Softball: The pitfalls of the Big Ten Tournament and the keys to NCAA regional success

Which team will we see in South Carolina this weekend.

I’ll say it — I was absolutely stunned Sunday night when I saw Northwestern’s name pop up on the ESPN graphic during the Selection Show. After going one-and-done in the Big Ten Tournament for the second straight year, I was close to certain that the Wildcats’ season was over.

The committee said otherwise and I couldn’t be happier.

Because Northwestern only played one (gut-wrenchingly painful) game this week, I’m scrapping the usual five things to know and awards format for this column and adapting it for postseason play. Let’s dive right in.

What went wrong for the ‘Cats in West Lafayette?

Short answer? A lot. I am not being hyperbolic when I say this was personally the most deflating loss in the three years I’ve covered the team. I was in West Lafayette to broadcast the tournament, and after the 4-2 loss to Purdue had concluded, fellow Inside NU-er Adam Beck and I just sat in silence looking at the field, wondering “what just happened?” It made for a long and premature drive back to Evanston.

The game immediately got off to a rocky start when Signe Dohse took the circle instead of Lauren Boyd, who was fresh off a dominant 13-inning weekend in Los Angeles. Dohse surrendered two runs before being pulled for Renae Cunningham in the third, but lived dangerously by loading the bases in each of the first three innings. To be clear, Northwestern didn’t lose this game because of the decision to start Dohse, but the process was somewhat questionable for a team potentially facing a win-and-in scenario for the NCAA Tournament (although I guess this proved to be false).

By the time Boyd entered in the sixth inning, Northwestern trailed 3-2 against a Purdue team missing Moriah Polar, the Boilermakers’ best hitter. But Northwestern would have, could have and should have been able to tie the game or take the lead if not for a litany of base running miscues.

In the fourth inning, Bridget Donahey stepped off the bag early, erasing an Avery Garden RBI triple that would have set NU up with the tying run 60 feet away with no outs. One inning later, Drohan made the stunning call for Kansas Robinson to bunt right at one of Purdue’s best defenders with runners on second and third. Grace Nieto was promptly thrown out at home and the ‘Cats remained down one.

Finally, in the seventh, Ayana Lindsey and Grace Nieto both stole on what was the third strike to Kaylie Avvisato, but Lindsey was a tick late and was caught stealing. In one pitch, Northwestern went from runners on first and second with no outs to two outs with just one runner on the base paths.

It was missed opportunity after missed opportunity, although Purdue deserves credit for a gutsy performance and the heroics of Julia Gossett, who dominated on both sides of the ball. But it’s hard to win many games when you score two runs, strike out 10 times and hit .200 with runners in scoring position.

There’s no one player or decision to blame, but Northwestern played sloppy — a word I don’t think I’ve ever used to describe a Kate Drohan-coached squad. Watching on Wednesday, it didn’t look anything like the team that stole a series from top-10 UCLA three days prior.

What needs to go right for the Wildcats to win their regional?

Aside from the necessary purge of everything that happened this weekend, Northwestern has to dictate the terms of the game if it is to advance to the Super Regional round. For the lowest-RPI Power Four team of any squad in the field, Northwestern has a surprisingly winnable draw — certainly more than last year when the Wildcats won the Big Ten regular season but were doomed with a Regional trip to top-ranked Texas. With Clemson and Kentucky (and USC Upstate) in the four-team field, it certainly won’t be a cake walk, but I think winning is well within the realm of possibility.

Stay tuned on this site for a deeper preview of the other teams in the field, but for now I’ll say Clemson is definitely the prohibitive favorite for good reason. The Tigers walk a ton, hit for power and pitch well and have few vulnerable points. Kentucky meanwhile, struggled late in the season and finished just 7-17 in conference play (albeit in the best softball conference, by far) and are near the bottom of the SEC in almost every important statistical category, including defense, where the Wildcats in blue really struggle.

This weekend, it’s imperative that Northwestern wins the opening game against Kentucky to avoid a situation where the Wildcats need to win three or four in a row to advance. In a double elimination format, Northwestern needs the win Friday to prevent playing with its back against the wall for the remainder of the weekend.

Lauren Boyd will need to be at her best, of course, but she’s going to need some help if NU is going to make any sort of a run. I found it notable that in the Big Ten Tournament, the staff trusted Signe Dohse and Renae Cunningham over Riley Grudzielanek, but those innings have been in flux all season. The pitcher of choice will likely be matchup dependent, but Cunningham certainly earned another look after a solid outing last week.

Offensively, it’s all about avoiding strikeouts and being selectively aggressive. The Wildcats are a different team when they consistently put the ball in play, and although the aggressive base running bit the team brutally in West Lafayette, the team has snagged extra bases and runs all season by being assertive on the base paths.

Big Ten Lookaround

In lieu of an awards section this week, I thought it would be fun to rank all eight (!) Big Ten teams in the NCAA Tournament by who has the best chance to advance to the Super Regional round, in my estimation:

1. Oregon (Eugene Regional with Stanford, Binghamton, Weber State)

2. UCLA (Los Angeles Regional with Arizona State, San Diego State, UC Santa Barbara)

3. Nebraska (Baton Rouge Regional with No. 10 LSU, UConn, Southeastern Louisiana)

4. Ohio State (Knoxville Regional with No. 7 Tennessee, North Carolina, Miami of Ohio)

5. Michigan (Austin Regional with No. 6 Texas, UCF, Eastern Illinois)

6. Northwestern (Clemson Regional with No. 11 Clemson, Kentucky, USC Upstate)

7. Washington (Lubbock Regional with No. 12 Texas Tech, Mississippi State, Brown)

8. Indiana (Fayetteville Regional with No. 4 Arkansas, Oklahoma State, Saint Louis)

That’s all for this week. The NCAA Regional kicks off Friday against Kentucky but it should be an amazing weekend of softball all across the country. I’ll be back next Monday to break it all down.