EVANSTON, Ill. -- In a pitchers' battle Saturday at Sharon J. Drysdale Field that featured just seven combined hits between the two teams, Northwestern outlasted Purdue, 2-1, in a well-played game all around.

Northwestern (19-11, 7-0 B1G) and Purdue (24-13, 4-4 B1G) conclude their series at Noon CT tomorrow, Saturday, April 4. The first 100 fans through the gate will receive a coupon for free ice cream!

Northwestern junior Amy Letourneau (Laguna Niguel, Calif./Santa Margarita Catholic) and Purdue ace Lilly Fecho dueled from the outset. The Wildcats got Sabrina Rabin (St. Charles, Ill./St. Charles North) to third with no outs in the first inning before Fecho escaped. Letourneau similarly stranded a runner at third in the top of the third, one inning after she fanned the Boilermakers' side.

The Wildcats broke through in the bottom of the third with a two-out base knock from senior Andrea DiPrima (Arlington Heights, Ill./Buffalo Grove), who ran her current hitting streak to 14 games. The inning began with a leadoff Anna Edwards (La Canada, Calif./La Canada) walk, and eventually saw Rabin standing at second with two outs following a fielder's choice play on the lead runner and Rabin's second steal of the game. DiPrima smoked a two-strike pitch back through the middle to bring Rabin to the plate and give Northwestern a 1-0 lead.

Purdue threatened to even the game immediately in the top of the fourth after a leadoff single made its way to third with no outs on a passed ball and a wild pitch. Letourneau got a strikeout, then issued a full-count walk to put runners at the corners. NU took advantage of the extra Boiler on base when the next batter popped up to Brianna LeBeau (Worth, Ill./H.L. Richards) at second and LeBeau fired quickly to first to double-up the runner and end the inning.

In the bottom of the fourth, freshman Sammy Nettling (Tucson, Ariz./Canyon del Oro) turned on a one-out Fecho offering and drove it deep over the fence in left and off the McGaw Hall wall to extend the Northwestern lead to 2-0. Nettling, who hit the eighth-inning walk-off home run in Friday's win over Purdue, now has four homers in her first 10 collegiate games after missing the first month of the season with an injury.

With NU now at a two-run lead, Purdue did get onto the scoreboard with a one-out single in the top of the fifth to make it a 2-1 game. After the run came home, the Boilermakers had a runner at first with one out, but catcher Caylor Arnold (Mt. Gilead, Ohio/Mt. Gilead) threw her out by a wide margin attempting to steal for the second out of the frame. With the bases empty, Purdue put two more aboard before Letourneau got Ashley Burkhardt -- the Boilermakers top hitter -- to ground out harmlessly to second and keep the Wildcats in the lead.

Just like Friday's game that went extra innings, Saturday's featured one intense and entertaining half inning after another. In the top of the sixth, Purdue got a leadoff walk and sacrificed the tying run up to second base. Letourneau notched her seventh strikeout of the contest for out number two, but then issued a walk. The next batter crushed a one-hopper to short where Andrea Filler (Fort Wayne, Ind./Bishop Dwenger) played it expertly to end the threat.

The Northwestern lead remained at a single run in the top of the seventh when Kristen Wood (Trevor, Wis./Wilmot Union) entered the circle in relief of Letourneau. The leadoff batter reached on a softly hit ground ball infield single to second, then stole second base. Julie Kuhn (Middletown, N.J./Middletown South) recorded the first out for the Wildcats at first when she gloved a hard-hit line drive, then the next batter popped up much more softly to Edwards at third. With first base open, Northwestern elected to intentionally walk the dangerous Burkhardt before another soft liner to Edwards ended the game.

Letourneau (11-8) earned the win, allowing one unearned run on three hits and five walks with seven strikeouts in 6.0 innings. Wood picked up her first save of the season with a scoreless seventh.

In addition to DiPrima's 14-game hitting streak, Rabin's first-inning single made her active hitting streak 13 contests long.

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