Baseball/Softball

It's been a while since there was front page discussion of softball at MGoBlog. I wrote a softball preview nearly two months ago and I haven't written anything since, with the churn of basketball and hockey season consuming my time. But after an eventful weekend for softball, building on a couple of positive weeks, it's time to check back in. We'll give a brief recap of the season, talk about the recent offensive surge (the team's biggest storyline), briefly mention pitching, and then look at the road ahead. 

A brief season recap 

Michigan Softball currently sits 24-11, 6-0 in B1G play. The path to this point has not been consistent or straight forward, an incredibly choppy non-conference portion of the schedule followed by a rapidly improving performance in conference play. The team started the season in Tampa with a 5-3 win over Illinois State, lost a 1-0 shutout to USF, but then closed out the opening weekend with three narrow wins over Bethune Cookman, Florida, and Oregon State. Their next weekend was in Boca Raton, getting wins over Seton Hall and Maine before losing 2-0 to Louisville and 1-0 to host FAU. As you can tell, offense was an issue early on. 

Michigan had an easier weekend at the UC Santa Barbara Tournament after that, taking four of five from a combination of opponents including UCSB, Northern Colorado, and Sacramento State. Michigan stayed out west to play Long Beach State, who they lost to in extras (7-6), and then headed for the hardest weekend, the Judi Garman Classic. There, in Fullerton, Michigan's offensive flopped in tremendous fashion by losing four straight games scoring a combined one run. Granted, it was against some pretty good teams in Cal State Fullerton, UCLA, Texas A&M, and Oregon State, but the anemic performance left no one reassured about the group's future. Offensive fortune did turn around in the final game of the weekend, though, as Michigan shockingly slaughtered an elite Florida team 10-2 in a run rule, their second win of the season over the Gators. 

Michigan then migrated back towards the north with a record of 11-9. They played three games in Highland Heights, Kentucky, sweeping  Bowling Green and Illinois State but dropping one to the hosts of Northern Kentucky. Staying in-state, Michigan jutted over to Louisville for one last non-con weekend over St. Patrick's Day, where they beat South Dakota, Dartmouth, and Illinois (that one didn't count for conference standings), but lost in an ugly run rule to the hosts Louisville. Two days later, Michigan returned home to Ann Arbor and finally began their slate of games at The Hutch, with a 2-0 win over Oakland. 

This was about the time that Michigan's offense really got humming. After the narrow win over Oakland, Michigan played host to one of the lesser teams in the conference in Purdue and slapped the Boilers around. Michigan swept the series, outscoring Purdue 24-5 on aggregate, to begin the year 3-0 in B1G play. They kept the momentum going by detonating Toledo during a mid-week game, 12-3 in a run rule victory, and then went into Bloomington for a big weekend. The Hoosiers are not a great team nationally, but are a decent squad with a solid pitching staff (more on that in the next section). Michigan instead clobbered IU's pitching, sweeping the series with two run rule wins and outscoring the Hoosiers 32-8 on aggregate. That final game, played this past Sunday, means Michigan is on a 10 game win streak leading into this weekend's series in Evanston. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: takes on the season]

Well, it's a new season for Michigan Softball. After a disastrous (by the program's standards) season that saw the Wolverines miss the NCAA Tournament for the first time in nearly three decades, the page has been turned and year #2 of the Bonnie Tholl Era is upon us. It's a new team, albeit one with a lot of familiar faces. The season is getting underway at 10am (broadcast for the opener can be found here), so it's time to break Team 47 down and give them a proper introduction: 

The Roster

Pitching 

While the 2023 season represented a steep decline in pitching compared to the 2022 or 2021 teams, it was still a stronger area of the team than the hitting side. The team ERA of 2.91 was not what you want if you hope to be a high level competitor in NCAA Softball, but the good news is total continuity. Everyone is back and they've added through the recruiting class as well. The team's arguable best player is Lauren Derkowski, who went from a depth piece as a freshman to the team's #1 pitcher as a sophomore. Derkowski wasn't quite ready to be a high-major ace, but she is a pretty good pitcher, 2.12 ERA, 1.10 WHIP, 10.0 K/9. Last year represented a big step forward in her development and if this Michigan team is to get up off the mat, they're going to need Derkowski to take that next step towards ace status. I think it's possible because I believe in Jen Brundage and the development curve for Derkowski has been following a neat schedule. 

