Softball Super Regional vs Florida State University
I was going to post this yesterday but my jet lag from my Asian Tour finally caught up to me. Team 37 takes on Florida State on Thurdsay at 7pm. The second game is Friday 4pm. the "if" game is Friday 7pm. All games on ESPN or ESPNU.
This is great for the kids as they will be back in town for Memorial Day weekend. Bad for us that have to work on Friday and will miss the first game.
I previously said that against ASU, the better team won. It was close (by an inch) but we won nevertheless. The same is true for FSU.
FSU has a season record of 53-6. They are 22-1 at home. FSU is led by Maddie O'Brien who is batting .441 this year. The team batting average is .311. So offense is not their strength. Pitching is what powers the Noles this year. They have an opponent batting average of .187. Now considering they play in the ACC, I am not surprised.
FSU has a 2-tiered rotation. The #1 is Lacey Waldrop. She has a 36-4 record. Her ERA is 0.92. She has 274 Ks thus far with only 71BBs. Her opponent batting average is .175 This is elite level statistics even in the ACC.
The #2 pitcher is Jessica Burroughs. She has a 17-1 record. Her ERA is 1.89. She has 117 Ks with only 44 BB. Her opponent batting average is .192. Her stats are not elite but are very good.
The defense is average with 53 errors (.969%) for the season. So overall we can beat FSU if and only if our hitting comes alive. Our pitching will certainly be sufficient to keep their offense off the bases.
The Regional Final win seemed to wake up the ladies. Romo and Colie should be back to 100% following a bout with the flu in Tempe. Combine that with 100+ degrees, that would make anyone sick.
The weather for Tallahasee is calling for clear skies Thursday and Friday. Gametime temperatures on Thursday will be a very cold 88 degrees (compared to Tempe). Friday's gametime temerpature will be in the low 90s. The humidity will be much higher than Tempe though.
Overall, we should beat FSU and advance to Oklahoma City for the World Series.
Go Blue!
Thanks for the breakdown. Hopefully the offense can put together some nice games and the ladies can enjoy a nice Memorial day at home before heading off to Oklahoma City.
I also enjoy the occaisonal Asian tour!
Michigan has womped florida state. 17-3 all-time against them including an 87-18 record against the ACC.
Michigan has a better winning percentage against the ACC (.829) than they do against the MAC (.767)
The last time Michigan played an ACC team on the road in the NCAA Tournament was the 2012 Louisville Regional where they beat the 15 seed Cardinals twice on their own field.
Louisville was in the big east in 2012.
I know. All my series records carry over with realignment.
The whole thing would be a giant mess if I didn't do it that way. One of my rules is no footnotes.
So I guess you could word it as Michigan's record against current ACC teams.
Strength of Schedule has to play a role. I wouldn't say Michigan is better but I would say FSU is likely overrated.
I'm guessing that's why half the SEC was in the top 16 despite a few of them not having such glamorous records
Auburn was 11-13 in the SEC and they took Minnesota down to the wire in the if necessary game in that region. The SEC is deep.
all things being equal, we are better than ASU overall. We have 3 legitimate starting pitchers; ASU has one. We have the best player in the country in Romo.
The wheels came off down the stretch for us. We lost to Illinois and then Minny in the finals of the tournament. We are certainly better than both of them. Rankings, especially softball rankings, can be misleading.
In any one game it is 50/50 with ASU. However with a tournament style format, ASU did not have the pitching to go all the way. This is why we won.
To say ASU did not have the pitching to go all the way is why we beat them is absurd. Dallas Escobedo won the National Championship as a freshmen and she is a top 10 finalist for player of the year this season. The reason we won is because Dallas is a head case and walked in 2 runs in the first inning of the if necessary game.
The Lacey Waldrop - Sierra Romero matchup will be interesting. Both are statistically dominant but play in weaker conferences.
Ultimately this series comes down to Michigan's pitching. Sara is a non factor and probably won't play again the rest of the season. Betsa is a freshman and Hutch has her on the shortest leash I've ever seen. Which leaves Haley but she struggles with consistency. If she can pitch like she did on Sunday I like our chances. If she pitches like she did on Saturday we will go home.
entitled to your opinion and I respect that. However the data does not support your opinion.
Most successful teams will have a 1 - 2 combination in the circle. Just look at the previous NCAA Champions: Oklahoma, Alabama, and even ASU. They all had a good #2 pitcher to take innings away from the #1.
This year ASU did not have that "good" number 2. Mackenzie Popescue is ASU's number 2. She pitched about 34% of the innings during the regular season. Her record was a very respectable 20-3 with an ERA of 2.05.
