May 2, 2007
Northwestern's Weekly Release in PDF Format
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EVANSTON, Ill. -- No. 7 Northwestern's final series of the season takes place Thursday, May 3, when No. 14 DePaul comes to Sharon J. Drysdale Field for a doubleheader between Chicagoland's two premier softball programs. First pitch for game one is scheduled for 3 p.m. Thursday.
The Wildcats and Blue Demons together have proven Chicago to be a player on the national softball scene. Each team has advanced to the Women's College World Series once in the last two years, with Northwestern qualifying for the championship series in 2006.
This year, Northwestern has been ranked in the top 10 in every NFCA/USA Today coaches poll, while DePaul already has clinched the BIG EAST title with a perfect conference record, moving up to No. 14 in the NFCA poll and No. 11 in the USA Softball/ESPN.com poll. In the latest NFCA simulated RPI ratings, Northwestern is No. 5 and DePaul is No. 9.
The Wildcats swept the Big Ten's weekly awards this week, picking up their conference-best eighth and ninth accolades of the season. Senior Garland Cooper (Mission Viejo, Calif./Santa Margarita Catholic) broke the Big Ten career home run record with the 51st, 52nd and 53rd homers of her career last week, and also tied the conference's single-season mark with 21 to earn Player of the Week honors. Freshman Lauren Delaney (Jefferson City, Mo./Helias) tossed her first-collegiate no-hitter against Illinois -- the nation's leading home run hitting and sixth-ranked scoring offense entering the game -- to pick up the third Pitcher of the Week nod of her career.
Following this nonconference matchup, Northwestern will await the results of the final week of Big Ten play. If Penn State earns at least a split of its series against Ohio State, then the Wildcats will be crowned Big Ten champions for the second-consecutive year and will host the conference tournament May 10-12.
Also, don't forget to vote for Cooper for the Lowe's Senior CLASS Award by clicking on this link. Fan voting will be combined with input from coaches and media to determine the winner. Voting is open until May 23, and each fan can vote once per day, so vote early and often!
For Northwestern's complete weekly release, click on the .pdf link at the top of this page.
ON THE INTERNET...
Gametracker will be available at NUsports.com for the doubleheader.
ON THE AIRWAVES/INTERNET...
Northwestern student radio WNUR 89.3 FM will broadcast both games of the doubleheader. The WNUR audio feed can be found at their website: sports.wnur.org.
NUsports.com's All-Access will have live streaming video featuring the audio commentary from the WNUR broadcast. To access the premium stream, link to the audio/video page on NUsports.com.