Softball drubs Minnesota 8-4 on senior day for Hutch's 1,700th career win
So happy the seniors went out with a win at Alumni!
For the softball fans, this team seems to have less news etc.. just seeing less posts etc.. and i assume the seasons are wrapping up soon?
Are we young? Not a lot of elite recruits? I thought we had 2 really good pitchers this year?
Anyway - i usually feel like there are more softball posts - and this year ive seen only a couple?
ill hang up and listen
Although it seems like a down year for Michigan softball, considering previous successful seasons, the Wolverines were ranked 23rd in the most-recent USA Today/NFCA Division I Top 25 Coaches Poll for games through April 24. LINK
The Wolverines currently are 31-15 overall, but only 11-8 and in sixth place in the Big Ten with a three-game series coming up at fifth-place Wisconsin (27-13, 12-6 in Big Ten). LINK
Although the pitching staff has the best overall ERA among Big Ten teams and their conference ERA is tied for second (LINK), one of the pitchers who’d been counted on to lead the team, grad student Meghan Beaubien, is suffering her worst season at Michigan (8-5 with a 2.39 ERA). She was an NFCA All-American first team pitcher, Big Ten Pitcher of the Year, Big Ten Freshman of the Year and All-Big Ten first team pitcher in 2018 and first Team All-Big Ten in 2019 and 2021.
Their hitting in conference games has been somewhat anemic (ninth in the Big Ten in batting average at .269 and 10th in runs scored with 79 in 19 games). LINK
They’re still likely to receive an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament.
Thanks. Yeah hitting always seemed to be a struggle even on the good teams, when we played the elite teams in the tourney. Glad a down year equals a top 25 ranking! I'll take it
The offense hasn't been good since 2017... They've averaged 6, 5.38, 6.10, 4.71, and 4.73 runs/game each year since and have been under 1.05 home runs/game since, with a toward trend pretty much season by season of home runs hit to the point it's down to 0.63/game this year. While certainly a little bit down this year from the past few seasons, they really have just been a fringe top 20 team since and with a combination of a couple tough draws and not being very good haven't made it out of regionals since 2016.
Though no surprise the Sierra Romero years (2013-2016) were very good offensively though and saw the team score well above 7 runs/game and roughly 1.4 home runs/game with a .340 average. I would say those teams have been the good teams since I've started following and they were very good offensively (or at least to me since I only have followed the last ten or so seasons). So I would say when they were at their best the last ten years, the offensive has done their share with the pitching.
As for the recruiting, it's hard to get a gauge on because the player rankings are locked behind paywalls... We know what our girls are ranked but it's hard to judge what the results of getting these ladies should translate to success wise. Does a top 30 girl mean she should all conference, etc?(especially considering the Big Ten is the weakest P5 conference). Also then tough to translate to how many of those girls builds into a good team.. If top ten teams are getting four top 25 girls every cycle then it starts to make sense why they've been more in the top 20 range these past five years or so. I know the Florida, FSU, Bama, and Oklahoma's of the world are raking in top talent after talent but was shocked to look at Duke who has become a top ten team thanks to Michigan alum Marissa Young. They have the 9th ranked class for 2022 and that means having the 2nd, 7th, 16th, 25th, and 37th ranked players in their class so it would appear that Michigan is maybe performing to the talent level they've acquired since they most definitely haven't been getting classes like that. All that said, this is where all the ladies were ranked out of high school...
5th- Meghan Beaubien- Pitcher (6th)
Fresh- Annabelle Widra- IF/P (8th)
Fresh- Lauren Derkowski- P (16th)
Sr. Hannah Carson- Catcher (21st)
Sr. Lexi Blair- OF (28th)
Jr. Lexi Voss- OF (32nd)
Fr. Ella McVey- 2B/SS (44th)
Jr. Lauren Esman- LHP/UT (51st)
Jr. Audrey LeClair- UT (3B/OF) (58th)
5th-Taylor Bump- 1B/3B (64th)
So. Sierra Kersten (UT) (94th)
Fr. Ellie Sieler- OF (101st)
Storako was not ranked, and as far as I could tell neither were the Burkhardt and Livingston in high school though all three have been some of the best contributors this year.
Next year's incoming class has some good ones with catcher Lillian Vallimont (5th) and infielder Avery Fantucci (6th) and a pair of girls in the 30s. 2023 class has Jenissa Conway (11th) and Alexis Dellamonica (28th) so there's some talent on the way... But I don't know if that's really a difference making uptick in talent they've been getting in the past considering they've had Morgan Overaitis (18th), Julia Jimenez (21st) and Lou Allan (8th) who all could still be on the roster transfer out as position players who have all had fairly good success this season. Chandler Dennis (16th) understandably left with the pitching situation, and then also had Gianna Carosone (60th) could also be on the roster.