Start Wearing Purple

Three weekends ago, I “adopted” the Northwestern University Wildcats women’s softball team. Why? I suppose because my daughter’s school, Greece (NY) Odyssey, wore purple, and so did Northwestern. That weekend, I watched on the internet, on my computer screen, a single camera broadcast of Northwestern’s doubleheader on Sunday. That weekend was the Super Regional against the unheralded University of Massachusetts. Northwestern trailed UMass with five outs left, and a loss would end their season. The Wildcats pulled off an amazing comeback, then won the second game as well, and advanced to the next round. And I found myself rooting, screaming and cheering for young women that I had never met, and whom I had never heard of the day before.

The wins against UMass sent the Wildcats to the Women’s College World Series. And if the wins against UMass were dramatic, there was even higher drama to come. In the first game of the WCWS, after trading leads with Alabama, Northwestern found themselves down to their last strike, when freshman Erin Dyer launched a fly ball to center field. When she hit it, I didn’t think she hit it well, but the ball cleared the centerfield fence to tie the game and send the game into extra innings. Northwestern loaded the bases in the ninth inning, failed to score, and then in the tenth, the Wildcats’ ninth place hitter Darcy Sengewald walked and was sacrificed to second. Another freshman, Tammy Williams, grounded the ball up the middle. The centerfielder charged, and should have had a good chance to throw Sengewald out at home from shallow center field, but she over-ran the ball. Northwestern won a heart-pounding, scream your lungs out ballgame.

Next, against Tennessee, Northwestern pitcher Eileen Canney held the country’s best hitting team to just one hit. The game also featured Tennessee’s Monica Abbott, who led the nation in wins. And the pitcher’s duel went scoreless into the sixth inning, when Northwestern pounded out a hit by Katie Logan, a walk and Kristen Amegin knocked in the games first run. Sengewald added a homerun in the seventh inning, and Northwestern advanced again.

The third game, against top-ranked (and 16 time national champion) UCLA, once again was heart-pounding drama. The winner would advance to the championship series, beginning tonight. Northwestern opened up a 1–0 lead as catcher Jamie Dotson homered, and the lead held up until the seventh. The crowd had picked up Northwestern’s cinderella vibe, and was rooting purple. UCLA was down to their last strike, with a pinch hitter up, and Kristen Deadmon blooped a single into left (after the preceeding pitch appeared to be strike three), sucking the life out of the crowd and sending the game into extra innings. In the top of the eighth, freshman Williams homered (I’m screaming at the top of my lungs) and then Big Ten Player of the Year Garland Cooper hit another home run. Canney held UCLA of the bases in the bottom of the eighth, and for the first time Northwestern advanced to the championship round. The crowd, now almost all rooting for Northwestern, roared.

The next game for my adopted team is tonight on ESPN2. I hope my heart can take the excitement.

Update (6/6/06): Apparently JT’s heart can’t take much more either.