alex storako

It's NCAA Tournament time! Michigan Softball made the tourney for the 27th consecutive season on Sunday, being placed into the Orlando Regional with #16 UCF after losing in the B1G Tournament title game to Nebraska on Saturday. In today's piece we'll rehash what went down in the BTT, then talk about the selection show (including a fantastic night for B1G teams), and then preview the Orlando Regional, which appears winnable. 

Recapping the B1G Tournament 

Michigan was the 4-seed in the B1G Tournament and they drew the 5-seed Maryland Terrapins in the quarterfinals to begin the tourney. The two teams were decently close in the regular season, but this game was not competitive. Michigan jumped out to a lead in the first inning and then poured five runs on in the third, including a two-run HR by Taylor Bump and a two RBI triple from Annabelle Widra. In perhaps the best news of that day, Alex Storako looked more like her peak self, throwing five shutout innings with only four baserunners allowed and six strikeouts, cruising along with the 7-0 lead intact. She handed it over to Widra, who then slammed the door with two efficient innings and Michigan was off to the semis. 

Against Northwestern on Friday, Michigan was looking to get revenge for that series in Evanston where the Wolverines held 6th inning leads in all three games, but came away with only one win. This time the script was flipped, as Michigan would be the one entering the later innings trailing, only to come from behind to snatch victory. The game was a tight pitching duel between NU star Danielle Williams and Michigan veteran lefty Meghan Beaubien.

Both were pretty clean through four innings, but Beaubien ran into trouble in the bottom of the fifth. She issued a leadoff walk and then hit a batter, being yanked with two on and nobody out. Widra was called in from the bullpen and she proceeded to get a fielder's choice and a strikeout. With runners on 2nd and 3rd and two outs, Michigan opted to intentionally walk star slugger Rachel Lewis. However, unlike in the MLB nowadays, you don't just get to put the runner on; you still have to throw four balls. That's when disaster struck, as one of the intentional balls rolled between Hannah Carson's legs to the backstop for a humiliating wild pitch to score the go-ahed run. 

Losing a game 1-0 on an intentional ball wild pitch is one of the more embarrassing ways you could lose a game, but that's what Michigan was staring down with two outs in the top of the seventh. On the first pitch, Hannah Carson laced a single to right field and got aboard, bringing Bump to the plate. The fifth year slugger has had a tough season, but for the second straight day she played the hero, slamming a no-doubt, two-run HR to left: 

TAYLOR BUMP WITH A TWO-OUT, TWO-RUN SHOT! MICHIGAN LEADS IN THE SEVENTH! @taylorbump13

T7 | Michigan 2, Northwestern 1 pic.twitter.com/25QGSvdee7

— Michigan Softball (@umichsoftball) May 13, 2022

That put Michigan ahead 2-1 and Widra went back to the circle and got a 1-2-3 bottom half to close out a win. Michigan was off to the championship game, having notched another big win for their tourney resume. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: More BTT recap & the NCAAs]

It has been a few weeks since we last checked in on the two premier spring sports, softball and baseball. The calendar is now well into the month of May, and with it brings the postseason of each of these two sports. Softball is done with the regular season and plays their first B1G Tournament game tonight, while baseball has two more weekends of regular season play before the B1G Tournament begins over Memorial Day (for those squads that qualify). Thus, with the most important weeks of the season upcoming, I thought it would be a good time to check back in and assess the stakes. 

It's Softball Postseason Time 

The regular season for Michigan Softball finished up this past weekend, and Michigan finished the season 34-15, going 14-8 in the B1G. That was good for fourth in the conference, behind champion Northwestern, as well as Nebraska and Illinois. That finish is a considerable disappointment compared to this team's goals and the program's expectation, but now is not the time to analyze what all went wrong. The season can be salvaged with a strong postseason, so let's focus on what lies ahead and how there could be a pathway to success. 

The B1G Tournament is this weekend and it's being held at Secchia Stadium up in East Lansing, so it's a very accessible tournament for locals looking to travel for some high quality softball! Michigan is the fourth seed, which got them a bye into tonight. The bracket is below: 

The Wolverines will play 5-seed Maryland at 7:00 PM tonight on BTN. Maryland is a tough test, but Michigan did take two out of three from the Terps in College Park back in mid-April. I'd expect a very competitive game tonight in the quarterfinals. 

