Northwestern (12-10, 1-0) and Penn State (13-13, 0-1) return to action immediately in game two of this three-game Big Ten opening series.
Wood (5-3) struck out the side in the first, fourth and fifth innings to reach 11 Ks. She entered the contest ranked 28th in the NCAA with 9.2 Ks per seven innings pitched. Wood allowed only a leadoff double in the third inning, and kept that runner standing there when inning ended.
Meanwhile, NU smashed five home runs for its most in a single game since April 22, 2009, against Northern Illinois. The Wildcats had eight extra base hits among their 11 in the contest.
The Wildcats opened the scoring against Nittany' Lions pitcher Marissa Diescher early. Diescher entered the game averaging more than one walk per inning pitched, and NU freshman Sabrina Rabin (St. Charles, Ill./St. Charles North) took full advantage with a leadoff base on balls. After Rabin swiped second, Andrea Filler (Fort Wayne, Ind./Bishop Dwenger) drove her eighth double of the year over the head of the right fielder to stake NU to a 1-0 lead.
Wood wasted precious little time getting into her #KidK rhythm, fanning the Penn State side in the bottom of the first before NU added to its total in the second. Anna Edwards (La Canada, Calif./La Canada) started that rally with a booming one-out double to right center before moving to third when a Sammy Nettling (Tucson, Ariz./Corona del Sol) grounder found the hole in the left side of the infield. Senior Olivia Duehr (Antioch, Ill./Antioch) brought Edwards the final 60 feet with a groundout to short, pushing the Wildcats' lead to 2-0.
Andrea DiPrima (Arlington Heights, Ill./Buffalo Grove) led off the top of the third with a booming opposite field home run before Filler walked and Amy Letourneau (Laguna Niguel, Calif./Santa Margarita) smashed a home run of her own to put the Wildcats up 5-0. DiPrima's shot was her third of the season while Letourneau's was her fifth; the blasts drove Diescher from the circle in favor of Jessica Cummings, who effectively pitched to end the inning.
The home run fun continued for Northwestern in the top of the fourth when Duehr annihilated the first pitch of frame into New Jersey, pushing the Wildcats' edge to 6-0 on the senior's second home run of the year and the 16th of her career.
Wood continued to power through in the circle, striking out the side for the second time in the contest in the fourth inning to give her eight Ks in the game. In the top of the fifth, Wood's teammates got the game into run-rule territory with more additions to their cornucopia of home runs. Following a Julia Kuhn (Middletown, N.J./Middletown South) leadoff single, Krista Williams (Pleasanton, Calif./Amador Valley) entered to pinch run and swiped second. No need, said Brianna LeBeau (Worth, Ill./H.L. Richards), who golfed a home run to dead center before Edwards made it back-to-back jacks for a 9-0 Northwestern lead in the game.
LeBeau's shot was her third of the year and the 14th of her career while Edwards' blast was her second of the season of the 20th of her career.
The scoring was not done in the fifth. With two outs, Rabin reached base on a fielder's choice ball and then left a jet trail on the bases when she came all the way around to score on a DiPrima double and make it a double-digit edge, 10-0.
Five different Wildcats hit home runs in the game for Northwestern, while DiPrima and Edwards each had a double and a homer. Rabin scored two runs as did Edwards while Duehr, LeBeau, Letourneau and DiPrima all knocked in a pair.
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