carol hutchins

Three weeks have passed since we last checked in on Michigan Baseball and Softball, so it's about time to do another update. The two teams were wading into B1G play during the last one and now are well into the meat of those two campaigns. The needle is pointing slightly upwards for softball after a choppy beginning, while it's pointing sideways or slightly down for baseball (in the near term), but plenty of storylines for both. Today we'll be looking at softball, while tomorrow I'll be covering baseball. These are going to be shorter pieces, but I thought it was a little more user friendly to break them up and spread the content out. 

Softball: Still Meeting Expectations

At the last installment, I noted that Michigan's non-conference portion of the season was rather choppy and its signature wins rather ugly, but that they were doing enough to meet expectations. I said that they were on track to make the NCAA Tournament if they could finish in the upper half of the B1G, since a brutally difficult non-conference and notching just enough quality wins had bolstered their RPI. Since then the team has done basically exactly that, nothing incredible but sticking in that top quartile of the B1G they need to be in. Doin' alright. 

Season results since we last talked: Last update came just before the Nebraska series and the first three B1G series of April have been identical to each other, taking two of three from the Huskers, two of three from Illinois, and two of three from Purdue. Given that Purdue and Illinois are both brutally bad, dropping games to both squads is not what you want to see if your goal was to make a run at Northwestern for the conference crown, but I never considered that terribly realistic in a rebuilding year. If the main goal is to stay in the NCAAs and keep momentum rolling forward as Bonnie Tholl turns over the roster, then three series victories is enough to tick that box. 

The Nebraska series was totally fine, as the Huskers are one of the best non-Northwestern teams in the B1G. I lamented Michigan's lack of offense in my last update and then less than 24 hours later, Michigan bludgeoned Nebraska in a 10-0 run rule. Only one homer in that game (another by Keke Tholl), but the Wolverines churned out 14 hits, which was a very welcome sight. Unfortunately, they got run-ruled by Nebraska in game #2 after a dreadful hitting performance, setting up the rubber match on Sunday, a solid win powered by a Lexie Blair two RBI double, small ball offense, and strong pitching from Lauren Derkowski.

 [Bill Rapai]

After that, the team hosted Illinois, a much lower scoring series and one in line with what we've seen from the team this year. They got shut out by the Illini in game one, Derkowski giving up one in the first and a two run HR in the third, and the offense failing to capitalize on eight different baserunners against Illinois' Sydney Sickels (no idea how she's still in college). The Wolverines responded with a 3-2 win in the Saturday game, a rare homer by anyone other than Tholl doing the damage as freshman Maddie Erickson left the yard with a three run blast. Jessica LeBeau worked in and out of trouble and was relieved by Derkowski, who ran into major problems in the seventh, allowing a two-run double to cut it to one run. She allowed a single, moving the tying runner up to third, but then got a foul pop up to end the game. If that tension wasn't enough, Michigan needed extras to knock off Illinois on Easter Sunday and claim the series, winning 2-1 in the eighth on a walk-off Keke Tholl double. 

The team headed off to East Lansing during the mid-week to take on MSU in a game that was re-scheduled from a week prior. The Spartans are currently last in the B1G, but got a 2-0 lead in the first three innings. A three-run fourth with big knocks from Audrey LeClair and Blair gave Michigan the lead and they'd hang onto it for a 5-2 win. Over the weekend they then headed to West Lafayette to take on the Boilers, the other worst team in the conference besides MSU. Derkowski pitched the first and third games of the series and threw *two* no-hitters, giving Michigan shutout wins 4-0 and 5-0 in the two games. Unfortunately, they dropped the second game by a score of 3-2, a two-run double by Tholl not being enough as Michigan's bats were very quiet. Finally, Michigan took on MSU this past week at home, a comfortable 8-0 run rule victory. No third-straight no hitter for Derkowski but another shut out effort as Michigan moved to 9-5 in B1G play. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: The good and the bad]

On August 24, 2022, longtime Michigan Softball coach Carol Hutchins announced her retirement after 38 seasons at the helm of the program. She departs as the only face that Michigan Softball has ever had, the winningest coach in D1 Softball history, and a living legend of the game. I have covered Michigan Softball in some capacity for five seasons and took the past two months crafting this piece, my (and this site's) authoritative goodbye to a Michigan icon. My hope is that readers find it a reasonable send-off to a coach who often seemed larger than life to cover. 

I first met Carol Hutchins in person in the second week of February 2018. It was the second Michigan Softball media availability of the season. I, a freshman member of WCBN Sports Radio at the University of Michigan, was there to ask some questions and perhaps get a few soundbites for our station's softball podcast. I had covered the team's opening weekend tournament down in Tampa, Florida, and was just getting my feet wet on the softball beat. Names like Madison Uden, Faith Canfield, and Tera Blanco were green in my brain at that time. I thought I was starting to get a hang of this softball thing, but I knew the real test would be interviewing Hutch for the first time. 