Arguably a bigger need than Derkowski taking the next step is shoring up the pitching situation outside of her. Last year's #2 was Jessica LeBeau, a Kent State transfer who was a good but not incredible MAC pitcher and more or less looked like that after up-transferring to the B1G. Bonnie Tholl spoke at media day about getting LeBeau's form and confidence back to where she was in the first half of last season, which is a decent point. LeBeau hung in there against a swath of good and great teams in the non-conference, but then posted basically similar results against much weaker competition in the B1G, when you would have liked to see her bring the ERA down during that portion of the year. Her final two B1G outings, against Indiana and Minnesota, were particularly ugly and helped drive the nail in the coffin on Michigan's season. 

[Bill Rapai]

Getting LeBeau back to a more usable option is a goal for the staff, but I don't particularly think she'll ever have the chops to be an ideal #2. At the very least, Michigan needs to get her some insurance, because last year the depth beyond the 1-2 at the top of the rotation was abhorrent. UNC transfer Hannah George and one-time elite recruit Emerson Aiken contributed nothing out of the pen, as the two combined to allow 23 earned runs and 44 H in 23.2 IP last season. If Michigan had to go to either of those two, it was over and the game went from bad to worse. I don't really know if there's much hope for improvement... theoretically better results are possible given George's past at UNC and Aiken's recruiting profile but we're multiple seasons removed from that now and they drew scant mention at media day. 

More likely is the help comes from true freshman Erin Hoehn, out of Poseyville, IN near Evansville. Hoehn is listed as a two-way player, but she was mentioned in the pitching conversation by Tholl in her press conference as someone who could compete and add to the pitching staff as a true freshman. So, it seems like she'll get her shot. Hoehn was a touted recruit, for what it's worth, a 2023 MaxPreps First Team All-American and 3x Indiana All-State first team honoree. She posted a career 0.79 ERA in high school, so the credentials look good, but tough to know until she competes in the circle in a collegiate game. 

I should round this out by mentioning that Maddie Erickson is listed as a potential pitcher on the roster but we never saw her pitch last season, even while George and Aiken were getting teed-off on in mop up duty. Erickson seems poised to play a larger role in the offense, so at this point, it doesn't appear that she factors in majorly in the pitching equation. But you never know. In a perfect world Derkowski takes a leap forward towards ace territory, LeBeau is a bit better assimilated to B1G softball and is an okay second fiddle, while Hoehn comes in and adds effective innings, allowing her and LeBeau to share the remaining non-Derkowski innings based on matchups and daily effectiveness, limiting the George/Aiken exposure. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: hitters, schedule, big picture]

Things Discussed:

• Talking about how Michigan put their NIL program together the first time: in the 1890s. They were behind for awhile, but they got it done.
• M-Power: Same story. Michigan is going to have the head coach educating donors on their NIL opportunities instead of having all these different collectives fighting each other.
• Why it looks like this: Michigan didn't have a system in place like most schools. Every collective started on their own vision. Now we're at the point where we need to have a vision, and a case manager who can explain it all.
• In the break: Was Michigan's attrition bad? Not really. Gemon Green is the only guy Seth really thought we should be able to hold onto. Erick All? Personal deal, might not be healthy next year, wasn't going to be better than Loveland, but would have been better than AJ Barner.
• Back to NIL: Harbaugh wasn't going to wait around. They have a couple of weeks here when he's not coaching football.
• What does basketball do? Seth: Someone will step up to be the sugar daddy.
• Sam: Four head coaches on this staff.
• Partridge got their asses in gear on this after seeing what they're doing at Ole Miss.

[Hit the JUMP for the player, and video and stuff]