Just when it seemed like the game was destined to be another heartbreaking loss to a struggling team, everything turned around.
Theresa Boruta hit the game-winning RBI single as the University of Wisconsin softball team beat Northern Illinois 2-0 at Goodman Diamond Wednesday evening.
Boruta came up to bat with two outs in the sixth after Ashley Hanewich led the inning off with a double and hit the first pitch she saw up the middle.
“We were kind of really passive the entire game, waiting to get deep in the count and then letting [the NIU] pitcher work us,” Boruta said. “So we said let’s swing at the first pitch and make something happen.”
Up to that point, nothing had happened for the Badgers offensively. Although NIU pitcher Morgan Bittner entered the game with a 3.69 ERA, the game remained scoreless going into the sixth inning. Wisconsin was held hitless until Hanewich’s double and got all three of its hits in that inning.
But Boruta wasn’t done.
With Livi Abney batting, Boruta stole second and later advanced to third on Abney’s ground ball single up the middle. On the first pitch to Karla Powell in the next at bat, Abney took off toward second and was able to get a throw from the catcher. Boruta bolted for home and slid around the NIU catcher to score the second UW run.
“That’s what you call creating, manufacturing runs,” UW head coach Chandelle Schulte said. “I felt like we weren’t going to score again, we weren’t hitting the broad side of a barn … so I felt even if she was out, it was a situation we had an 80 percent chance of being safe, so go for it.”
“I watched the ball fly out of the catcher’s hand and I was like ‘home’s mine,'” Boruta said of the steal.
The UW third baseman’s hit and hustle turned out to be all the Badgers needed as pitcher Leah Vanevenhoven pitched a 1-2-3 top of the seventh inning to preserve the victory. On the game she held NIU to no runs on just three hits. The southpaw said she was just glad Wisconsin scored first.
“For a pitcher that’s always a relief when you get a couple runs on the board, especially when it’s a 0-0 ballgame,” Vanevenhoven said.
The control issues that plagued Vanevenhoven against Michigan were absent Wednesday, as she walked just one Huskie and struck out seven. Two of those strikeouts came in one of the most tense situations of the game.
In the top of the third inning, Northern Illinois had runners on first and second after a hit batsmen and a bouncing single over Boruta’s head. Vanevenhoven struck out Bailey Ouellete swinging, although the following batter reached base on an error. Vanevenhoven got out of the bases-loaded jam by striking out Emily Gooding looking on a full count.
“She wasn’t brilliant, she’ll tell you she wasn’t brilliant today,” Schulte said of Vanevenhoven’s performance in the circle. “She got by today. But good pitchers can get by. The last three weeks, she’s thrown very well.”
Throwing well didn’t seem to be enough for much of the game however, as UW’s trend of playing down to the level of the competition was well on display until the sixth inning. Vanevenhoven said that fact was in the back of her mind until Wisconsin scored.
“The first couple innings, it was kind of hard, because they were getting runners on, so I was like, ‘Oh my God, I can’t let them score because it’s still a 0-0 ballgame and we’re not getting any hits,'” Vanevenhoven said. “Later innings it just gave us momentum, going into the seventh inning to shut them down.”
For once, the Badgers weren’t on the receiving end of the one bad inning. UW improved to 14-35 on the season, while NIU is 15-34, including a 1-5 record against the Badgers. Schulte said the team was glad to finally win a game they were favored in, even if it was a battle to do it.
“It’s good, but I wasn’t happy until the sixth inning,” Schulte said. “I also felt that we didn’t fight until the sixth inning though, we just went through the motions. So lesson learned — we’re not good enough to go through the motions. You’ve got to come out ready to attack… you can tell them, but you’ve got to go out there with that mentality.”
