to 15-3 by the seventh. But that’s when NU began an offensive surge.
Senior Tony Vercelli blasted his 10th home run of the season, a grand slam to left-center field in the seventh, narrowing the gap to 15-7. Freshman Geoff Rowan followed with a solo shot for the first home run of his collegiate career.
With the deficit at seven, sophomore Lashmet and freshman Paul Snieder launched big flies of their own, narrowing the deficit to 15-12.But despite two hits in the ninth inning, NU was unable to rally, losing by that score. Five players had multi-hit games, including Snieder with three, and Vercelli who had a career-high six RBIs.
“We’ve had a couple games where we’ve been down by a few runs and we did make a comeback, so we know we can do it,” Vercelli said. “We played to win that game. Three runs down is not a lot in college baseball.”
The offense continued to suffer from inconsistency in the third game, as the Illini completed the weekend sweep with a 9-0 win.
Despite getting the leadoff runner on base in five of the first six innings, NU was not able to capitalize. Illinois, on the other hand, took advantage of an NU error in the third inning to rack up three runs, taking a 3-0 lead. The Illini continued to chip away throughout the day to provide the final margin.
Freshman Zach Morton allowed seven runs in four-and-one-third innings. Junior David Jensen came in for relief and gave up two runs in four-and-two-thirds innings.
After a weekend of inconsistent offense, NU will look to set the tone in its remaining Big Ten series.
“It seems like we came into the dugout, sat down, and were right back in the field,” Finn said. “Tempo is not really talked about a lot in the game of baseball because there is no clock but we felt that lack of rhythm this weekend. We need to work on slowing the team down and not letting that happen.”
