The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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BIG TENS/NCAAS: SOFTBALL for a brief moment, it looked as though Arizona State would escape with a walk- off home run. Instead, senior center fielder Lyndsay Doyle tracked it, leapt and caught the ball, over the fence, to end the game. Michigan head coach Carol Hutchins watched from the dugout, and her ex- pression immediately changed from despair to jubilation when Doyle's catch saved the day. The catch, and Hutchins' reaction, was the No. 1 play in SportsCenter's top 10. "When Taylor hit that ball, I thought maybe this is meant to be. And that last part of the game I thought well maybe it isn't, but it was just a great softball day," Hutchins said. "We just hung tough regardless of what happened in the game and found a way to score more runs than them, and ultimately that's the only thing that mattered." "I trusted her out the entire way," junior right-handed pitcher Haylie Wagner — who posted a 3-1 record at the regional, including the final win over Arizona State — said of Doyle. "I knew it was a hard-hit ball, and I knew it was either make or break right there, but once I saw her jump up I knew that she had it, and I believed her. I couldn't be more proud of her right now." The Wolverines advanced to face Florida State in a three-game series in the Super Regionals May 22-23 in Tal- lahassee, Fla. The Seminoles entered the matchup against the Wolverines with a 53-6 overall record and riding a 15-game winning streak, including sweeps in the ACC Tournament and the NCAA Tallahas- see Regional. The Wolverines advanced to the Wom- en's College World Series in 2013, beat- ing Louisiana-Lafayette in the Super Re- gionals last year before finishing fifth at the WCWS. The Wolverines (46-13 overall, 18-5 Big Ten) also won their seventh consecutive Big Ten regular-season championship, clinching the title with a 10-1 win over Wisconsin May 3. After the regular season wrapped up, sophomore shortstop Sierra Romero was named the Big Ten Player of the Year. She had previously won both that award and the Big Ten Freshman of the Year award in 2013. As of May 18, Romero was the No. 1 hit- ter in the country, by a wide margin. She had an incredible .510 batting average. The No. 2 player in the country in batting average, Bucknell's Cydnee Sanders, was hitting .482. Romero was joined on the All-Big Ten first team by Doyle and senior outfielder Nicole Sappingfield. Hasselbach, Wagner, freshman right-handed pitcher Megan Betsa and junior catcher Lauren Sweet earned second-team All-Big Ten honors. Entering the showdown with Florida State, Wagner had a 24-4 record with a 1.62 ERA. Betsa, in her first year with the Wolverines, had posted an ERA of 1.97 and a 17-3 record. Unfortunately, the Wolverines did not add a Big Ten Tournament championship to their list of accomplishments this sea- son. Minnesota topped Michigan 3-2 in the championship game May 11. The Golden Gophers' Sam Macken hit a walk-off home run with two outs in the bottom of the seventh inning to give Min- nesota the tournament title. — Andy Reid