SB @ Maryland Open Thread
The SB Team is playing the 3rd of 3 today in College Park. The game is in the 5th inning with the good guys holding onto a 1-0 lead.
Kelly doubled to lead off the 4th inning. Then Kelsey singled her in. Nothing much doing after this. We need to score a few more insurance runs.
Megan is in the circle. Thus far he has given up no hits, 1 BB and has 8 Ks.
Betsa strikes out the side in the fifth.
If the offense was going, this would be her second no hitter in two weeks. Let's see how she finishes this game.
That's Kelly Christner with the leadoff double and Kelsey Susalla with the RBI single in the 4th. Megan Betsa is pitching.
in the top of the 6th. Still 1-0 us. Megan is certainly pitching a great game. I did not see the walk so I am not sure how close she is to a perfect game.
One in the 2nd, one in the 6th--both leadoff walks.
Thanks for the updates. Go Blue!
in the bottom of the 6th. Megan sets them down in order.
in the top of the 7th, still 1-0.
1-0 victory. No-hitter by Megan Betsa with 15 (!!!) strikeouts of the 23 batters she faced.
she struck out the side in the last three innings!!!
FAN-TASTIC performance by Betsa this weekend. After struggling a little in the rain in the midweek game, she hurls 12 shut-out innings, allowing only 3 hits over that stretch, and racking up 22 Ks. Betsa got us 36 outs on the weekend, and almost 2/3 of them happened without the ball even being put in play. I love Wagner, she's a really strong ground-out pitcher, no doubt about it, but this is a big part of why Betsa has taken over as the ace. The ability to get out after out without allowing even the opportunity for a runner to advance, an error, etc. is key, and will be very valuable in the post-season. Wagner is still a big part of this team, of course, I just have to give Betsa some props after a phenomenal weekend.
On a related note, any word on Driesenga at all? There was talk of her returning a month or so ago, but still no sign. At this point it's pretty late in the season to bring her back for post-season play, so I've been wondering, might a medical redshirt be in the cards? Could be a good way to stabilize our pitching situation next year & ease Blanco into a bigger role.
From watching during the Indiana series last weekend, she is in uniform and she was tossing the ball around (overhand) during pre-game warmups, but I never saw her pitching in the bullpen. It didn't seem like she was planning on pitching any time soon, but that's just from my seat in the stands.
Not to get ahead of this season, but I was also wondering about the pitching staff for next year. Have not heard a recent update about Driesenga's status, and coach is reluctant to talk about it.
* Is Driesenga even eligible for a redshirt ? She pitched a lot during the first 1/3 of the season. Anybody know the rules ?
* Was Blanco recruited to primarily be a pitcher ? She has pitched very few innings this year, and has not pitched in several weeks.
* Do they have a recruit in the next class that is expected to challenge for a starting role ?
Assuming Driensenga does not redshirt, the pitching may take a step back next year.
Michigan basically rolled with one pitcher in Jordan Taylor with a backup option in Speierman in all of 2011 and still went 53-6 and won the B1G.
Blanco was a fantastic pitcher in high school and will be a fantastic pitcher here. There is one incoming freshman pitcher, but IMO she's sort of a longer term prospect. High ceiling but needs time to put it together, so Blanco will almost certainly be the #2 option next season.
A few points - first, to say Driesenga pitched "a lot" is a bit of a stretch. She pitch 27 innings over the course of 7 appearances, so not even the equivalent of 4 full games. Her last appearance I'm pretty sure was when we shellacked Lipscomb all the way back on February 21. I don't know the rules on medical redshirts, but if she doesn't qualify, that would seem pretty harsh - she's roughly the equivalent of a football player playing about half of the first two games of the season before going down.
Blanco I don't know as much about. She was definitely a highly-regarded recruit, and I was certainly under the impression that she was expected to contribute in the circle. I can understand her not getting much opportunity this year, though, given how well Wagner & Betsa (and Driesenga early on) have played. She'll at least have to be able to give us some spot-duty going forward, though.
As for incoming recruits, I'm afraid I just don't know. MGoSoftball might have more info there.
WD is correct that we did pretty much ride-or-die with Jordan Taylor a couple years ago to good success, but it should be remembered that a) that was Jordan Freaking Taylor! and b) that was not the toughest schedule we've faced in recent years. I'm not sure if our pitching will tail off too much, given that Betsa will be back & presumably be the ace again regardless, but I'd really like a quality 2nd option.
Thanks for the feedback. After some checking I see that the pitching recruit for next season is Leah Crockett from New York. Hopefully she can contribute as a freshman, or Blanco can take the next step. Perhaps we will learn more about Drisenga's status over the next few weeks.
NO-HITTER!!!! YOU BETSA!
Megan ends the game with a no-no. She walked only 1 and struck out 15.
Kelly went 2 for 3 with the only run scored. Lauren had 2 hits as well.
We host Penn St next weekend.
Minny is in 2nd place, 1 game behind us. They beat Iowa today. They play 2 with Wiskey and 3 with Purdue. So if we take 2 of 3 against PSU, we win the Regular Season Title as we have the tie-breaker over Minny.
Megan Betsa with the win. Kelly Christner was 2-for-3 and scored the only run. Lauren Sweet also had 2 hits.
re-cap.
Thanks for udpates. Go Blue!!!
WOW -- seven inning no hitter with 15 K.
Saved us bigtime.
Betsa is the first Wolverine to have 3 career no-hitters since Jordan Taylor who finished her career at Michigan with EIGHT no-hitters and TWO PERFECT GAMES.
Today was Michigan's first full 7 inning no-hitter since Sara D's no-hitter against Hofstra back in 2013.
I looked up the NCAA D1 medical hardship rules. Driesenga would qualify. Needs to be applied for after the season is over. I am thinking that Hutchins will finish the year with Betsa/Wagner and bring back Driesenga next year.
Thanks for looking it up. I always appreciate it when someone injects some facts into a discussion when I've got theories to spare. Glad to hear my theory isn't nuts - it'll definitely be interesting to see what happens. I suppose it's possible, also, that the decision isn't 100% made. They could, for example, be holding Driesenga out, but if Wagner or Betsa goes down, they might feel compelled to play her rather than have only 1 post-season pitcher, or something like that. A medical does seem to make a lot of sense, though.