Northwestern University Athletics
2001 Baseball Season in Review
5/25/2001 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
May 25, 2001
EVANSTON, Ill. - The Northwestern baseball team learned the hard way how it feels to not take care of business. After making a strong push for a Big Ten Tournament berth in the second half of the conference season, the Wildcats needed just one victory in the final conference weekend at Minnesota. But the Gophers, playing for a chance at their second consecutive regular-season title, handed NU four straight defeats and a long bus ride back to Evanston.
The `Cats put themselves in position for postseason play despite a sub .500 non-conference schedule and a disastrous first eight games of league play. Just 1-7 after two weekends in the Big Ten, the `Cats rattled off 10 wins during the next four series taking three of four from Penn State and Indiana, to set up the Minnesota series. NU also split against Michigan State and Iowa.
For the second straight year, the pivotal series came against the Nittany Lions. In the opener, PSU came out swinging against staff ace Zach Schara and chased him after three and two-third innings, his shortest outing of the season. The Lions won 14-6. Down but not out, senior Michael Nall started the first game of Saturday's doubleheader and had his best pitching performance in a Wildcat uniform. He held the Lions to just four hits and controlled the game from the first pitch, striking out six and walking none to earn Big Ten Pitcher of the Week. The weekend's momentum switched to the Northwestern side, and the `Cats took three of four from Penn State.
Despite heading in to the weekend on their longest win streak of the season, four games, NU couldn't catch a break against Minnesota. The Gophers used timely hitting and capatilized on NU miscues, resulting in a series sweep.
Individually, Nall, senior catcher Joe Hietpas, Schara and designated hitter Todd Morgan earned All-Big Ten nominations from the league's coaches. Hietpas was named to the second team while Nall, Schara and Morgan received third-team selections. Hietpas ended his Northwestern career on nine different career record lists, including the all-time doubles record with 56. He finished second in RBI (158), second in total bases (374), third in home runs (27), tied for third in at-bats (700), fifth in hits (229), fifth in hit-by-pitches (23), sixth in games played (206) and tied for sixth in sacrifice flies (10).
Morgan led the team in hitting with a .336 average and tied for fourth in RBI with 20. Schara and Nall finished second and third in the Big Ten strikeout race and both finished on NU's top-10 single season list. Schara placed sixth with 81 strikeouts, and Nall finished in a tie for seventh with 80. After just three seasons, Schara is already second on NU's career strikeout list with 230. He needs 47 more to become NU's strikeout king. Schara and Nall also finished sixth and seventh on the single season innings pitched list, with Schara hauling in 96.0 innings and Nall ending with 90.1.
One of the most impressive stats of the year was Gabe Ribas' strikeout to walk ratio. In 78.1 innings pitched, Ribas fanned 72 hitters and walked just 22, a 3.27-to-1 ratio.
Junior Steve Haake finished ninth on NU's single-season doubles list with 15 and helped the team hit 21 triples with four of his own. The 21 triples is tied for fourth on NU's single season list. Freshman phenom David Gresky went through his entire first year of collegiate baseball hitting above .300 before falling in the last game of the season to .299. Gresky did finish second on the team with 14 doubles and had 19 RBI. Fellow freshman Jason Krynski, who was hampered by a hamstring strain the second half of the season, tied for the team lead with four home runs. He shares the title with Hietpas and Haake.
