Softball Collects Pile of Big Ten Awards
As expected, when the Big Ten softball awards were released, Michigan was once again prominently featured. Megan Betsa was a unanimous selection for pitcher of the year and Carol Hutchins was coach of the year for the 15th(!) time. Betsa, Christner, Romero, and Wagner all made it onto the All-Conference 1st team, Lawrence, Ramirez, and Sweet came in on the 2nd team, and Wagner, Christner, and Lawrence also appeared on the All-Defensive team. Becca Garfinkel was honored with one of the sportsmanship awards.
In an interesting turn, for the first time in her Michigan career, Sierra Romero actually did not win Big Ten Player of the year, and honor that went to Minnesota's brilliant sophomore pitcher Sara Groenewegen. This comes as Romero's numbers dipped somewhat during conference play as opposed to the non-conference season, probably largely due to her arm injury. Hopefully she'll be able to tough it out through the playoffs & get it plenty of rest over the summer.
A pitcher wins B1G Player of the year but another pitcher wins B1G Pitcher of the year? Groenewegen must hit pretty well.
She is batting .384 with 12 home runs and 44 RBIs.
Mystery solved.
Link: http://www.gophersports.com/sports/w-softbl/stats/2014-2015/plyr_17.html
WD, it sounds like you want to give Romero the POY award based on her previous two seasons. Perhaps you are not aware, but there is another Wolverine on the team this year with a higher batting average than Romero, more RBI's, a higher slugging %, and also made the BIG all defensive team (which Romero did not make). If you don't know her name, I will give you a hint, she plays LF. I don't think that Romero deserves BIG POY for this season, despite her great play.
You may be correct about B1G play, but if your going off the entire season ( which everyone should) Romo is clearly deserving. I'll give you that Christner has performed extremly well, but she also hits directly after Romo. She sees better pitches for that reason alone. Also, Romo has been walked over 50 times. Take a visit to the official website to see the SEASON stats. Romo leads in ALL offensive categories except HR's, which she is 1 off.
She's a finalist for national player of the year *again*.
of softball. That is kick ass
What this program and its players have been able to achieve under Hutchins on a year-in, year-out basis is absolutely phenomenal. Congratulations to everyone.
As for Hutchins in particular, 15 times as Coach Of The Year in 27 years at the helm of Michigan Softball with - before this season at least (I may have counted incorrectly here) - 16 regular season titles, 16 regional championships, 8 tournament titles....I don't even know how you follow that the day she retires, but the program will undoubtedly be in as spotless a condition as it gets when she does. Amazing career to date really.
Congrats to the Ladies in Blue!
Romero's numbers dipped somewhat during conference play as opposed to the non-conference season, probably largely due to her arm injury. Hopefully she'll be able to tough it out through the playoffs & get it plenty of rest over the summer.
Tough it out? She already is! Get rest this summer? Yeah, but this team is built to win things nbow and they need her healthy ASAP.
All she has to do is rub some dirt in it. She'd be good to go immediately.
/s