Softball beats Northwestern on walkoff in 11-3 win
After a great rebound win yesterday by the score of 11-3 in 5 innings, #2 Michigan faced Northwestern in the rubber game of the series.
Tera Blanco wasn't kidding when she said Friday's game put a chip on the team's shoulder.
In the 1st inning, Kelsey Susalla had a 2-run RBI double to put Michigan up 2-0. The very next inning, Michigan went up 5-0 on a Sierra Romero sac fly and a 2-run HR from Kelly Christner.
Northwestern put up two runs in the next frame on a dropped fly ball.
However, in the 3rd inning one of Michigan's hottest hitters as of late, Lindsey Montemarano (Monte) hit a home run in response to put Michigan up 6-2. Northwestern answered with another homer in the next inning to make it 6-3.
In the 6th inning, Monte struck again. She started off the inning with a leadoff home run. That was her 8th of the season. She had 8 home runs COMBINED her first two seasons.
Sierra Lawrence hit a 2-run double, Christner scored her on a fielder's choice to give Michigan a 10-3 lead with just one run away for a 6-inning run rule win.
And the MVP of the weekend stepped up again. Tera Blanco hit a walkoff double to give Michigan the 11-3 win in 6 innings.
Blanco was 6-for-8, with 5 runs, 8 RBI and 2 HR with the her Saturday homer being a grand slam.
Michigan is now 24-3 and 2-1 in the B1G. Michigan will face Indiana next weekend on the road. All 3 games will be on BTN+.
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
Just filling in until MGoSoftball gets back and posts the game thread updates.
I get what you're saying but by definition, it's a walk off win. Blanco's hit ended the game after which, they "walked off".
Romero's 18 game hit streak (a career long) was ended today, unfortunately, but she did add another RBI to her team leading total.
Monte was apparently disgusted with the beginning of her season and has decided to make up for lost time.
Blanco's still making her bid for 1st team All-American.
Christner's starting to feel it, too.
SiLo's doing her thing.
Ramirez is back doing hers as well (of course she won't be back completely until Hutch is comfortable letting her do her own baserunning again).
Hopefully, Friday's game was truly a fluke because if the pitchers can keep it under control in the circle, this team looks like it's ready to start firing on all cylinders.
It's incredible how much depth this team has. There are players who aren't even playing right now that would be First Team All-B1G at other schools.
Swearingen, Vargas, Sobczak, Peters, Falk. Aidan Falk actually started at catcher this weekend, though. Some of them are batting, but they'd be the best players offensively and defensively elsewhere.
Great to have all that depth and a lot of it being young and getting worked in along the way. Last year's freshman class going all the way to the last game of the NCAA season was huge for experience. No bigger stage than OKC.
Disappointed there was no video for today's game. Watched Baseball and followed SB on my phone.
Disappointed there was no video for today's game. Watched Baseball and followed SB on my phone.
Yeah, definitely. Apparently there were some awesome plays in the field that I would liked to have seen. Supposedly, it's the only home game that won't have live video for the rest of the season, though. And it looks like 1 at Nebraska and 1 at Penn State won't be broadcasted but maybe there will be a video feed like with EMU and WMU.
challenged for her starting spot.
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
By definition a walk-off is a play that ends the game. It ended it by run-rule, yes, but it still ended the game.
It's not just ending the game, though. The play has to win the game.
A walk-off is an offensive play that effectively wins the game (by ending the game) allowing the team(s) to "walk off" the field afterwards. So regardless of the circumstances, if the hit (or walk for that matter) brings in the run that finishes the game, walk-off is the correct term. Maybe it's a cheap use of the term, but it is accurate.
March 27th, 2016 at 10:06 PM ^
Some shockers going on in B1G softball.
Nebraska lost TWICE to Illinois this weekend.
After Illinois was beaten 10-2 on Friday, the Illini gave Nebraska an 8-3 and 10-2 beating the next two games.
That's huge for us. We don't play Illinois, but Nebraska picking up losses is good as a safety net.
Minnesota swept Purdue, but not very badly. 5-0, 4-1, 4-3. Minnesota has really hit a tailspin lately. They have lost to the likes of Robert Morris, Mercer and Tulsa (twice). Destroyed by Tulsa in one game.
Minnesota has to face both Nebraska and Illinois.
While the attendance from Saturday was nearly cut in half due to Easter, the weather was absolutely perfect at the game! If it weren't for the fly ball hit right at Christner who inexplicably dropped it out of her glove (allowing 2 runners to score with two outs), the score would looked even more lopsided. Driesenga and Betsa both did a better job of limiting free passes today.
Next weekend's series at Indiana could be a tough one. Hoosiers are 20-10 on the season and just swept Iowa by a combined score of 24 to 11.
Iowa is pretty awful, though. Second-worst record among B1G teams.
The crowd Saturday was packed. I think Hutch said 2,500. Sure looked like a full house on TV.
Yeah, the only teams we play that should really pose a challenge are Nebraska and perhaps Ohio State (firmly in the category of maybe, maybe not).
Despite their recent stumbles, Nebraska's got a pretty good offense helmed by MJ Knighten, who has been a juggernaut this year, and Kiki Stokes, who can reek some havoc on the base paths which is an area of weakness for us so far this year.
Ohio State hasn't done anything spectacular this year but their pitching has been solid against some good offenses so far. They haven't faced any offenses like ours, of course, but still. Outside of an early LSU beatdown, their losses are by 2 runs or less. They've also been consistently getting votes in both the NFCA and the USA softball polls.
Attendance for Saturday was listed as 2,473 in the box score. The general admission outfield bleachers were 100% full, but a some season ticket holder seats were empty as usual, so I'd guess the actual attendance was somewhere around 2,300.
That game has to have set a March game attendance record for Michigan softball. I was blown away by the crowd.
Monte only has 6 homers this season so far:
http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/mich/sports/w-softbl/auto_pdf/2015-16/stats/season_stats.pdf
Notice that she only has 12 hits: 6 homers, 4 doubles and 2 singles. She lost some playing time early in the season to Canfield due to her slow start and to give Canfield a chance at a starting position.
Monte truly had a great weekend. Here's a nice synopsis:
http://www.mgoblue.com/sports/w-softbl/recaps/032716aaa.html
She was 4 for 5 this weekend and had 5 walks.
Northwestern beat UCLA and UNC and only lost by 1 to Georgia and Arizona State. They also lost to some bad teams. I'd guess this means they've got some talent but don't have it running very smoothly for whatever reason--lack of depth, experience, pitching, etc. (This is my optimistic hope that this isn't how the rest of B1G season will go.)
March 27th, 2016 at 10:15 PM ^
Who is Sierra Romero? Does she play for Michigan?