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
Well, it's a new season for Michigan Softball. After a disastrous (by the program's standards) season that saw the Wolverines miss the NCAA Tournament for the first time in nearly three decades, the page has been turned and year #2 of the Bonnie Tholl Era is upon us. It's a new team, albeit one with a lot of familiar faces. The season is getting underway at 10am (broadcast for the opener can be found here), so it's time to break Team 47 down and give them a proper introduction: The Roster Pitching While the 2023 season represented a steep decline in pitching compared to the 2022 or 2021 teams, it was still a stronger area of the team than the hitting side. The team ERA of 2.91 was not what you want if you hope to be a high level competitor in NCAA Softball, but the good news is total continuity. Everyone is back and they've added through the recruiting class as well. The team's arguable best player is Lauren Derkowski, who went from a depth piece a
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