All Blue: Is This Thing On?

Unfortunately I disappeared for a minute there. No way around it, life outside of this little blog got in the way. Good things mostly, that should pave the way for this being a little easier on me next year.

It is wild to be thinking about next year already, but it seems that, barring a truly insane set of softball results, we are out of home events during this year's athletic season. The calendar turns sooner than we think.

In the meantime, several Wolverine teams are involved in NCAA Tournament runs. We'll take a look but first, a little chart to help you keep track of the weekend, championship events only (sorry baseball), all of the ESPN*'s mean that it could end up on ESPN/2/U/+:

Women's Tennis At Nationals

The Michigan Women's Tennis team advanced to the quarterfinals of the NCAA Tournament, barely breaking a sweat along the way. They hosted the first three rounds at the Varsity Tennis Center, with rounds 1 and 2 two weekends ago and the Sweet 16 last Saturday. Now they head to the neutral-site part of the tournament, in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

It's probably unfair to their opponents to say they didn't break a sweat. While it is true that in the first round they lost a count-on-two-hands number of games to Chicago State, Notre Dame managed to score two match points in the second round before succumbing.

The 4-0 score in the Sweet 16 against Miami (FL) masks a number of close individual matches, especially at #1 singles. Kari Miller had just lost an insane 11-9 first set tiebreaker when Gala Mesochoritou won her match in the third set, earning the Wolverines their fourth and clinching point. There is a very legitimate chance if they had let every match play out, Michigan would have won 4-3 rather than 4-0. Guess we'll never know!

Michigan has a major opportunity in that the hosts forgot to qualify. After heading into the Sweet 16 at 29-0 (including a win over the Wolverines at ITA Indoor Nationals), Oklahoma State took among the bigger upsets in any sport this spring season, losing to #16 Tennessee. That leaves the #3 Wolverines as the second-highest ranked team at outdoor nationals behind #2 Stanford.

First, Michigan needs to play Pepperdine. I was in attendance at their previous meeting, a 4-2 Michigan victory in March. Michigan lost the doubles point before winning three quick straight-set matches at the top three singles spots. Within seconds of each other, Piper Charney and Lily Jones each won their third sets to clinch the match (the box score says Charney technically got there first). Since then, Pepperdine is 12-3. Michigan boasts six nationally ranked players led by Kari Miller at #5. Pepperdine has five, with Savannah Broadus at #12.

A win would likely mean taking on Stanford for a trip to the finals. Stanford only has three ranked players, but they're pretty top heavy. All three of the ranked Cardinal are in the top 30, where Julia Fliegner trailed Miller at #28, and Gala is #57. The bottom half of the roster would be crucial in this match.

The event can be seen on ESPN+ all weekend, with Michigan's Elite 8 match against Pepperdine beginning at 2:30 ET on Friday. The semi would be at 5pm on Saturday, and the final at 7:30pm on Sunday.

Women's Lacrosse and a Buzzer-Beating Run

Alright, let's not bury the lede, here's the goal:

Jill Smith was already having perhaps the best season in the history of Michigan women's lacrosse. Statistically, she is eight points away from breaking her own single season points record, which she set last year with 77. From a more feelingsball perspective, she could not stop scoring big goals. None were bigger than this one.

After Michigan fell to a quick 6-3 deficit, it was back and forth from there. They'd battle back, tie the game, Notre Dame would go back up a goal, they'd tie the game. Michigan finally took it's first lead with 12 to go in the fourth off of a Julia Schwabe solo goal. It lasted 51 seconds. For the rest of the game, they traded goals. Notre Dame tied the game one last time on a free position shot with 31 seconds left, and it looked like it was headed to overtime. Smith won the crucial draw control, and at first it seemed like Michigan might be content to play overtime.

Smith was having none of it. Gets the ball from Josie Gooch in a tough position and fires that rocket. Game over. Michigan in their first ever quarterfinal.

Boston College awaits. The Eagles are the #2 seed in the tournament and will host, with the winner advancing to a neutral site semifinal in Cary, NC. The Wolverines, a program that is playing its 11th season, are on the verge of a semi. They would be the just third team founded after 2000 to make it that far (Florida, Navy).

The Eagles are quite good. They are 17-3, finishing third in the ACC and winning the tournament to grab a higher seed nationally than in-conference. There are not a lot of mutual opponents here: they both destroyed Jacksonville, they both lost to Northwestern, and BC went 1-1 against Notre Dame to Michigan's 1-0.

The key for Michigan never changes: play excellent defense. They're still the best scoring defense in the country. BC is the #4 offense and have the best scoring margin in the country. Their two leading players each have 84 points, but the stats are almost a mirror image of each other: Rachel Clark has 67 goals and 17 assists, McKenna Davis has 21 goals and 63 assists. The plan isn't hard to suss out, it's stopping it that's the problem.

Should Michigan win, they get some time off before heading to Cary, where they'd get the Yale/Syracuse winner. Today's game is at 5pm on ESPNU.

Softball Returns to the NCAA Tournament

Bonnie Tholl got her Year 1 slump out of the way and then decided Michigan was gonna be Michigan again. In her second year, Michigan is the Big Ten Tournament Champion and is headed to Stillwater, Oklahoma to face Kentucky, Northern Colorado, and hosts Oklahoma State in the double elimination regional. Maybe they'll have time to catch some tennis.

They open on Friday against Kentucky. Kentucky has a worse record than Michigan in a tougher conference to balance it out. It's not an impossible region for Michigan, Oklahoma State is the 5th seed but they're only 12th in RPI. I don't really know why it is that way but it is.

If Michigan has an edge it's Laura Derkowski, who pitched three (one five-inning mercy) complete games in the Big Ten Tournament. This included a 2 hit, 0 run performance against Maryland and a 7 hit, 1 run final against Maryland. She's come on in the latter half of the season.

Michigan's hinge point is whether or not they're scoring. Sounds simple, but in their 16 losses this year, 12 of them came in games where the Wolverines scored 2 or fewer runs, including 7 shutouts. If they score, they win. That's how it's been all season. It won't be that easy given the competition, but if it's a "bats alive" weekend, Michigan might be able to sneak into a Super Regional. The winner of the Stillwater Regional will match up with the winner of Arkansas' regional.

What Else is Blue

• Michigan rowing will be at the Big Ten Championship this weekend. They're the highest ranked team in the Big Ten at #9, with OSU, Rutgers, and Indiana holding spots 12, 13, and 14.
• Michigan baseball has one weekend left in the regular season, playing Indiana in Bloomington. They've clinched a bid to the Big Ten Tournament, which they will likely need to win if they want to keep playing.
• Once team finals finish Sunday the tennis is not over. The NCAA Singles and Doubles Championship begins Monday. Gavin Young qualified to singles, and will also join Jacob Bickerseth in the doubles tournament. On the women's side, Kari Miller, Julia Fliegner, and Gala Mesochouritou are in singles, and the Miller/Jaeden Brown pair will compete in doubles.
• Women's gymnastics got a HUGE boost when Reyna Guggino, Carly Bauman, and Jenna Mulligan simultaneously announced they will be taking their COVID year and returning. Michigan was looking young next year, and having these anchors will allow the bottom of the lineup time to grow.