Baseball: Northwestern’s Big Ten Tournament hopes die at the hands of Illinois
A downstate sweep and cruel standings have left Northwestern with nothing left to play for but pride.
The math finally drowned Northwestern. The Wildcats (20-28-1, 7-20 B1G) entered Champaign needing a big showing to keep its Big Ten Tournament pulse alive. Three games later, NU heads back to Evanston riding an L-shaped broomstick after being shellacked by rival Illinois (27-23, 13-14 B1G) and eliminated from postseason contention.
The ’Cats have been mathematically eliminated from Big Ten Tournament contention. Even if Northwestern sweeps Rutgers next week, the best it can end with is 10 conference wins. With multiple teams already at 11 wins and tiebreakers that would’ve stacked against them anyway, there is no path to Omaha for Ben Greenspan’s crew.
Here’s the recap of the deflating trip down I-57. Game 1: Illinois 12, Northwestern 0 (run-rule) Ryan Weaver started his outing off strong and looked like he was maybe destined for a big day, emphatically freezing AJ Putty to end the first. .
@ryanweaver21 closes out a scoreless first with a punchout! pic. twitter.
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