March 16, 2011

Northwestern's Spring Break 2011 Game Notes Package (PDF Format)

EVANSTON, Ill. -- After a week off to take winter quarter finals, Northwestern embarks on its annual spring break trip this weekend. The Wildcats will be in Northern California to play in the Stanford Louisville Slugger Classic March 18-20 before traveling to Saint Mary's for a Tuesday, March 22 contest.

Gametracker will be available for all of the games at the Stanford tournament, while live stats for the Saint Mary's contest are available at smcgaels.com. Live twitter updates will NOT be available from softball during this trip; special thank you to Nick Brilowski for writing recaps during a brief absence for your normal NU softball correspondent.

In its last action March 4-6, Northwestern was one of two teams--along with Stanford--to finish the Cal State Fullerton DeMarini Invitational with an undefeated 5-0 record. The Wildcats opened with a win over then-No. 11 California before also defeating Southern Miss, Cal State Northridge, Oregon State and IPFW.

At this weekend's tournament, NU opens with a single Friday contest against UNLV at 5:45 p.m. CT before again seeing the Rebels at 1:15 p.m. CT Saturday, March 19. NU and No. 13 Stanford face off at 5:45 p.m. CT Saturday. On Sunday, NU has a doubleheader with Iowa State and Cal Poly beginning at 11 a.m. CT.

This will be NU's first trip to the Stanford Louisville Slugger Classic since going 3-2 at the event in 2005. The 'Cats defeated the Cardinal, 7-2, in that tourney, contributing to a 6-1 record for NU against Stanford during 10th-year head coach Kate Drohan's tenure in Evanston.

This weekend will be a homecoming for Northwestern's Northern California natives Emily Allard (Antioch, Calif./Deer Valley) and Sammy Albanese (Belmont, Calif./Castilleja). Allard, a sophomore, currently leads the Big Ten with a .571 batting average and 17 steals in 17 games played. Albanese, a freshman pitcher, is 2-1 with a 2.62 ERA and one save so far in her first collegiate season. She went 2-0 with a complete-game victory over IPFW at the DeMarini Invite two weeks ago.

Countdown to the Grand: Northwestern enters this six-game road trip with an all-time program record of 996-701-4, putting the Wildcats four wins shy of No. 1,000. While schedules have varied over the years (especially in the early seasons; NU played just seven contests in 1976), Northwestern has averaged 37 wins per season since 2002 when the Drohans took over. The 1,000th win in school history also will be win No. 350 for the Drohans at NU.

For Northwestern's complete game notes package for the upcoming Spring Break road trip, download the .pdf at the top of this page

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