July 22, 2009
The 2008-09 athletic year at Northwestern University was one to be remembered. Filled with a plethora of memorable wins, honors and championships, there was much to be celebrated this past year in Evanston. Be sure to follow along at NUsports.com through August 10 as a look back is taken at just some of the numerous highlights the Wildcats experienced.
Game One Recap (Pauly Home Run)
Game Two Recap (Dyer Home Run)
EVANSTON, Ill. -- In the sports of baseball and softball, no single play is more revered than the home run. Northwestern's softball team hit plenty in 2009, finishing second in the nation with 1.72 homers per game, but there were two in particular hit on April 4 during a home doubleheader against Indiana that made our 2008-09 top moments list at No. 14.
In the more than 25-year history of Sharon J. Drysdale Field (formerly Anderson Field) in Evanston, only one fair ball home run had ever landed on the roof of Welsh-Ryan Arena located beyond the left-field fence. That mammoth homer was hit by then-senior Jessica Miller on March 31, 2007, in a win over No. 10 Michigan.
Fast forward to the first game on April 4, 2009, when junior Nicole Pauly (Palatine, Ill./Palatine) crushed a Sara Olson offering deep to left and about three feet up the roof in the fourth inning to give Northwestern a 1-0 lead in an eventual 3-1 victory over the Hoosiers. Despite the blast being the first in two years to hit the roof and only the second ever, it would be only the first on that day.
In game two, senior Erin Dyer (Homer Glen, Ill./Lockport) smashed a three-run homer in the second inning that was a little more toward left-center than Pauly's was earlier in the day, going directly over the covered staircase attached to the wall of Welsh-Ryan. It too landed on the roof to propel the Wildcats to an 8-0 (5) run-rule win in the game and a sweep in the double-dip. The game also marked the 300th-career win for both head coach Kate Drohan and her sister, associate head coach Caryl Drohan, since they took over the program in 2002.