[Ed-Ace: BUMP.]

Softball Regular Season Wrap

The legendary Hutch won her tenth B1G title in the last 11 seasons [JD Scott]

Stumbling Out of the Gate

Michigan softball entered the 2018 season in search of an identity.  The dominant hitters that carried the team to Oklahoma City in 2015 and 2016 had nearly all moved on, as had strike-out queen Megan Betsa, the driving force behind the 2017 squad.  The talent was there, but the question marks were plentiful.  Could a freshman Meghan Beaubien really take up the mantle from Betsa on day one?  Where was the scoring going to come from?  How would the new-look infield perform under pressure?  And, more fundamentally, who was this team going to be?

The first question was answered with a resounding “yes” on opening day.  After Tera Blanco got the win in the lid-lifter against UAB, Beaubien stepped into the circle for her first career start.  All she did was throw a no-hitter, missing a perfect game by just a walk & a hit batter while tallying a Betsa-esque 11 Ks.  She followed that performance up by holding the always-dominant Florida Gators to just 2 runs on 4 hits, and her Michigan career was off & running.

Unfortunately for Beaubien, she wasn’t able to count that quality performance as a win.  Despite out-hitting the Gators 5-4, the Wolverines couldn’t push even a single run across against holy terror Aleshia Ocasio.  Offensive struggles would continue to be a theme in the early going.  Solid defensive performances turned into losses all too often, as the Maize & Blue batters couldn’t find the big hit in the big moment.  A 3-2 loss to USF and a 2-0 stumble against Florida State were merely frustrating.  A 1-0, 8-inning faceplant against a thoroughly mediocre Virginia Tech squad was enough to set off some alarm bells.  Losses to Notre Dame and Texas compounded the issue, and even in victory, the offense underwhelmed.  Beaubien gave a glittering performance in a win over Florida State, making a solitary 1st inning run stand up as she shut out a top-ten team.

Freshman heroics in the circle can only take a team so far, though, and 12 games in, Michigan was sitting on an ugly 6-6 record.  With only one fully reliable pitcher and a batting order headlined by Faith Canfield, with a supporting cast of question marks, legitimate questions began to be posed about this team’s ability to contend for the Big Ten championship, even in a relatively soft year in the conference.

[Hit THE JUMP]

Finding an Identity, Racking Up Wins

Faith Canfield plates one of her team-high 42 runs. [Scott]

The day after the humiliating defeat at the hands of Virginia Tech, the team put together their best offensive performance of the year.  Despite coming against lowly Wichita State, an 11-0 5-inning run-rule victory felt like a breath of fresh air.  Even the most optimistic fan could not have guessed, however, that it would be the first game in an 18-game winning streak, and a run in which Michigan would win 33 out of 34 games, storming through the bulk of the Big Ten season.

The offense started to find its way during this stretch, as more and more players joined Faith Canfield as consistent contributors.  Natalie Peters solidified her role towards the top of the order as a speedy slapper, and senior RHP/1B Tera Blanco took over as the leading source of power in the batting line-up.  She managed to excel in that department while keeping her strike-outs to a minimum, making her the team’s most reliable on-base threat as well, having reached base in more than half her plate appearances on the season.  With Michigan products like Katie Alexander & Haley Hoogenraad contributing at a level few had foreseen and Madison Uden growing into her role in her sophomore season, the offense developed a consistency that hadn’t been there in the early going.

The newfound run support wasn’t what captured the headlines, however.  The defensive renaissance in Ann Arbor, sparked by Don Brown and Luke Yaklich, found its way over to Alumni Field as well.  Meghan Beaubien continued to star in the circle, producing at a level that shouldn’t be sustainable for a freshman, but somehow has been.  She would add no-hitters against Purdue and Maryland to her season-opening shut-down of UAB, but that wasn’t all.  She didn’t just turn in the occasional star performance, she produced week in and week out.  Despite facing all the toughest non-conference opponents and pitching 2 games in every 3-game Big Ten series, she maintained the highest standards.  Her ERA has stayed in the top-10 nationally almost without interruption all season long, well under 1.00.  She has already tied program-legend Jordan Taylor for most wins as a freshman in Michigan history, and stands poised to surge past her in the post-season.  What’s more, she displays an unflappable calm in the circle.  No matter the circumstances, her command of the situation remains steady. A nationally-elite K/BB ratio of 6.62 reflects cool control far beyond her years.

Tera Blanco has power... and pitching, too. [Scott]

While Beaubien grabs the headlines, she hasn’t been the only force behind Michigan’s stellar defense.  Tera Blanco has had an up-and-down pitching career, generally contributing more at the plate than in the circle.  As a senior, though, Blanco has become a consistent second option, maintaining a solid 1.47 ERA, and throwing a no-hitter of her own – hers coming against the Eastern Michigan Hurons.  Freshman Sarah Schaefer, who came in as a depth prospect, has also made significant contributions.  Appearing in 22 games and starting 5, Schaefer gives Michigan a third pitcher with a sub-2.00 ERA, and managed to out-do her teammates, throwing not just a no-hitter, but a perfect game against Robert Morris.  Never before in school history have the Wolverines put together 5 no-hitters in a single season, nor have they seen 3 separate pitchers deliver no-nos in the same year.

Defense starts in the circle, but it doesn’t end there.  Despite the pre-season question marks, the Wolverines have excelled in the field, posting (at last count) the #2 fielding percentage in the country.  The Saline slugger, Katie Alexander, has locked down the catcher position in her junior year, providing a steadying upper-classman influence that freshman pitchers Beaubien & Schaefer have especially benefitted from.  With just a single error all year, Alexander has been a rock behind the dish.

