U-M Softball: We're B-a-a-a-ck!
Huge weekend for the softball team in California. Although the two Saturday games were rained out, the team still went 3-0 to raise their record to 9-8.
Most importantly, they managed two major upsets: beating #2 UCLA 3-1 on Friday and #5 Washington 4-2 on Sunday. They also won 1-0 on a walk-off vs. Cal State-Northridge on Sunday.
The hitting still isn't up to par, but the pitching could carry us a long way, especially if the hitters start to pull it together. And the strength of schedule they have played non-conference should help them both in B1G play and in eventual tournament seeding. It's possible we might be ranked this week, even with our barely .500 record.
Good week-end, ladies. Keep it up.
This makes me happy to read. As a distant follower of non-revenue Michigan sports, I always feel more pride knowing there's something to cheer for between basketball wins and football offseason chatter.
Keep it up, ladies!
Should dispel some of the early worries. But not a ton of opportunities for quality wins from here on out. Arizona St, James Madison, Indiana (3x) are our only games left against currently ranked teams (USA Today/Coaches Poll) as we avoid Minnesota in B1G play. However, Illinois, Wisconsin, N’W and OSU all received votes in the poll. However, we only play Illinois (3x) and OSU (3x) in conference play.
The early worries were likely generated because we don't know what Coach Hutch was doing.
She's likely putting new people into different positions to see who is the starter and who comes off the bench for different situations. I'm sure younger players have developed and now are looking to get more playing time. Sort of like Spring Training now.
She's getting her plan together to be successful in the long run. Let's not fire her just yet.
Yeah, the ladies did very well this weekend. So much so that it sucks that Saturday's games against #7 Tennesssee and #20 Oregon were rained out. This weekend was really their last chance to make any noise this season and they just had 2 big chances taken from them. B1G softball helps no one. Hopefully, upsetting #2 and #5 is enough.
Hutch has them going in the right direction! Go Blue!
Natalia Rodriguez scored her first collegiate home run against the Huskies! Talk about clutch. That girl is usually a slapper but she bombed that sucker over the fence like nobody’s business.
Washington threw their 3rd string pitcher against us, but still nice that Beubien seems to be settling down. In the past, Hutch has snuck in some weekday games when previous games were rained out. It would be nice if they could do it against a quality opponent- maybe a team like Notre Dame...... or even, if the schedule allows a double header with Tennessee, since they also lost games??? More likely we will see a couple of games with EMU added later on.
Just a couple of weeks ago, some schmuck poster said it was time for Hutch to move on. This is why making stoopid statements early in the season is stoopid.
I did a quick search for the post, but only a few pages back, and the search feature turned up nothing. Wish I could remember who said it, but the guy (?) was roundly negged, and rightfully so...
Hutch is a legend here, she’s won a NC at a northern school, multiple College World Series appearances and multiple B1G TEN Championships she can coach here as long as she wants to!
I think this is definitely better than the bats being scorching and the pitchers not being able to find the zone at all. It seems like the majority of WCWS games are of the low scoring variety, so just maybe this team has the recipe to make a run.
I think that UCLA game could’ve been the turning point. Great to see them getting some big wins now