For a Northwestern team with one of the youngest pitching staffs in the Big Ten, each sign of progress is huge, especially against top-tier conference foes.
With their 6-5 win over the Iowa Hawkeyes (19-11, 3-3 Big Ten) on Sunday at Rocky and Berenice Miller Park, the Wildcats (10-20, 2-4 Big Ten) took a three-game set from an explosive team that crushed them Friday. That certainly seems like progress.
It was also the Wildcats’ first Big Ten series win of the season. Last year, that didn’t happen until early May in the third-to-last conference series of the season against a cellar-dwelling Purdue.