In the final 2 series of the PAC 12, ASU faced Oregon and UCLA. Dallas pitched the entire game and won 4-2 versus Oregon. Mackenzie started the second game against the Ducks and was pumelled for 8 earned runs in the 2 inning. Dallas came in and shut the Ducks down but ASU got mercied 12-2. Dallas pitched the third game which ended in a tie 2-2.
In the final series against UCLA, Dallas pitched the first game and ASU won 4-2. Mackenzie started the second game and was rocked in the first 3 innings which ASU lost 9-5. Game three saw Mackenzie start and get tagged and then pulled in favor to Dallas. ASU lost 9-2.
So Mackenzie bombed in the previous 3 starts and did not make it past the 3rd inning. This fact forced Coach Nicholson to abandon the 2 tiered rotation in favor of a single pitcher: Dallas.
Now Dallas is a great, maybe elite, pitcher; however, she is NOT superman. She cannot carry the entire team on her shoulders. Coach Nicholson took a gamble and lost. As I said during the Regional; if we can force an IF game; we win. Dallas pitched the entire tourney. Hell Coach Nicholson did not have any faith in Mackenzie to start her against Dartmouth. What does that tell you about his confidence in Mackenzie?
Coach Hutch, on the other hand, has 3 #1 pitchers in Haylie, Sara and Megan. Coach Hutch pitched Megan against SDSU in the semi-final game. Megan did awesome. This one game rest was the difference. Haylie was able to get a rest for almost a complete game (Haylie came on in the 7th for a few pitches).
So if we really want to expose the truth, Megan deserves almost as much credit as Haylie because Megan was able to get a game in and relieve Haylie from the heat. ASU just was not as deep as us.
On offense the teams were a little closer. We had a higher batting average but they had a higher slugging percentage. So overall the offense is a push and it all came down to pitching.
So when you break down the facts and take a deep dive into the statistics, you will see that Michigan was the better team.
The elite teams have an ace they rely on. Oklahoma and Alabama rode Keilani Ricketts and Jackie Traina exclusively in 2013 and 2012 championships. For us last year it was Sara (what happened this year?).
Wagner got rocked against ASU in the winners bracket game on Saturday so Hutch started Betsa against SDSU later that night. She wasn't trying to "relieve Haylie from the heat" Haylie had just gotten beat. Betsa won so she got the start on Sunday but the way the lineup was set (Wagner as DP) it meant that Wagner and Betsa could go in and out of the circle at will. So Sara was never going to play. Wagner was warming up to go in before the first pitch. Betsa walked the first batter and let up a 2 run HR. Hutch visited the circle and gave her the sternest talking to I've seen. Betsa didn't respond well and after a flyout at the warning track and another walk it was all Wagner the rest of the day. Sara's contributions on the weekend was a 4 pitch walk. So to say we have 3 #1 pitchers is a huge stretch.
You know a lot about ASU's pitching situation are you from the Tempe area? So you know Dallas has always struggled with staying in control. You also know that Dallas was never coming out on Sunday as she is the best pitcher ASU had the last 4 years so Nicholson did not "gamble and lose". Was Michigan the better team than ASU? At the moment it counted yes. The season record is 2-2 and Michigan just happened to win the important 2 games. Michigan advanced because Doyle robbed a game winning walk of HR. Michigan won because our 5 and 6 hitters had 3 solo HRs in a game when our best player went a flu induced 0-4 with 2 strikeouts.
will agree to disagree. You must have forgot that last year Oklahoma pitched Michelle Gascoigne (not Ricketts) in many games including the final game She pitched a three-hit shutout and top-seeded Oklahoma won the NCAA softball championship by beating Tennessee 4-0 in Game 2 of last year's WS.
In 2012, #2 pitcher Amanda Locke pitched some innings in the Regionals and Super Regionals for Alabama. This gave much needed rest to Jackie Traina to really come on strong in the Finals.
So, again, the best teams have a #2 pitcher that can soak up innings to relieve pressure on the #1 starter. Coach Nicholson gambled on Dallas as the #1 and rode her arm like a horse. I dont blame Coach for doing this as he could not rely on Mackenzie. Dallas was forced to pitch all the innings for the entire month of May and it caught up to her. The entire nation watched her "huff and puff" while in the circle. ESPN had several close-ups of Dallas and it was obvious that she was tired in the second and third inning of the final game.
We won this series in the first game on Sunday.
Would love to see them make it. Go Blue!
The games from last weekend are available on ESPN3 now. The ones for the upcoming Super Regionals should be up within a few hours of the actual game. They should be free to those with participating ISP's. Go to watchespn; log in with your ISP email address or ISP user name and password; and click on the replay tab.
