On a frigid afternoon at Rocky Miller Park, Northwestern (7-14) was unable to get its bats warm in a 5-2 loss to Valparaiso (4-19).
After starting the season with 20 games outside of Evanston, the Wildcats got off to a good start in their home opener. Freshman shortstop Kyle Ruchim walked with one out in the top of the first and eventually crossed the plate on a RBI single by junior first baseman Paul Snieder.
Sophomore pitcher Jack Havey was unable to hold onto the Wildcats’ lead, however, as he struggled with his control throughout the afternoon.
“I tried going inside a lot on this team because that’s where the scouting report was for their weakness,” Havey said. “Like you saw, a few got away.”
In the top of the second inning, Havey hit the first batter and walked the second. A single by catcher Corey Thibault loaded the bases with one out, but Havey was able to escape without too much damage, giving up only one run on a fielder’s choice.
Havey wasn’t so fortunate in the fourth inning. With runners on second and third and two outs, Havey once again had a golden chance to escape, this time with no damage.
Instead, Havey walked the number nine hitter on four pitches, bringing up Kyle Gaedele, who bashed a high fly ball to center field that eluded NU center fielder Trevor Stevens. By the time Stevens relayed the ball in, three runs had come in for the Crusaders.
“We’ve got to do a better job on the mound of not putting people on base that don’t earn it,” coach Paul Stevens said. “People have to earn the base that they’re getting. In that inning, they didn’t earn the base.”
Stevens refused to pin any blame on his center fielder even though Gaedele’s fly ball appeared catchable.
“I just think the ball was hit well,” Stevens said. “I’m not going to sit there when a ball lands 400 feet away at the bottom of the warning track. Yeah, I’d like to see Trevor catch every single thing that’s out there. Rough route, bad route, good route, he still didn’t get there and we didn’t do a very good job earlier in the inning.”
After Havey finished the fourth inning, the veteran coach turned to his bullpen, and his relievers came through, keeping the Cats in the game. Four relievers combined to give up only one run in five innings of work.
Their hard work was in vain, however, as NU was unable to seize any offensive momentum.
While Snieder finished three-for-four, his teammates combined to go just one-for-28, and as a team, the Cats put very few scares into the Crusaders’ pitching staff.
“When you don’t have that kind of (rally), sometimes the dugout gets a little down,” Snieder said. “We need those kind of strings of hits to get the dugout going again.”
All day long, the Cats were stifled by Jon Gulbransen. The Crusaders’ lefty gave up one run in seven innings of work, surrendering just three hits and two walks.
“Good pitching is going to shut down good hitting any day, ” Stevens said. “The kid had good late movement and he was hitting spots. I have to take my hat off to him. He did a good job.”
At the plate, Havey got a pretty good look at his pitching counterpart but failed to see the ball very well. Havey hit a fly ball to the right fielder his first time up, and then took a high inside pitch for strike three his second time at the plate.
“He was working his fastball well,” Havey said. “He was spotting up well on the outside corner. He was coming inside with two strikes. He was just doing a real good job of moving it around and keeping us off balance.”
The longer Gulbransen was on the mound Wednesday, the more comfortable he got. In the middle innings, the lefty hit a groove, recording seven of his 10 strikeouts in the fourth through sixth innings.
Overall, the Cats found themselves making the long walk back to the dugout over and over again. Fourteen of NU’s 27 outs came via strikeout.
“We’ve got to find a way to put the ball in play,” Stevens said. “We had 14 strikeouts, and if you’re striking out 14 times, you need to make a little bit of an adjustment.”
As soon as Gulbransen departed, the Cats were able to muster a few brief threats. In the eighth, NU scored a run without recording a hit, as Trevor Stevens was hit by a pitch and came all the way around to score on a passed ball, groundout and a wild pitch.
In the ninth inning, still trailing 5-2, the Cats were able to get the tying run up to the plate. Just one out away from defeat, freshman catcher Jake Straub kept NU alive with a double, and after junior left fielder Geoff Rowan reached on an error, junior pinch-hitter Hamilton Wise had a chance to tie it. Instead, Wise tapped a weak ground ball to third base on the first pitch for the game’s final out.
