Big 6th Lifts Softball Over CMU, 5-0

Submitted by South Bend Wolverine on

Michigan softball just wrapped up their home opener, topping CMU 5-0 at Alumni Field.  The weather was chilly, and so were the bats through 5 innings in this one.

Neither team could scrape together a run, although the Chips came dangerously close in the 5th.  Hutch had lifted starter Tera Blanco for freshman phenom Meghan Beaubien, but Beaubien coming in cold could not keep Central off the base paths.  With the bases loaded, Blanco returned to the circle and got the Wolverines out of the jam.  Blanco would keep the door closed in the 6th, before getting her chance to play hero on the other side of the ball.

After Faith Canfield and Natalie Peters picked up hits, Blanco stepped to the plate with 2 on and no outs.  She delivered a double to the wall, driving in what would turn out to be the winning run.  Madison Uden added another double, making it 3-0, and Lou Allan and Faith Canfield added RBI singles as the Wolverines batted around.

Freshman Sarah Schaefer, coming off a Big Ten Pitcher of the Week performance last weekend, slammed the door in the 7th, and a stressful pitchers' duel ended as a comfortable M win.

Conference play begins on Friday, as Michigan travels to Iowa for a Friday/Saturday/Sunday 3 game slate.  Friday's game will be on BTN at 6 Eastern, 5 Central, so take a break from the Sweet Sixteen to take in some bat-and-ball action!

samdrussBLUE

March 21st, 2018 at 7:38 PM ^

It certainly wasn’t a pretty game to watch most of the evening. I’m most interested to see how Megan bounces back this weekend. I fully expect she will be fine, just interesting to see how quickly she can. Not ideal for her today.

RoseInBlue

March 21st, 2018 at 7:50 PM ^

Hopefully the bats are ready for Iowa.  They've actually been playing decent ball, knocking off a couple of Top 25 teams so far this year.  

I'm starting to worry about Beaubien.  She seems to be struggling with her location.  Although, she's been able to work herself out of it more often than not but that's been against crap teams. 

South Bend Wolverine

March 21st, 2018 at 10:00 PM ^

There's no question about Beaubien's talent or work ethic, but there's also no doubt she's shoulder a huge load, both in terms of innings and pressure, for a freshman.  The recent emergence of Schaefer as a legitimate option and Blanco's continued development are crucial here.  If they can take the pressure off Beaubien, that'll help her a lot in terms of getting back to her best form for the stretch run of the season.

Solecismic

March 22nd, 2018 at 12:06 AM ^

She went up against top ten teams in her very first college games. She's been dominating opponents for years. Pressure doesn't make sense in this case. Nor, really, does workload - she's used to throwing two games every weekend. If this were a tired thing, she should have been fine yesterday.

That leaves two realistic possibilities. One, she's injured. We saw what that did to Haylie Wagner. Or two, she's trying a new pitch or two and is using these games against lesser opponents to gain command of it.

I'm hoping for the latter, obviously. What leads me to this conclusion is that she threw 29 innings in the last two weekend tournaments against weak competition. She walked 9 and struck out 45, throwing a ton more pitches than she needed earlier in the season against better opponents. When Wagner was hurt, her strikeout rate dropped. It really wouldn't surprise me to see Hutch taking this opportunity to make a great young pitcher even more deadly in the long run.