Indeed, team-wide, only two players have recorded multiple errors.  Freshman Natalia Rodriguez’s 6 errors may be a team-high, but don’t let that fool you into thinking that her play at shortstop has been anything less than stellar.  At a “make plays” position that comes with no shortage of pressure, Rodriguez’s elite defense has kept her in the line-up consistently, even as she has taken some time to find her way offensively.  Madison Uden, playing 3rd base, has picked up 3 errors on the season, also an impressively low number at a challenging position.  The rest of the defense has been all but impregnable, not only vacuuming up the routine balls, but also making the diving, lunging, sliding plays and the laser throws that give pitchers the confidence they need to attack even the most dangerous batters.

Spearheaded by this defensive prowess, the Wolverines wouldn’t lose another game from the Virginia Tech slip-up until the conference season got underway.  A stumble against Iowa in the opening weekend of Big Ten play caused the worrywarts to resurface, but consecutive sweeps of Purdue, Penn State, Rutgers, and Maryland, along with a mid-week win over MSU, helped set those fears aside.  With just two series to go in the conference, Michigan was in pole position as they sought to reclaim their status on the queens of the Big Ten.

Championship Restored Amid Late Losses

Meghan Beaubien has been at times literally unhittable. [Scott]

The first of these two series would be against surprise-contender Indiana.  A sub-.500 team that no one expected to do anything of note in 2018, IU feasted on a weak conference schedule and stunned observers by sweeping away Ohio State, a team many had pegged as the favorite in the Big Ten.  Heading into a huge home series against mighty Michigan, IU, shockingly, controlled their own destiny.  They even managed to jump out to a 1-0 lead in the Friday night match-up, and held on until the 4th inning, when a pair of Michigan runs flipped the script.  3 more runs in the 5th, off homers from Falk and Hoogenraad, sealed the deal.  The Hoosiers would exact revenge the next day, though, unbelievably overcoming a 4-0 deficit against, of all people, Meghan Beaubien, eventually winning 5-4 on a walk-off solo shot off the bat of Madison Uden’s sister, Taylor.  With the conference crown hanging in the balance, Michigan gutted out an ugly but badly-needed 2-0 win in 9 innings to take the series.

The struggles would continue just two days later, however, as a Tuesday tune-up against Western Michigan somehow turned into a shameful 8-2 loss.  Fans were understandably nervous about the MSU game the following night in East Lansing.  Fortunately, they needn’t have worried, as Michigan pounded the Spartans into the dirt, winning 8-0 in 5 merciless innings.

Finally, it was time for the OSU series that was always supposed to determine the outcome of the Big Ten race.  Thanks in large part to IU’s surprise sweep, the Buckeyes entered the weekend already eliminated from the conference race, but they still came to town highly motivated to play spoiler against their rivals.  Twice on Friday they used the long ball to take 1-run leads, but Michigan battled back each time, eventually taking home a 3-2 win.  Following the biggest upset of the Big Ten season, a 2-1 PSU win over Minnesota in extras, Michigan only needed one more win to lock up an outright conference championship.  That final game was never in doubt.  Michigan cruised to an almost-too-easy 8-0 5-inning W over Ohio State, dominating every facet of the game.  Even the thud of the 10-1 loss to those same Buckeyes on Sunday could not obscure the delight of securing the 20th conference crown in program history, and the 10th in the last 11 seasons.

Looking Ahead

Senior Aiden Falk and the Wolverines head for home. [Scott]

Michigan turns it attention now towards the postseason.  First will be the Big Ten Tournament in Madison, Wisconsin.  The Wolverines come in as the 1 seed and the favorite, but regular-season losses to lowly Iowa and mercurial IU, and an embarrassment against OSU on the final day should be enough to keep overconfidence in check.  Recent struggles in the conference tournament compound the concerns, as despite winning the regular season title in 4 of the last 5 years, Michigan has only taken home the tournament championship once in that span, when the sainted 2015 “Year of the Pizza” squad completed the double.  Minnesota has actually had more tournament success than Michigan of late, and the reigning champions, doubtless bitter about relinquishing one of their crowns, will be in no mood to let both slip away.

Tournament play begins on Thursday of this week, but Michigan won’t play ‘til Friday, as they await the outcome of the 8/9 match-up between MSU and Nebraska.  The game will be on BTN at 4:30 PM Central / 5:30 Eastern.  Should the Wolverines prevail as expected, they will most likely have to deal with either a re-match with OSU or a game against Northwestern, a consistently strong, rarely elite program.  The semifinal game will be at 3:30 PM Central / 4:30 Eastern on Saturday, with the championship game to follow shortly thereafter.

As much as a tournament title would mean to the players, the coaches, and the fans, though, it won’t mean much to the NCAA.  The early struggles combined with the late-season fade have doomed Michigan’s chances to host a regional in the national tournament.  The hope is to catch a good match-up, ideally in the 8-12 range or so, to prevent a terrifying super-regional.  The question marks about offense and pitching depth are enough to keep most prognosticators from giving the team a serious shot at reaching the Women’s College World Series.  As Hutch always says, though, at the end of the day, softball is about pitching and defense.  Michigan is top-5 nationally in both of those categories, and boasts one of the top aces in all the land.  You can never sleep on that sort of thing when it comes down to crunch time.  While some are already looking ahead to an extremely promising 2019 season, there’s still the potential for plenty of excitement right in the here & now.  It’s time for tournament softball – can’t ask for anything more than that!