Northwestern opens its season today against George Mason, the first of four games the Wildcats will play this weekend against unheralded but talented teams at the 2010 Bojangles Baseball Classic in Rock Hill, S.C.
The tournament field will be a challenging one for NU, which finished last season 14-35-1 and placed ninth in the Big Ten. After their first game against the Patriots, who made it to the College World Series regional last season, the Cats will face Winthrop, last year’s Big South Conference runner-up. On Saturday, NU battles Marist, another 2009 NCAA Tournament qualifier, before wrapping up the competition with a rematch against George Mason on Sunday.
Though the Cats have never played any of the three teams they will face this weekend, they know plenty about them, due to their opponents’ recent success.
“We haven’t gotten all our (information) on Marist yet, but obviously the other two went to the NCAA regional,” coach Paul Stevens said. “They may not sound like Arizona State or USC, but they all had awfully good seasons last year. And they’ve got quite a (lot) of their pitching back, so it’s going to be an interesting weekend.”
Besides their stiff competition, NU has other concerns as it tries to end its struggles of the past three seasons, when the team has finished no better than seventh in the Big Ten and failed to qualify for the conference tournament. The Cats will have to combat the loss of several top offensive players, including 2009 Major League draftee Jake Goebbert, power hitter Tony Vercelli and leadoff man Tommy Finn.
“All three of them were very good hitters,” senior catcher Chad Noble said. “Vercelli especially with the home runs.”
But Noble said as dynamic as those three were, the team is prepared to play without them.
“With Goebbert, we didn’t really have him for over half the year last year anyway,” Noble said. “So we kind of already know how to play without him. And we have (sophomore infielder/outfielder) Trevor Stevens and (freshman outfielder) Arby Fields now, who can easily step up and do whatever those guys did. I don’t think that we’re going to have to fill a void at all.”
Another test the Cats must pass is making a successful adjustment from practicing indoors, where they have been throwing and hitting during the winter, to playing games outside, as they will this weekend. The players acknowledge there are some disadvantages to working indoors. For instance, Fields, a Southern California native, has never caught fly balls inside before, but when he is back outside, he says he hopes “it’ll just go back to what it was like when I played at home.”
Noble noted that the adjustment to playing outside might actually have positive implications for the Cats from a hitting perspective.
“It’s probably going to be a lot easier to hit outside,” he said. “With our cages inside, it’s really hard to see the ball out of the hand. We’ve been working (indoors) so long that I feel like when we do get outside, it’ll be a lot easier to see the ball and adjust.”
In the Cats’ first two games, they will be tested by tough pitching, something they haven’t seen much of yet in batting practice. George Mason’s Kevin Crum, a first-team All Continental Athletic Association honoree last year, will take the mound in the first game against NU. A few hours later the Cats will battle one of the Eagles’ quartet of talented hurlers.
Stevens is anxious to see how his batters stack up against top pitching early because he said it primes them for the rigors of the Big Ten season.
“Every time we go out, I want to face good pitching because it only does us good to prepare us for the Big Ten,” he said. “My guys, I don’t know how prepared you can be from going inside to outside, but I can tell you that they’re chomping at the bit to get going.”
Noble agreed and said he was looking forward to the season finally getting underway.
“I’m getting all of the butterflies and everything,” he said. “I’m so ready to get going. I’m sick of being stuck indoors, just so sick of it. I want to get out there in the sun.”[email protected]
