First glance at Northwestern and the WCWS

[TropicalSooner]

Well boys and girls.....here we are. Once again Patty Gasso will be leading her charge of Sooners that happen to play softball into Marita Hynes North for the WCWS.

Got me to thinking about NW'ern and their star pitcher, Danielle Williams, who for some reason I seem to want to call Danielle Steele, maybe because it seems like she's made of steel. After facing super regional foe Arizona State for three games this past weekend, she's thrown 430 pitches, 251 of which were strikes, over 23.1 innings and 110 batters faced. It seems like she just keeps throwing and throwing and throwing and throwing.....and then throws some more. Remind you of anyone? Like Alexander last year? All of which kinda leads to a sidebar: the pitching quality at the world series this year. While some of the sport's greatest won't be there: Fouts, Plain, Sandercock, and so on, there of plenty of excellent pitchers this year that we will have to overcome: Hanah Bowen for Ariz, Mariah Mazon for Oregon St., Florida pitches by committee rotating 3 starters so they are fresh, Danielle Williams, Megan Faraimo and Holly Azevedo, and of course our favorites, Hailey Dolcini, Kelly Maxwell, and Morgan Day. But.....I digress........

Back to Northwestern.
As a team they are batting at a .304 clip, with 5 of their starters hitting over .300. They've been walked 191 times, struck out 281 times, hit 76 HRs, and stolen 82 bases out of 96 attempts. By comparison we are .369 BA, all 9 starters over .300 w 3 over .400, 248 walks, 138 HRs and 59/76 SBs/Att. So....nothing flashy about their offense. But I like to think of them as.....well.......stubborn. Maybe that's not pc. I should prob say scrappy, but I really like stubborn. Just look at their super reg against ASU. Took them 3 games, won the first and the last. In the first game ASU carried a 3-0 lead going into the 6th inning but then the Cats started chipping away and were tied 3-3 at the end of 7....then drug it out 4 more and scored 1 in the top of the 11th to win. Game three: ASU blasted to a 5-0 lead after 3 innings and all the folks on the message boards were laughing about it going to be a run-rule. The stubborn Cats came back-chipped away at the score and by the end of the 7th won 8-6.

Others will give you much more in depth look at comparisons between our teams but my first blush is every team at this years' WCWS are here for a reason. And Northwestern certainly fits that mold. Just enough balance, just enough offense, and more than enough pitching, to quickly put you in the losers bracket if you aren't paying attention and take them for granted. Should we win? Of course. And it "shouldn't" be close--Williams is hittable. But we have to pay attention to what we are doing, our game plan, and don't leave our runners stranded on base. And if we get an 8-0 lead after 3 innings, DON'T LET UP! They will stubbonly start chipping away at you and, well, ASU can show you the rest.