| NORTHWESTERN SOFTBALL: at Purdue | ||||||
| DATE | OPPONENT | TIME | LOCATION | WATCH ($) | LISTEN ($) | LIVE STATS |
| Friday, May 6 | Purdue | 6 p.m. CT/ 7 p.m. ET |
Boilermaker Softball Stadium |
BTN Plus on BTN2Go |
Studio N | Live Stats |
| Saturday, May 7 | Purdue | Noon CT/ 1 p.m. ET |
Boilermaker Softball Stadium |
BTN Plus on BTN2Go |
Studio N | Live Stats |
| Sunday, May 8 | Purdue | 11 a.m. CT/ Noon ET |
Boilermaker Softball Stadium |
BTN Plus on BTN2Go |
Studio N | Live Stats |
| Social: Twitter (@NUSBCats and @NU_SportsLive) | Instagram (nusbcats) | Facebook Game Notes: Northwestern |
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EVANSTON, Ill. -- Northwestern concludes the regular season this weekend, May 6-8, at Purdue. The Wildcats currently are in fifth position in the Big Ten standings, one-quarter game out of fourth place and a bye in the opening round of the conference tournament.
NU is in the midst of a seven-game road trip to end the 2016 schedule. Northwestern finished an April-long homestand with a sweep of Michigan State before traveling up to Madison, Wis., last weekend and taking two-of-three off the Badgers.
Northwestern is 12-8 in B1G play thus far, a half game ahead of Nebraska and a quarter-game behind fourth-place Ohio State, which gave itself a tie with Wisconsin early in the conference season by virtue of a flight time. Penn State is a game ahead of the 'Cats in third position at 13-7.
NU and Purdue, which boasts one of the conference's top pitcher in Lilly Fecho, played four tight contests against each other one year ago, with Northwestern coming out on top all four times. The Wildcats swept a home series by scores of 4-3 (8), 2-1 and 5-1 before the two teams met again in the opening round of the Big Ten Tournament. This time, NU captured a 3-0 decision.
Fifth-year seniors Andrea Filler and Amy Letourneau each added a home run to their season totals last week, giving them 15 and 14, respectively, on the year to rank among the top-10 on NU's single-season list. They also both have over 50 RBIs this season, accounting for 44 percent of the Wildcats runs driven in on the year.
Meanwhile, freshman Morgan Nelson continues her torrid Big Ten season. Nelson is on an active 10-game hitting streak, raising her batting average nearly 100 points since the start of conference play to her current mark of .316. She just concluded an eight-game stretch in which she had at least one RBI in every game, giving her 41 now on the year.
With a top-10 nonconference strength of schedule and an RPI inside the top-50 despite being three games under .500, Northwestern still has designs on the NCAA Tournament—but every game from here on out is a must win. The Wildcats have been clawing their way back toward the .500 mark since sinking to 10 games below at 10-20 midway through in the year. Since that time, the Wildcats have gone 12-5, but need every regular season contest and a run at the Big Ten Tournament to get back to eligibilty on the year.
There is precedent for this situation; in 2012 Northwestern won eight of its final nine games to finish the year exactly .500. The Wildcats earned inclusion in the Austin, Texas, Regional, where they upset No. 6 overall seed Longhorns in the opening game and eventually advanced to the Regional Championship round.
After this weekend's series, NU heads to the Big Ten Tournament hosted by Penn State May 12-14.
PROGRAMMING NOTE
LIVE VIDEO: All three games will be available on BTN Plus.
LIVE AUDIO: Like most road games earlier in the year, longtime NU SID Doug Meffley will have live audio for all games of the series via Studio N at NUsports.com.
LIVE STATS: Live stats for every game can be found on the schedule page at NUsports.com, or by clicking here.
For more information on how to subscribe to Northwestern softball broadcasts, including a handy chart of stream availability, link to this release.
PLAY BALL!
For Northwestern's complete game notes package for the Purdue series, download the .pdf in the chart at the top of this release or click here.