Growing up in Ann Arbor and following Michigan athletics reasonably closely, Carol Hutchins was a ubiquitous name held highly in the mind of anyone who cared about sports in this city. Even if softball was far from your favorite thing, you knew that Michigan Softball was good and you knew Carol Hutchins was why. "Hutch" was the reason that softball meant something more to Michigan than a typical non-rev. "Hutch" was why Michigan was nationally competitive in softball in the 1990s and early 2000s, a time when good softball was so rarely found east of the Rockies. And "Hutch" was why Michigan was nationally competitive into the mid-2010s, even as the sport had taken a decisively southern turn. 

Hutch had an intense demeanor to her on the field and off of it. That's why, as I walked into the UM softball complex that day, I was intimidated. Of course, I first had to find the dang softball lounge inside a building I'd never entered, but after that, yeah, I was nervous. Most everyone I've talked to who covered softball in some capacity, be it for WCBN, the Daily, BTN Student U, or WOLV TV, was nervous the first time they interviewed Hutch. A wise man might have called it a rite of passage among student media members.

[Bryan Fuller]

I don't recall what questions I asked the first time I interviewed Hutch too well. Really it was me trying to get acclimated. Some basic questions about what I'd seen in Tampa, how the team looked, that sort of thing. I may have stammered ever so slightly, or rushed my words as a result of the nervousness, but Hutch answered them honestly. The passion in her eyes burned brightly and the steely visage was present but the answers she gave were thoughtful and fair. She didn't Bill Belichick the responses or laugh them off, because she knew I was from the one outlet who traveled to Tampa and appreciated that. 

That's the thing you learned about Hutch pretty quickly being on the beat: no one cared more about softball than Carol Hutchins and Carol Hutchins took softball seriously. She wanted you to take softball seriously. She wanted it to be treated like the big dollar men's sports in the media and if she could tell that you knew your stuff, she could tolerate the hard question. But if you asked Hutch something tough and it's clear you didn't know what you were talking about? Hutch would rip you apart like a pack wolves and a freshly slain carcass.  

Over my next three years at Michigan, I attended the pre-season softball media availability three times. Each time I was now a "veteran" on the beat, and the student journalists from the Daily were always freshmen. The fun part for me was seeing which ones would ask the right questions and which ones would show their lack of knowledge and eaten alive (my second favorite part, just behind seeing Hutch's golden retriever wandering around). When one unsuspecting freshman asked the superficial question exposing they hadn't done their homework, I enjoyed chuckling as the snappy response back was something of a verbal slap across the face, even if I felt bad when the reporter's face turned red. That was learning on the job covering Hutch. 

I'm not going to act like I was the expert in interviewing Carol Hutchins. I was a radio announcer, not a beat writer, one who did lots of games, yes, but my job wasn't to collect interviews. We featured them from time to time on our podcast but anyone who spent a full year on the Daily softball beat interviewed Hutch as many times in one year as I did in four. But what I got to see in doing it for four years was a closer look at the program, the traits that defined it, and the leadership Carol Hutchins provided, even in her final years. I got a certain connection to the program and its players, one that hasn't left me, making me continue to write softball for this site into year five (and soon, year six), even if the clicks mostly go to my other responsibilities. Softball matters to me and it always will, and that's what I gained covering Hutch. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: A look back at Carol Hutchins' career]

In surprising news that more or less came out of left field, legendary Michigan Softball head coach Carol Hutchins is retiring after 38 years at the helm: 

Her legacy will live on forever. Thank you for 38 incredible years, Hutch. Happy retirement. #ThankYouHutch #ForeverGoBlue

— Michigan Softball (@umichsoftball) August 24, 2022

Hutchins, 65, was said to be on a five-year rolling contract with the ability to stay as long as she wanted. While the timing in this stage of the summer is a bit surprising, the decision to ultimately step away is not. An exodus of players to the transfer portal seemed to be an omen of this and today we get the news.

I will keep this short, because I will have a post on her in full in the coming days, but it's hard to overstate what Carol Hutchins meant not just to Michigan Softball, as the only face the program has ever had, but to the sport at large. While at Michigan, Hutchins won 22 B1G regular season titles, including 12 of 13 between 2008 and 2021. She won the B1G Tournament title 10 times, qualified for the Women's College World Series 12 times, and won one national title in 2005. With 1707 career victories (.755 winning percentage), Hutchins is the winningest coach in NCAA Softball history.

Over Hutchins' tenure at Michigan, NCAA Softball went from a nascent and niche sport to a legitimate top-line entity in college athletics that attracts millions of eyeballs in Oklahoma City every June for the WCWS. Her role in facilitating that growth was humongous. Hutchins produced some of the greatest players NCAA Softball has ever seen and never stopped being a tireless advocate for women and girls in sports at all levels. Her gargantuan legacy will tower over this sport for decades and finding a replacement at Michigan will not be easy. 

There is no content after the jump.