When asked about his level of excitement after 21 games and heading into Big Ten play today against Ohio State, coach Paul Stevens said, “I’m pumped, but not right now. I’ll be excited as heck later on.”
The team had just recorded its 14th loss of the season, coming up short, 5-2, against Valparaiso at Rocky Miller Park. Northwestern had only four hits in the loss.
“I can’t wait to get (to conference play),” Stevens said. “But (Wednesday against Valparaiso) we had a few hiccups, and we need to address those and try to find a way to move forward for Friday.”
The Cats’ 7-14 start would suggest there is a lot the squad should address before the Big Ten season gets underway. But just a season ago, NU started with a similarly discouraging 6-18 record leading up to its conference opener – also against Ohio State – and managed to go 13-11 in the Big Ten and arrive at the conference tournament as the No. 3 seed. Junior pitcher Francis Brooke offered some insight into that phenomenon.
“The Big Ten’s always competitive,” Brooke said. “It’s always wide open. It’s completely different from the beginning of the season.”
So when the Cats face the Buckeyes in Columbus, Ohio, this weekend, it’ll be a whole new ballgame. But that’s not just because it’s the start of the Big Ten season.
Since last year, Ohio State (8-10) has undergone a massive facelift. For starters, the school’s 23-year coach Bob Todd retired last year and was replaced by Greg Beals, who has 17 years of coaching experience, including an eight-year stint at Ball State, where he won 243 games.
“(Beals) is a very smart baseball man,” Stevens said. “He’ll orchestrate whatever he needs to do in any game situation to get his team on to win a ballgame.”
In addition to having a new skipper at the helm, Ohio State lost 15 players off its roster, including six starting position players and star pitcher Alex Wimmers, who was selected by the Minnesota Twins with the 21st overall pick in the MLB Draft. But NU is cautious to put too much weight in the changed face of their first conference opponent.
“It’s still Ohio State and they’ve still got a lot of talented guys,” Brooke said. “They’ve been hitting the ball pretty well this year, and they still have some of the same pitchers.”
The pitchers Brooke referred to include senior righties Drew Rucinski and Dean Wolosiansky, who faced the Cats in the opening series last season. NU came out with a win over Rucinski, which included three hits by then-sophomore Chris Kontos and two by then-sophomore Paul Snieder. Against Wolosiansky, Trevor Stevens collected two hits in the loss. The junior is confident in his team’s ability to hit the pair.
“We have a lot of guys that are returning this year, so we’ve seen them all before,” Trevor Stevens said. “And it’s a lot easier to hit someone the second time around. We’ll get to see them again. And the younger guys are pretty good at stepping up to the learning curve.”
The center fielder is also excited about the Cats’ pitching heading into conference play. With three solid starters in Brooke, sophomore Luke Farrell and freshman Dan Tyson to go along with a deep bullpen, the team is expected to be able to compete with any conference foe.
Offensively, though, NU will need to work on putting the ball in play more often; the Cats struck out 14 times against Valparaiso. Senior third baseman Chris Lashmet said the team also needs to improve on finishing games.
“We were pretty much in every ballgame this spring break and every game this season,” Lashmet said. “Our record could be drastically different if we just closed a few of the ballgames.”
