Baseball wins on walkoff, sweeps 4-game series with Illinois-Chicago

#23 Michigan handled Illinois-Chicago pretty easily the last three games, outscoring them 25-6 combined in the 3 games played over the last two days.

Today was a different story.

In the 2nd inning, Michigan went up 2-0 on a sac fly from freshman Ako Thomas and an RBI single from Jake Bivens. 

UIC responded the very next inning, tying the game up at 2-2 and then taking the lead in the 4th inning, 3-2. 

It took Michigan a bit, and things seemed to coming off the rails a bit as ace Evan Hill had an off day and head coach Erik Bakich got ejected after arguing with the home plate cyclops. 

But.......the Wolverines recaptured the lead in the 5th inning. Drew Lugbauer scored two runs on a what was originally a single, but a botched throw in the infield made it a double. Michigan was up 4-3 which is what the score would be until the 9th inning.

Michigan replaced Will Tribucher with Bryan Pall in the 9th inning. Jake Bivens made two OUTSTANDING grabs in a row at 3B to bring the UIC Flames to their last out, but they scored to take the lead on a single. Their next batter would fly out and give Michigan a chance to win it.

Carmen Benedetti drew a one-out walk, Harrison Wenson singled and Cody Bruder hit the walkoff single to score Benedetti to give Michigan the 5-4 win in the 9th inning.

Michigan avenges their 7-0 road loss last season, and sweeps the 4-game series against Illinois-Chicago. 

Michigan is now 16-5 and will begin B1G play next weekend with a road series at Northwestern. Each of those games will be on BTN+.