Softball beats MSU for the 19th straight time
It wasn't pretty, but the streak lives on.
#19 Michigan took on MSU tonight at Alumni Field in the second game of the 2-game season series, looking for the sweep of the series after a 5-1 win last week over MSU.
Michigan got base runners on in the first 3 innings, but just could not push them across.
Things picked up in the 4th inning. With two in scoring position, Katie Alexander would score Abby Ramirez, and then a missed play at the plate by the MSU catcher allowed the second runner in Kelly Christner to score to make it 2-0 Michigan.
Megan Betsa finished with 14 Ks on the day. It was a stressful 14K outing, though. Whether it was due to usual bad calls by the umps or balls that just plain missed the zone, Betsa at one point had a walk in each inning until about the middle of the game.
MSU would score a run on said-trouble in the 5th on an RBI single with two on to cut the score to 2-1 Michigan.
Michigan would respond in the bottom of the frame, though. On an RBI single into shallow LF, Hutch aggressively sent home pinch runner Nikki Wald.
The throw to the plate was thankfully over the head over the MSU catcher, and Wald scored to make it 3-1 Michigan. Wald was running for Tera Blanco who got on base on a missed ball by the MSU pitcher on a roller to the circle.
Michigan held on and got the gritty win, 3-1.
Michigan has now beaten MSU 19 straight times. A streak that began when the freshmen on this team were in 6th grade.
Next up for Michigan is a road trip to play Wisconsin, the first road games at Wisconsin in 4 years. The first game will be on Friday at 7pm.
April 18th, 2017 at 10:33 PM ^
Yes. Yes he is.
As opposed to the guy who routinely goes into threads for the sole purpose of telling people how little he cares for said thread topic?
Give me a break.
April 19th, 2017 at 12:24 PM ^
I'd love for you to provide examples. And just one or two won't cut it. If you say "routinely," you need to provide several examples.
I expect them to continue this streak for at least 3-9 more years
the streak would be somewhere between 57-86 by that time.
April 18th, 2017 at 10:07 PM ^
Next year's incoming class is gonna be right behind the recently graduated Sierras class. 4 top-100 players, two of them top-10.
People who think this is the last year a Megan B. is dominating them in the circle have no idea what's coming next year.
No kidding...
April 18th, 2017 at 10:00 PM ^
Also, baseball beat MSU 12-4!!
April 18th, 2017 at 10:53 PM ^
April 18th, 2017 at 10:59 PM ^
April 19th, 2017 at 12:14 AM ^
We're definitely feeling the effects of not having a true #2 pitcher right now. Blanco has been decent, but not of the caliber we've needed her to be. Combine this with the fact that Betsa is a strike-out pitcher, which means she just doesn't get those 5, 6, or 7 pitch innings that Haylie Wagner used to be able to scoop up, and her pitch count can really get out of control. She's just going to have to gut through it, though, b/c there's no other option.
The other factor is that the offense needs to start getting timely hitting. We've still got a top-25 outfit in terms of team batting average, and we're even better when it comes to OBP. The scoring is just on the wrong side of top-25, though, and took a bit of a hit tonight. A few timely hits, and this season looks really different. I could add 3 base hits to this team's season and give us wins over Florida & FSU, and still have one left over to wipe out the ugly loss at Maryland (the only game I've been able to attend live - dammit!).
On the one hand, that's frustrating as hell. On the other, it indicates that we're not that far off. There's still time to click down the stretch, especially in terms of post-season play.
I didn't see the final count, but in the final inning Betsa had over 160 pitches. That is a HELL OF A LOT of pitches, even for softball. She's a freaking machine!
WD watched this on PASS. He was tweeting about it.
I'm not sure he watched it. Either that or he is on auto-pilot complaining about the umps. That is his go-to excuse when Michigan plays a tight game. Must have been the umps.
April 19th, 2017 at 11:03 AM ^
A fool post as usual.
I watch every game. Paid the $20 for the ones on Flo in February. Have tickets for the rest of the home games.
is this years achilles heel..has been all season long..Most of us who follow SB for a long time knew that this year was going to be a rebuilding type year..Losing that much firepower in the offense was goin g to be difficult and its shown...
The streak of regular season Big title is in serious jeopardy and unless they go on a major winning streak may not be hosting a regional this year...There is still time to right the ship ..Minnesota has a double header at Wisconsin today and we need them to win ata least one game so we have a chan ce at the title
This team needs to pick it up offensively. Loosing the two Sierra's have really hurt this lineup. Hope they can get it going again and make a long run this year.
April 19th, 2017 at 10:14 AM ^
Yeah. We knew going in that this would be a rebuilding year. Hard to lose that much offense and not experience a drop off. And despite that drop off we're still 2nd in the Big Ten and #18 in the country. We're only 1 game off of Minnesota right now. They stumble once and we're right back in it. That bodes well for the future if nothing else.