April 21, 2001
EVANSTON, Ill. - The Purdue softball team broke its six-game losing streak today with a 2-1 defeat of Northwestern on its home field. The Boilermakers improve to 28-21-1 (5-10 Big Ten), while the Wildcats fall to 17-18 (6-7 Big Ten).
"Today was just an outstanding win for our team," said Purdue head coach Carol Bruggeman. "I am very proud of our team. We fought hard the whole way and our relay at the end of the game was certainly one of our most exciting plays of the year. I'm just extremely proud of the way we played today."
The Boilermakers started the game off right, with a two-run homerun by sophomore Heidi Foster in the top of the first inning. Going deep over the left center wall, Foster tallied her second home run in two games and her seventh of the season.
When asked about how it felt to hit her second home run in two games, Foster responded, "It feels good. I'm really glad that Katie (Crabtree) was able to get on so that I could score here too. She just gave me the right pitch - a change-up, just a little outside."
"Their pitcher wasn't afraid to go right at me all day. She did a good job at doing her job. She kept us scoreless for six innings. But Leighann (Burke) did an excellent job today and our defense was very solid all day. We made several key outs and our outfield relays were good too. In the end, we were able to get ourselves out of a bind and there's no better way to end a game than the way we did today. We're just going to go out and take it to them again tomorrow."
The Boilermakers' defense did indeed to its job today, holding Northwestern to only one run on six quality hits. Purdue allowed the `Cats their first hit in the first inning, but held them hitless until the fifth inning, when they tallied only one more. In the process, Northwestern also left five runners on base, compared to Purdue's three.
In the end, it was also the Old Gold and Black's defense that would end the game, giving the win that breaks the former six-game losing streak.
In dramatic fashion, Northwestern put a runner on first with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. The next batter up nailed a deep shot to left center field, just short of the fence, for a double. But the Wildcats knew that they had to send that runner that was on first to try and score.
She rounded third as the throw was launched from sophomore left fielder Andrea Roush to junior shortstop Katie Crabtree at the cut-off. Crabtree turned the play and threw it home to freshman catcher Sara Hall for the close play at the plate.
But Hall did an excellent job of blocking the plate and the Northwestern runner was out. Purdue had won the game they so desperately needed to stay alive in the conference race and the dugout emptied in joy.
"Today was fun," said Hall. "It was a great way to win and it gets us pumped up for tomorrow. It's just fun to be able to head into tomorrow's game with that mentality and this is the beginning of our winning streak."
On the mound for Purdue, sophomore Leighann Burke finished her ninth complete game of the season, allowing six hits, one run and one walk, while tallying three strikeouts. Burke improves her ERA to 1.09 and her record to 11-10, having pitched a total of 166.1 innings.
The Boilermakers will look to build on today's success when they take the field against the Wildcats again tomorrow, Sunday, at 1 p.m. for the second game of the series.
-P-