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By Jake O.
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Wednesday, May 07, 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. Heating Up With only two weeks remaining in the college baseball regular season things are really starting to heat up. Every Big 10 team still has their postseason hopes alive which will make for quite the finish to the season.
Last weekend we found ourselves with a great chance to solidify ourselves as a team looking to contend come tourney time. Sadly, we came up a little short. We ended up dropping three of four games to in-state rival Illinois to place us in a tie for fifth place with Penn State. Although fifth place doesn’t sound too bad considering six teams make the postseason tournament, it isn’t nearly as comfortable as it sounds. We are only a half game up on the seventh place team (Michigan State) and only three games up on last place tandem of Minnesota and Iowa.
Despite the disappointment of dropping three out of four to Illinois, we were able to witness some history. Hitting machine Jake Goebbert etched his name in the Northwestern record books by recording his 22nd double of the season, making him the single-season record holder. We are now 41 games into the season and Goebbert has recorded 22 doubles compared to 23 strikeouts…quite the impressive number.
The challenge that lies ahead of us to close out regular season play is daunting, to say the least. This coming weekend we will be finishing off our home scheduling by facing off with eighth place Indiana. Although Indiana currently sits two games behind us in the standings, the have done some impressive works in the past two weekends. Two weeks ago they were able to take two games from Big Ten leading Michigan and they followed that up last weekend by taking three of four from second place Purdue. Needless to say, the Hoosiers are rolling.
Looking further ahead to the final weekend of conference play, we will be facing off in a four game set at 20th ranked Michigan. Having that always difficult series on the horizon makes us feel an even bigger sense of urgency against Indiana. We would like to see ourselves in a much better position entering that final weekend to ensure that our season continues past next weekend. We know we have the talent to compete in postseason play, but we have to take care of business to ensure we get the opportunity.
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