Softball: Michigan vs. Washington Open Thread
The girls beat Arizona State early this morning, and now they are taking on 11-seed Washington. The game is on ESPN (it started at 3:30pm). Win and advance, or lose and go home. The winner takes on 1-seed Oklahoma at 9:30 tonight.
FINAL SCORE: 4-1 Washington. Good season, girls!
Is it me or do umps love to give that outside corner a little to much? Just feels like girls have to stretch a little to far to protect the plate when it looks like the ball is way outside. I can't believe "framing" some of these pitches fools an ump that much.
We had two on, two out in the bottom of the fifth with Romero on deck. We could have really opened this thing up, but I'll take the one run and be happy!
not sure i like the BB here, considering DPs are rare
Is putting the go-ahead run on base ever a good idea?
Crap.
What the heck just happened?
well that sucked.....bad to even try that ball to 2nd. Just eat it at 1-1
Well that was just a comedy of errors there.
Washington just scored two runs on a crazy play. They have a girl on third with one out.
that was the killer.....eat the ball and you're sitting at 1-1 instead of down 2-1.
ARGH!
/danger zone
Washington just got lucky--the ball hit third base to stay fair.
Why was the runner called safe at third? The announcer said obstruction I believe. If you compare that play to the last out of the game last night between Nebraska and Florida, I don't understand how this one was obstruction and that one was not.
hold anyone down the washington player slid into our player knocking her over and thus ontop of the washington player... when you see the replay the michigan player barely made contact... worse part about it is that the ump on the 3rd made the call who is 60 feet away from the play and he didn't have a clear sight line of it...
and this is the epitomy of momentum in softball....suddenly everyone can hit.
I hate Intentional Walks. They should never ever happen. Let's get the runs back girls.
Drat, Romero went and got thrown out.
We need 3 runs here, not 1.
Great season girls... Maybe next year?
play right there... 1 run does not help we need base runners...
Yikes, Romero. Yikes.
call seemed like an awful call. That being said, intentionally walking the go ahead run in that situation seems like a terrible decision as well. That was a self-inflicted meltdown.
Bottom of the seventh. Two outs. We need three runs. Let's Go Blue!
We are down to our last out. We need some hits now.
Frack. Well, good job to the team for getting this far. Too bad it's over.
Good season, girls! It's not the outcome we hoped for, but it would have been almost impossible to beat Oklahoma anyway.
Softball team is a lot like the hockey program. They get to the NCAAs but never do well in them.
lol, that's a pretty silly statement. We were just in the hockey national championship game a couple years ago. And in the Frozen Four a few years before that. Single elimination hockey tournaments are about as uncertain as it gets in sports.
And we just got to the WCWS, which is a pretty tough thing to do. And we were just there in 2009 as well. We do very well in softball considering it's a sport dominated by southern and west coast teams.
The team has done great in winning regionals and super-regionals which = success IMO. But they haven't done especially well once they get to OK City. (With one HUGE exception, of course)
That said, Great season! Over achieved especially without last year's best pitcher being available at the beginning and the end.
Congrats, ladies!!!
Tough way for things to end, but we added another Big Ten Title to the collection & a WCWS appearance as well. Oklahoma is so dominant right now that I never figured we'd win it all in OKC - my main hope was for the team to win a game or two and get some experience playing against the highest caliber of competition and in that environment. There is so much great young talent returning next season. Wagner, Driesenga, Lawrence, Sweet, and of course Romero all produced at a high level as underclassmen, and several other young guns will surely step up as well - I'm especially high on Kelsey Susalla's potential. Of departures, Ashley Lane is by far the most significant, followed by Amy Knapp - the other seniors saw comparitvely limited time. With Sappingfield, Doyle, and Blanchard coming back for their senior seasons, next year just might be the time for us to make a big run. These last two seasons have been a bit of a rebuilding period after the end of the Nemitz/Taylor era, and we've won the Big Ten both times. Now it's time to go get another WCWS title!
Very good season, though I'm sure we're all disappointed with how it ended. Softball is just one of those sports where fundamentals and mental mistakes are magnified. Make one or two bad choices and it hurts. That's what happened here IMO. Good season and hopefully something we can build on for next year.