A win would (likely) have the Wolverines playing the conference champion Northwestern Wildcats in the semifinals. A daunting task, but not one that's out of reach by any means. The 'Cats took two of three from Michigan in Evanston during the first weekend in April, but all three games were very tight and Michigan held late leads in all three. No reason that a re-match between those two squads wouldn't be hyper-competitive. A championship game would likely be against either Illinois or Nebraska. Michigan did not see Illinois in the regular season, but they did see Nebraska and their fearsome offense, and it didn't go very well. Big Red took both games at Alumni Field in late March, but if nothing else, that should leave Michigan hungry. Illinois features several good bats and a solid pitching staff and would test Michigan if that matchup were to happen. 

In other words, I think this year's B1G Tournament is pretty wide open. Would it shock me to see Michigan tonight? Nope. Would it shock me to see Michigan win the whole thing? Nope. There's a wide range of outcomes here, but that's what you'd expect in a conference that didn't really see one team cruise away. Northwestern won the regular season title, but with four losses, more than usual. Five teams finished within 4.5 games of each other, and Michigan is in that group. Any of those five teams winning would not surprise me. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: More bat and ball]

It's been a little while since I last wrote about softball- the rush of postseason basketball and hockey got in the way. The last update was March 10th and at the time, Michigan was 13-6 and coming off the most difficult portion of the schedule. Though they had fallen a bit short of the ideal scenario, the team was still in discussion for being able to host a regional, if they were close to perfect the rest of the way, something that the team has done routinely in past years.

Unfortunately, that has not happened. In the past five or so weeks, Michigan has gone 14-7 against a slate of middling opponents, submarining any chance of hosting a regional and also tanking hopes for a fourth-straight regular season B1G championship. What went wrong? And what is a realistic hope the rest of the way? Let's investigate: 

A Quick Recap

We said at the time of the last update that softball was returning home for the easy portion of the schedule. The team handled the first week or so of cupcake opponents, sweeping Kent State at home and pitching shutouts of both Oakland and Toledo, before run-ruling Western Michigan. There was one more easy MAC opponent on the schedule in Miami (OH) before B1G play got going and that game represented the beginning of this current spiral. I will admit that the RedHawks are one of the best teams in the MAC and thus are not completely downtrodden, but it is still a game that Michigan should not, under any circumstances, be losing... let alone by four runs. Alex Storako was slapped around for four runs in 1+ inning, and Lauren Derkowski didn't do much better, while the Michigan bats only mustered three runs in a dispiriting 7-3 loss. 

The Wolverines then welcomed Nebraska to Alumni Field, who has been one of the NCAA's better hitting teams this season, and the Huskers affirmed their place as a legitimate B1G contender by sweeping the Wolverines. The series only lasted two gams due to weather, but Nebraska put up 10 runs in those two games, while continuing to pitch well and emerged with a pair of victories. A three game skid after already dropping 6 games in the non-conference pushed Michigan to the brink in terms of national implications, and that's before you remember they were then staring down a battle with #9 Northwestern in Evanston. 

[JD Scott]

Michigan had a 3-1 lead going into the 6th inning against NU in the first game before Alex Storako allowed back-to-back solo homers to tie it, and the 'Cats eventually won the game in extras. The next day's game was suspended by weather and resumed on the Sunday of that weekend. Again Michigan carried a two-run lead into the sixth thanks to timely hitting from Kristina Burkhardt and Sierra Kersten, and again homers off of Storako blew it, as a Rachel Lewis three-run blast gave Northwestern the winning runs. The Wolverines did salvage the final game with an 8-3 win, but by this point Michigan had begun B1G play 0-4, and in most years, 4 losses is too many to win the conference. 

Things were already bad at this juncture, but they have not gotten that much better. Against B1G opponents who Michigan typically makes easy work of like Penn State and Maryland, the Wolverines only managed to take two out of three games. They dropped the final game to the Nittany Lions 3-2 and the first game to Maryland by an ugly 5-1 score. In most years, winning the conference requires being perfect against every team not in the upper echelon, and then maybe dropping a game or two to teams in the upper echelon. Michigan dropped four against the top tier and has been far from perfect against the middle tier. As of now, they sit 7-6 in the B1G, six games back of Nebraska for first with only nine games to play. Not happening this year. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: Where things went wrong]