Michigan Softball's 2022 season came to a close this weekend at the Orlando Regional against UCF. The Wolverines were able to beat the South Dakota State Jackrabbits twice, but were unable to take a game from the host Knights. Michigan led 2-1 in the seventh inning of the first meeting with UCF, as the hosts were down to their final strike before an RBI double tied the game and sent it to marathon extras. In the 11th inning the Knights would walk it off, and they led wire-to-wire in the second meeting en route to a 9-4 victory. With Michigan's season coming to a close, this final Softball Roundup will do two things: first we'll examine the roster heading into next year, looking at the returning players and incoming recruits, and then the second half of the piece will take an eagle eye look at where the program now sits. That will include some difficult questions that now need to be asked about a program that hasn't made it out of the opening weekend in six years.�
Michigan Softball's 2022 season came to a close this weekend at the Orlando Regional against UCF. The Wolverines were able to beat the South Dakota State Jackrabbits twice, but were unable to take a game from the host Knights. Michigan led 2-1 in the seventh inning of the first meeting with UCF, as the hosts were down to their final strike before an RBI double tied the game and sent it to marathon extras. In the 11th inning the Knights would walk it off, and they led wire-to-wire in the second meeting en route to a 9-4 victory. With Michigan's season coming to a close, this final Softball Roundup will do two things: first we'll examine the roster heading into next year, looking at the returning players and incoming recruits, and then the second half of the piece will take an eagle eye look at where the program now sits. That will include some difficult questions that now need to be asked about a program that hasn't made it out of the opening weekend in six years.�
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