All Blue Rips It

It was an extremely busy weekend for the Wolverines, and they acquitted themselves pretty well overall. Let's get right to it:

Women's Tennis' Big Trip to Seattle

Once again I will say the thing I always do about tennis: this is the most underrated spectator sport in college athletics. Last weekend the women's tennis team made it to the finals of the ITA Indoor National Championship in a tournament that was incredibly exciting across the board. They came into the tournament ranked #5 nationally, and beat three top 15 teams on the way to the final before falling to then-#4 Oklahoma State. In this week's rankings, the Cowgirls were rewarded with the #1 spot, while the runner-up Wolverines get the corresponding #2.

In the first round against #15 Cal, they needed just a bit of a comeback, falling behind 2-1 after a doubles point loss and a straight-set loss from Jaeden Brown. Not a huge hole, but it was still nice to see Michigan win three straight singles matches to erase the deficit and end up with a relatively comfortable win. The next day, a 4-1, relatively drama-free win over #11 Virginia sent Michigan to their first ever national indoor semifinal.

Michigan was the fourth seed in this tournament, setting up a theoretical semifinal match against #1 UNC. Michigan got a huge break after NC State upset their rival, winning by just about the narrowest margin you can: tied 3-3, the third set of the final match on court went to a third set tiebreaker, which itself was tied 6-6 before the final 8-6 margin sealed a Wolfpack win. Between the long match with the Tarheels and the three or so extra hours of rest for Michigan, NC State did not have it in the semifinal. Michigan took advantage of the opportunity they had, cruising to an also relatively drama-free 4-1.

In the final, Michigan met Oklahoma State, who cruised through doubles and eventually had a 3-0 lead on Michigan. Michigan would need to win all four matches left on-court to win the tournament. The odds were long, but Michigan got about as close as you can to making the comeback. Within minutes of the Cowgirls (they really lean into the Cowgirls thing) going up 3-0, Piper Charney won to put Michigan on the board, and not so long later Brown grabbed a straight-set win of her own for 3-2.

To have any chance of winning the match, Gala Mesochoritou would need to come back from a 6-1 first set to win the match. Gala pushed for a 6-3 second set and up big in the third, fought off a mini-comeback from OSU to win 6-4 and put a 3-3 match on the racket of Kari Miller.

Miller had won the first set and lost the second, both by 6-4 scores (or 4-6, you knew what I meant). The third set was not going great, and Miller faced a 5-2 deficit. With her opponent, Ansastasiya Komar, serving for the match, Miller made her push. She broke Komar for 5-3, and while serving fought off a 40-40 Komar matchpoint (remember, no advantage in college, winner at 40-40 wins) to give herself an opening at 5-4. