Northwestern University Athletics
Northwestern
Illinois
Wildcats Blank Illinois, 6-0
5/3/2003 12:00:00 AM | Softball
May 3, 2003
EVANSTON, Ill. - National Player of the Week Courtnay Foster (Tucson, Ariz./Sahuaro) picked up right where she left off, and Cindy Muran (Newbury Park, Calif./Newbury Park) and J.C. Kira (Honolulu, Hawaii/Saint Francis) homered as the Northwestern softball team kept its Big Ten tourney hopes alive with a 6-0 win over Illinois Saturday. Coupled with Penn State's 4-1 loss at Ohio State, the Wildcats need either a win or a Penn State loss Sunday to advance to the conference tournament.
With the win, Northwestern improves to 31-15 overall and 10-9 in the Big Ten. The 24th-ranked Illini drop to 37-12-1 and 11-6 with the loss. It is the third straight Big Ten game Illinois has been held scoreless.
Foster, who earned the national honor after posting three shutouts the previous week, had Illinois batters baffled all afternoon. She struck out 10 while allowing just four hits, including only one over the first five innings. Foster stretched her streak of not allowing an earned run to 38.2 innings. She also moved into third place on NU's single-season strikeout list, raising her total to 239.
Meanwhile, the Wildcat bats came ready hit out of the gates. NU took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first as Carri Leto (El Cajon, Calif./Valhalla), who went 3-for-4, and Brett Nakabayashi (Irvine, Calif./Irvine) recorded back-to-back singles. Erin Mobley (Santa Ana, Calif./Foothill) moved both runners up on a sacrifice bunt, and Muran followed with a sac fly to left, scoring Leto.
The 'Cats stretched their lead to 3-0 in the third with a two-out rally. Mobley got the charge started with a single to left and came into score on Muran's team-leading sixth home run of the season.
NU's lead grew to four in the next inning, as Kira connected on her third longball of the season, off reliever Jackelyn Diekemper.
Northwestern finished off the scoring in the sixth, pushing across two more runs. With one away, pinch hitter Kristen Amegin (W. Sacramento, Calif./Elk Grove) walked. Jessie Wellnitz reentered the game and came all the way around to score from first base on a double down the right field line by Leto. Leto scored two batters later as Illini center fielder Rachelle Coriddi dropped a flyball to deep left-center hit by Mobley.
In addition to Leto's three-hit performance, Nakabayashi and Kira added two hits, as seven different Wildcats had at least one hit.
The teams wrap up the regular season with the final game of the two-game set at noon Sunday.
