Feb. 26, 2010
CATHEDRAL CITY, Calif. -- With the support of some stellar defense behind her, senior Lauren Delaney (Jefferson City, Mo./Helias) spun a masterful one-hit shutout Friday of No. 10 Stanford, making back-to-back Wildcat jacks in the sixth inning stand in a 4-0 Northwestern win.
NU now is 6-6 overall on the season with its win and 6-1 against Stanford during ninth-year head coach Kate Drohan's tenure. The Cardinal falls to 9-2 with its loss. Stanford entered the game batting .378 on the season.
Delaney went the distance, allowing no runs on the one hit with three walks and seven strikeouts. She now is 3-3 on the season and has three complete game efforts with one hit or fewer on the year.
Northwestern struck right away in the top of the first. Freshman Emily Allard (Antioch, Calif./Deer Valley) led off the game with a picture perfect slap single, pounding the ball hard enough off the dirt in front of the plate that she was standing on first by the time it came down. She then was erased on a fielder's choice grounder off the bat of Robin Thompson (Detroit, Mich./Martin Luther King), who motored to third when Adrienne Monka (Rancho Cucamonga, Calif./Rancho Cucamonga) laced a line-drive single over the head of the right fielder.
Michelle Batts (Bloomingdale, Ill./Glenbard North) followed with a single through the right side of the infield, driving in Thompson and moving Monka to second. A four-pitch walk from Stanford starter Teagan Gerhart to Emily Haug (Jefferson City, Mo./Helias) loaded the bases still with one down. At that point, Kelly Quinn (Northbrook, Ill./Glenbrook North) entered the game to run for Batts at second, but no further runs came to leave NU on top, 1-0.
In the bottom half, the first Cardinal to the plate against Delaney lifted a fly ball to the fence in left. Jordan Wheeler (Garden Grove, Calif./Los Alamitos) drifted back to the temporary barrier and leapt, breaking through it with a headlong dive to make a snow-cone catch, saving a home run and eliciting a roar from fans lining the field down grassy embankments on both sides.
In the bottom of the third, Delaney continued to keep Stanford in check, this time with a pair of strikeouts to give her three in the game. Those Ks also included the 1,015th of her career, sending her past Courtnay Foster (2003-06) for third place all time at Northwestern.
With Gerhart and Delaney locked in a pitcher's duel, Allard made a great lunging grab of a low liner to open the bottom of the fifth and keep Delaney's no-hitter intact. The very next batter, however, hit a hard, high bouncing shot back up the middle that Delaney stabbed at, sending it off her glove and into left field for the first base hit of the game. Haug quickly threw that runner out trying to steal to maintain NU's 1-0 lead going into the sixth.
Northwestern's advantage did not sit still for long. Batts led off the sixth with a walk, then trotted all the way home when Haug took Gerhart (4-1) quite deep to left center, extending the Wildcat cushion to three, 3-0. The home run was Haug's second of the year and the fifth of her career.
Not to be outdone, Nicole Pauly (Palatine, Ill./Palatine) made it back-to-back jacks with a solo shot to the opposite field, making the score 4-0. Pauly's blast was her third of the year of the 43rd of her career.
The sixth inning continued with a Kelly Dyer (Homer Glen, Ill./Lockport) bunt single followed by a Lauren Ackerman (St. Louis, Mo./Home schooled) pinch hit walk one out later. Aly Euler (River Forest, Ill./Oak Park River Forest) re-entered to run for Ackerman, but no further runs came in the frame.
Delaney retired the Cardinal in order in the sixth and seventh to complete the one-hitter.
Northwestern returns to action at 2:30 p.m. CT tomorrow, Saturday, Feb. 27, against Cal Poly before taking on No. 5 UCLA at 10 p.m. CT.