Softball: Five things to know from a bounce-back weekend in Louisville

Showing signs of life.

After a difficult weekend at the Mary Nutter Collegiate Classic, Northwestern traveled to Louisville, Kentucky to play five games at the Cardinal Classic. It looked like Northwestern’s poor play would continue after the Wildcats dropped the opening game of the weekend to a struggling Central Michigan team, but the Wildcats turned the tide, winning the rest of their games (only three because of one cancellation) to bring their record back to .500.

Here are five things to know from Northwestern’s performance at the Cardinal Classic:

1. The bats are beginning to wake up

I don’t know if I’d say the bats are fully awake — they are definitely a little groggy still — but they are no longer in the deep, snoring REM cycle sleep they had been in for large parts of the early stages of the season. In Northwestern’s three wins to close the weekend, they outscored opponents 24-7 and finally generated some power, blasting six doubles and five home runs on the weekend.

Two of Northwestern’s outfielders were a huge part of this surge as Isabel Cunnea and Kelsey Nader combined for 13 of Northwestern’s hits on the weekend. After slow starts to the season, the trip to Kentucky allowed Cunnea and Nader to boost their personal batting averages to .282 and .286, respectively. If you’re Northwestern, you’re hoping that next up for that hitting boost is Kansas Robinson and Emma Raye.

2. Lauren Boyd continues to put in great work

Lauren Boyd looked excellent again for Northwestern this weekend, earning two more wins while throwing 12 innings across the first Longwood game and the Louisville matchup. In the 12 innings, she only allowed eight hits and two runs, but perhaps even more impressive is that she only allowed two extra-base hits — two doubles. She still has not given up a home run in over 37 innings pitched this year.

In the Sunday bout against the hosting Cardinals, Boyd showed off her strikeout ability — not something she’s known for — fanning a career-high 11 Louisville batters, including five who went down looking. She now leads all Wildcat pitchers in innings pitched, wins, strikeouts, WHIP and batting average against. Once Big Ten play starts, NU will lean on Boyd as the best pitcher on the staff.

3. A consequential lineup change

Coach Kate Drohan has done a lot of lineup tinkering in 2025, but it appears one change will be the new norm for the time being. After some struggles in the first three weekends of the schedule, it appears that Ayana Lindsey is taking a backseat to first-year Avery Garden. It’s rare to see a freshman steal the spot of a senior, but with Lindsey’s average sitting at .111 and her walk rate taking a dip from a season ago, Northwestern has opted to go with the talented first-year.

The offensive results haven’t shown up for Garden just yet, whose average sits at a slightly higher .120, but she should offer a little more power at the plate and has a more favorable strikeout rate thus far. Defensively, the switch means that Nader shifts over to Lindsey’s spot in center while Garden gets inserted in right field.

4. The value of putting the ball in play

Last week, I attributed a large portion of Northwestern’s offensive struggles to the extremely high strikeout total that prevented Northwestern from putting the ball in play. This weekend, Northwestern cut back on the strikeouts, posting six or fewer Ks in three of the four contests. The team did a better job of putting the ball in play, which led to 30 hits on the four games, but also a whopping 12 errors.

I’ll take runs any way Northwestern can get them, and this weekend, putting the onus on the opposing defense paid dividends, as Northwestern’s foes made error after error. A colossal 12 of Northwestern’s 24 runs in their three wins were technically “unearned” runs as a result of defensive mishaps and follies. But when the ‘Cats strike out, this isn’t a possibility. Good things happen when you put the ball in play.

5. A clean slate

At 9-9, this still isn’t the ideal start Northwestern was looking for. The Wildcats are near the bottom of the conference in nearly every important statistic and find themselves in the rare position of being near the bottom of the conference standings.

The good news? The season hasn’t really started until now.

Yes, some of the early-season bouts can be important, but they pale in comparison to the conference slate. The next time the Wildcats will be in action will be the games that matter, with four Big Ten contests against Penn State and Michigan State — another two teams who have started the season slowly. And a few things are working in Northwestern’s favor. First, the Wildcats have the positive momentum of the current three-game win streak where they’ve put together their best stretch of the young season. In addition, Northwestern has next weekend off, giving the team time to reset, get right and prep for the Big Ten gauntlet.

Weekly Awards

Week MVP: This is the first week where it’s really difficult to choose, but I’m giving the nod to Isabel Cunnea (6-for-13, 5 RBI, double, home run, HBP) whose bat coming alive may be the most significant development of the weekend.

Best Play: How about Lauren Boyd making a diving scoop and throw to close out the Sunday win over Louisville? I’d say she looks at full health!

Big Ten Lookaround: There was no team in the Big Ten I was more curious about going into the season than Washington, who lost an ungodly amount of players this past offseason and basically had to reconstruct its entire roster. After a 6-0 weekend, Heather Tarr has her team on a nine-game win streak and sitting at 15-7 overall.

What I’m watching for next weekend: As mentioned above, next weekend is off for the Wildcats so we will turn our attention to the end of the men’s college basketball regular season, but two weekends from now, I’m really curious to see what Northwestern’s pitching rotation looks like in the first few Big Ten games. Riley Grudzielanek has been quite inconsistent this season, but neither Signe Dohse nor Emma Blea has yet truly established themselves as trustworthy options. I’m monitoring who earns starts and how long their leash is.

Ethan’s favorite NU softball thing he saw this week: Nobody has gotten more shoutouts in this weekly column than Kaylie Avvisato, and that trend will continue because she checked off a career milestone this weekend, launching a nuke to mark her first home run. The first of many.

That’s all for this week! No column next Monday with the Wildcats out of action, but I’ll be back on March 17 to break down Northwestern’s trip to Oklahoma City, where the Wildcats will play two games against both Penn State and Michigan State.