UM was blacked out so I was unable to watch it live in ESPN3 last weekend.
Even better, I took Friday off completely because it will be pretty dead in the office and I have some more planting to do anyway, but I will definitely take time out to cheer on the softball team during the afternoon.
As a general sidenote for the thread, Massey actually does matchup simulations for NCAA softball, and their simulator does favor Florida State with an estimated 58% win probability, but that still more or less means that anything can happen.
with Massey's probability. This factors in our loss to last place Illinois plus losing to Minny in the B1G Championship game. However, we know we are better than this. So while I agree on paper FSU is better, they are not "better" on the field.
Our best game vs their best game = Wolverines Win every time. I would not say this vs Oklahoma, Alabama or even Oregon. Although I think Oregon is over rated as well.
Keep an eye on my dark horse Tennessee. I had the chance to see some of their game this year in Knoxville. They have it all and are the real deal. They are a lot like us. They can lay an Easter Egg on occasion too.
Massey probably factors in our common opponents with FSU and the records as well
Purdue - Michigan 1-1, FSU 2-0
Florida - Michigan 0-1, FSU 1-1
Houston - Michigan 0-1, FSU 1-0
ACC Opponents so 1-0 vs 2/3 -0 is probably misleading.
USF - Michigan 1-0, FSU 2-0
Boston College - Michigan 1-0, FSU 3-0
Pitt - Michigan 1-0, FSU 2-0
FSU plays consistently good. I think our ceiling is higher but we don't always play to our potential. I've noticed that recently we have been playing to our opponents so hopefully playing better competition will bring out the best.
that we lost to Florida in the 7th inning. We dominated the Gators for 6 innings then the wheels fell off and we lost. Ok it happens (moreso this year).
Against lowly Houston, we laid an Easter Egg. We are certainly a better team but we lost. OK. Nothing to see here, lets move along.
FSU is more consistant which is NOT necessarily BETTER. This is why we play the game. Pound for pound, in a 7 games series, we win because of our pitching and Romo.
In a three game series, anything can happen.
Well Louisville isn't a current ACC team either.
Since the conference changes were happening at what seemed like a weekly basis, I made sure that all conference changes are effective immediately reflected in my stats.
Call it paranoia, call it using that as my nuclear shelter. One team changing conferences out of all Division I schools causes a huge change.
As far as quality opponents, the Seminoles split two game series with Nebraska (in New Mexico to start the season), Florida (each team lost its home game), and Alabama (in Tuscaloosa).
Michigan is clearly better than any team in the ACC other than FSU, and the Big Ten is clearly a better conference. But FSU does deserve credit for their consistency. Their biggest loss this year was by three runs to Notre Dame, and their losses to the three teams mentioned above were by a combined four runs. Waldrop has been rock solid, obviously, but the defense seems somewhat prone to mental lapses. Four errors were committed in the Notre Dame game, for example, allowing eight runs while only two were earned. Their worst loss was 11-9 against a bad Virginia team, but the damage in that game was done against a third or fourth string pitcher who Michigan will not see.
That said, I watched their regional and was not overly impressed. They definitely have the edge coming in pitching-wise, as Waldrop has been better and more reliable than Wagner or Betsa, especially over the last month. But their offense leaves much to be desired. Their first game against USF was tied 0-0 into the eleventh inning, with FSU managing only five total hits. In the second game they put up two runs on three hits. USF has a good pitcher, but she threw 400+ pitches over the weekend and was called for at least 20 illegal pitches. FSU got an extremely lucky break in the second game when a USF player was wrongly called out at home, which ended up being the difference in the 2-1 game. USF also looked like they would win the first game but made a stupid and their runner on third was picked off with no outs in the bottom of the tenth.
Pitching around O'Brien would be a good idea, but as long as Michigan's defense and pitchers don't implode like they did against Illinois they should have no problem keeping the Noles' hitters in check. The key, as MGoSoftball wrote, will be Michigan's ability to manufacture runs against Lacey Waldrop. If they play with the confidence they showed on Sunday, I have no doubt that Michigan will be playing next week in the World Series.
are you a softball Coach??? I agree with just about everything you said here.
I'm not a coach but my sister played at a very high level through college so I've been around the sport quite a bit
Also, Sierra Romero was just named one of three finalists for USA Softball Player of the Year! Congrats Sierra!
Lacey Waldrop is also one of the three, and the award will be handed out before the WCWS, so this series may determine the winner.
Only other Michigan player to make the top three was Jennie Ritter in 2005, the year they won the national championship.