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Sooooooo yeah. The last time I wrote about Michigan Softball was late April, when they had three weekends left in the B1G season. They were still in the field for NCAA Tournament projections at the time and I felt that a solid close to the regular season would likely be enough to get the Wolverines into the tourney. Which, for a rebuilding season, would have been a fine outcome.  That is emphatically not what happened. Michigan Softball lost an infuriating extra inning game to Northwestern, destroyed the 'Cats on Saturday, and then lost a comedy of errors umpiring show on Sunday. That was an okay result, but everything that followed was a catastrophe, back to back sweeps at the hands of a pair of good B1G teams in Minnesota and Indiana. A 1-8 record over the final nine B1G games plummeted Michigan to 10th in the conference standings, forcing them to need a miracle in the BTT to make it in. They didn't get one, rather a first round exit at the hands of Penn State.  So here we are, 25-24 and no NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1994. How did it go wrong? What comes next? And what about the longterm viability of Michigan Softball as a meaningful program? We've got some hard questions to answer today.    How it all went down Ugly! Oh wait, you want me to tell you more? The abbreviated version in the opening not painful enough? Well, here goes I guess. That first game against Northwestern was where we left off, the chance for Michigan to notch marquee wins in conference against a team that ended up being a regional host seed when the tourney bracket got unveiled. NU is legit and as a whole, it looked like a decent fight. Michigan and Northwestern were tied 2-2 on Friday into extra innings, Michigan getting terrific relief pitching from Jessica Lebeau. They fell down 3-2 in the bottom of the 10th, but a big hit by Audrey LeClair tied the game. The winning run was waved home but was thrown out by a country mile in one of the worst sends from third base I have seen in some time. Alas, Northwestern took a 4-3 lead in the top of the 11th and won the game by that margin.  It was a bitter loss, but made up for by a stunning 15-0(!!!) shellacking Michigan laid on Northwestern on Saturday. Out of nowhere, a challenged offense had their way with a top notch team and secured a comfortable run rule victory. That led us into Sunday, a game that was tied 0-0 into the 7th amid multiple umpiring errors that jobbed Michigan (in my view). However, you still need to show a pulse outside of getting screwed and the Wolverines didn't do nearly enough with the six hits and two walks they got. Eight baserunners translated into zero runs, while two key base knocks for the Wildcats in the top of the 7th powered them to a 3-0 victory.  [Bill Rapai] Despite dropping two of three, Michigan was still on track to make the NCAAs at this juncture. It all began unraveling the following weekend, a sweep at home at the hands of Indiana. IU ain't a bad team, but they're not Northwestern. You needed to take at least 2/3 at home and you got swept. And not just swept, decisively swept. The Friday game got postponed to a Saturday doubleheader, which Indiana swept by a combined score of 19-2(!!). Everything that could go wrong went wrong, a 4-1 defeat that saw Michigan never be competitive on the scoreboard and a 15-1 drubbing in which LeBeau got pummeled and with Lauren Derkowski tired from Game 1, Michigan was forced to turn to its unusable pitching depth, which made things go from bad to worse. On offense, Michigan mustered only nine hits combined in the two games and zero runs against Heather Johnson and Briana Copeland of IU. Of those nine hits, only two were of the extra base variety (both doubles). Pitiful.  The Sunday game against Indiana was at least more competitive, but it still was far from an acceptable result. The Hoosiers got to Derkowski again and Michigan trailed 5-1 in the bottom of the 3rd before trying to claw back. They cut the lead to 6-5 on an Ella McVey single in the 7th, placing the tying and winning runs on, but an Ellie Sieler flyout ended it. Getting swept up by a team like Indiana put Michigan's tournament hopes into deep jeopardy, setting the stage for a dramatic trip to Minneapolis. In between were two easy run rule wins over WMU and Oakland, but the team went to Minnesota realistically needing a sweep.  [AFTER THE JUMP: a play that will make you SQUEAL!]

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