Last weekend, Rutgers baseball pulled off a much-needed two games to one series win against Maryland to keep itself in the running to make the Big Ten tournament. Now they must do the same against Northwestern to punch their ticket to the tournament.
The Big Ten tournament features the 12 teams in the conference that have the best conference winning percentage. Right now, Rutgers sits at No.12 in the conference standings with a record of 11-16 in conference play. The team one spot ahead of them in the standings,
Minnesota, and the team one spot below them in the standings, Washington, are tied with the Scarlet Knights in terms of conference winning percentage at .407, with all three having an 11-16 record in conference play. Rutgers has played neither team so far this season, meaning that they hold the tiebreaker over Washington, either due to their winning percentage against common opponents or overall RPI.
The good news for the Knights is that their last series of the year comes against Northwestern, which is tied for the lowest winning percentage in Big Ten play and has the second-worst overall record in the conference. Even better news for Rutgers is that Washington has to play No.1 UCLA in its last series of the season.
While both of those factors favor the Knights in making the Big Ten tournament, the best way to ensure they get their name called is to go out and win the series against the Wildcats, who are playing some of their best baseball of the season as of late, as four of their seven total Big Ten wins have come in the last 10 games.
To pull off these wins, Rutgers will look to their star players to step up. One such star is Peyton Bonds, who currently leads the Knights with a .358 batting average, 49 hits, 31 runs, 13 stolen bases, 75 total bases, and is second with six home runs and 28 RBIs. They also need their pitchers to be at their best. It was confirmed that RHP Zack Konstantinovsky will lead off game one, while RHP Vincent Borghese will be up first in game 2. Game 3’s opening pitcher is yet to be announced.
Rutgers is 8-10 all-time against Northwestern, with Rutgers sweeping Northwestern in their last series in 2023.
Game one of this series is set to start tomorrow, Thursday, May 14th, at 4 p.m. ET in Evanston, Illinois. All three games this weekend will be streamed on B1G+.
