Northwestern Baseball Eliminated on Final Weekend of Improved Season
Northwestern needed to play a virtually perfect series at UCLA this weekend to qualify for the Big Ten Tournament. It didn't quite happen against the No. 2 team in the conference, but the 'Cats put up a good fight and finished as the first team out, losing the tie breaker to Michigan State.
Finishing with a record of 25-27, Northwestern had a drastically improved season compared to recent years. The program concluded the regular season with its highest winning percentage (.481) since 2005. It also finished with its highest win total in a season since 2017 when it won 27 games.
But, in the end, the Bruins were just too good of a team to draw on the final weekend with a tournament appearance at stake.
The 'Cats did get off to a good start in game one with Sam Hliboki on the bump. The starter went 6.1 innings and allowed four earned runs in a solid start against a good offense. Ryan Kucherak got the scoring going for Northwestern, hitting two home runs in the first three innings.
Up 4-1 in the top of the seventh, NU pulled away on a Jack Lausch two-run bomb over the right field fence. The Bruins got it back to 6-4 in the bottom half, but they'd never get any closer after Northwestern added on some insurance runs. The final score was 9-4 Northwestern, and hope was alive to start the series.
After game one, though, things went south for the 'Cats. With a chance to take the series in game two, Matthew Kouser allowed five runs in 1.2 innings pitched. Simultaneously, the offense went cold and only produced two runs leading to an 8-2 Northwestern loss.
In the rubber match, Northwestern looked as overmatched as it did all weekend. The Bruins tagged Blake MacMillan for seven earned runs and kept the party going against the bullpen en route to an 11-1 series-clinching victory.
While a Big Ten Tournament berth would have been the storybook ending to an impressive season, not getting there doesn't change the facts. Northwestern Baseball is on the rise under Ben Greenspan, and it put the conference on notice this season that it won't be walked over.
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Ryan Cole is a writer for Northwestern Wildcats On SI covering every team on campus. He’s currently a junior at NU where he’s studying journalism and previously wrote and edited for Inside NU. He also studies business with an eye towards eventually helping develop business models to revive local news. In his free time, Cole enjoys watching sports, playing sports, reading the news and singing.