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By Jake O.
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Tuesday, April 15, 2008 |
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Jake Owens is the starting third baseman for Northwestern University. He was named to the pre-season all-conference squad in the Big 10. Jake hails from Wisconsin. Early season thoughts College baseball is a game that is very dependent on momentum. With that being said, our team is in pretty good shape right now. After dropping our final two games against Purdue in our Big Ten opening weekend, we got ourselves back on track last weekend in our home opener against Michigan State.
For how happy I sound about how things went this weekend, they didn’t start off that great. We didn’t hit, pitch or field well at all while dropping the first two games 12-6 and 6-1. The great thing about baseball, however, is that you get to come back right away. We came back strong in the second game of the Saturday doubleheader winning 3-2 behind a big pitching performance from Bo Schultz. Bo is typically one of our top relievers, so seeing him step up in a crucial starting role was a big boost for the team. In the final game on Sunday we pulled out all the stops. We knew a win in this game would give us a weekend split and a big boost in the conference standings. We decided to break out some new purple and white pinwheel hats to give us that little mental edge. It worked when we eventually pulled out a 5-4 win in the bottom of the ninth to increase that momentum we picked up on Saturday.
We also started playing some midweek games this week. From here on out, we will play non-conference games either Tuesday or Wednesday of each week against some local rivals. Some teams consider these games to carry less meaning because they are non-conference games that are usually used to stay sharp throughout the week; but our team loves to play these games because they are typically played against people that we played against during high school. Its always fun to play against some old friends or, in some cases, some old rivals.
Our first midweek game fared well on the scoreboard, but not so well with the weather. We were leading Chicago State 13-0 after the fifth inning when the rain started. It didn’t look to be stopping, so the game was called (and ruled as complete) after five innings. There was one major highlight that came out of the game. One freshman who has been a major contributor made some history. Legend has it that the only two players to ever hit a home run on top of the basketball arena in right field are Hall of Famer Dave Winfield and World Series legend Kirk Gibson. Nate Roberts crushed a home run that landed on the roof of Welsh-Ryan Arena. Hopefully that keeps his hot streak rolling into a big showdown against Big Ten powerhouse Minnesota.
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