Irish fall in extras to Northwestern at Wrigley Field

CHICAGO (WNDU) - The Notre Dame baseball team made history on Tuesday by visiting the Friendly Confines for the first time in program history, but it would prove to be unfriendly as the Irish lost to Northwestern in walk-off fashion in extra innings.

With the bases loaded, two outs, and a full count in the bottom of the 11th inning, an error on a ground ball to third allowed the game-winning run to score for Northwestern, giving the Wildcats an 8-7 victory in just their ninth win of the season.

“We’ve had we had to make so many switches. Obviously, the injury bug has hit us, and we had to make so many switches at third base,” said Head Coach Shawn Stiffler after the game. “We ended up getting caught with a guy who hasn’t played third base playing there at the end. God bless him, he did a wonderful job to knock that ball down, but just wasn’t able to find the handle,”

Regardless of the heartbreak again in their final midweek game this season, Stiffler admits that this was still a cool game.

“It was a cool event, and we’re very thankful to be able to do it and appreciate Northwestern for setting it up,” Stiffler said. “It’s a special venue, obviously a cathedral of baseball. I told the team before tonight, ‘Who’s got it better than us right now?’ It was a lot of fun.”

With the loss, the Irish fell to 29-20 on the season. They’ll close out their regular season with a three-game series at Boston College that begins on Thursday. The second game of the series will be played at Fenway Park as part of Boston College’s 11th annual ALS Awareness Game.

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