March 21, 2010
Box Score
COLUMBIA, Mo. -- With rain and ice and just general coldness outside in Missouri Sunday, the final two games of the DeMarini Invitational were moved inside to Mizzou's Devine Pavilion, where Northwestern opened the first of two games with a 6-0 defeat of Northern Colorado.
Northwestern improves to 12-10 overall on the season with its win while Northern Colorado now is 7-21 on the year with its loss.
The games are Northwestern's first official spring contests played indoors during head coach Kate Drohan's nine-year tenure and are quite possibly the first in the Wildcats' 1,657 previous games in program history.
As a primer, the house rules for indoor softball at the Devine Pavilion include:
The dimensions are nearly the same as an outdoor field (190 to the corners and 220 to center), with a bit of a short porch in right field. If a ball hits above a black line across the lower middle of the wall in right, or off one of the banners hanging just in front of that wall, it is a home run (similar to rules in effect during Northwestern Athletic Department staff kickball games sometimes held in Trienens Hall). The barrier in left field is a breakaway fence like is found at the parks where the Kajikawa Classic in Tempe, Ariz., and the Cathedral City Classic in Cathedral City, Calif., are played.
The backstop consists of every screen Missouri owns lined up a few feet up the third-base line and farther down the first base line in front of several temporary tip-and-roll bleachers for fans. The screens are lined up according to height, with the tallest one directly behind the plate. This Twitpic can help you visualize it.
Any ball that hits the ceiling in fair territory is an automatic out, unless the umpires rule it was headed out of the park, in which case it would be ruled a home run. Balls off the roof in foul territory are foul balls.
The field is the exact type Northwestern practices on during the winter in Trienens in Evanston, so the Wildcats are familiar with the surface.
After a quiet top of the first for Northwestern, Northern Colorado put its first two runners to the plate on with back-to-back singles. Wildcats' starter Meghan Lamberth (Wildwood, Mo./Lafayette) struck the next Bear out on three pitches before a liner to right was caught by Kristin Scharkey (Yorba Linda, Calif./Esperanza). A walk loaded the bases, then Lamberth induced a can of corn to Kelly Dyer (Homer Glen, Ill./Lockport) in center to escape unscathed.
In the top of the second, senior Emily Haug (Jefferson City, Mo./Helias) ripped a solo home run off Missouri's 1973 Sun Bowl banner in right field to give NU a 1-0 lead. The blast was her sixth of the year and the ninth of her career.
Northern Colorado put runners on in each of its turns at the bat in the second and third, but both times Lamberth shut down the rallies. In the bottom of the third, the Wildcats turned a nice 5-4-3 twin killing to finish the frame.
Adrienne Monka (Rancho Cucamonga, Calif./Rancho Cucamonga) led off the fourth with a base on balls, yielding first to pinch runner Aly Euler (River Forest, Ill./Oak Park River Forest). Michelle Batts (Bloomingdale, Ill./Glenbard North) then crushed the first pitch she saw deep to center, one-hopping the temporary barrier for a run-scoring double to make it 2-0 for NU. Jordan Wheeler (Garden Grove, Calif./Los Alamitos) jumped from the flex spot on the lineup card to second base to run for Batts after the RBI hit.
Haug followed with a walk before a long fly out to center by Nicole Pauly (Palatine, Ill./Palatine) moved Wheeler to third with one out. With Lamberth at the plate, a wild pitch brought Wheeler home to make the score 3-0 going into the bottom of the fourth.
Neither team made much offensive noise until the bottom of the sixth, with each squad making a pair of outs via the ceiling rule during that time frame. In the sixth, Northern Colorado got runners to second and third with two outs on a walk and a ground-rule double to left before Lamberth got a groundout to Pauly at second to end the threat.
In the top of the seventh, Dyer beat out an infield single deep in the hole at short before moving to second on another infield single by Robin Thompson (Detroit, Mich./Martin Luther King). After a double steal, Emily Allard (Antioch, Calif./Deer Valley) poked a single back through the middle to drive in both Dyer and Thompson and extend NU's lead to 5-0. Allard moved to second on the throw to the plate on the play.
After a passed ball pushed Allard to third, Scharkey drove her in with a groundout to short to make it 6-0 before the inning ended.
A one-out single followed by an error put two runners on for the Bears in the bottom of the seventh. Lamberth got a groundout that moved both runners up a bag before a comebacker ended the game.
Lamberth (3-2) earned the win and the first shutout of her career with the complete-game effort. She allowed five hits and three walks while striking out a trio.
Northwestern returns to action immediately against No. 3 Missouri inside the Devine Pavilion.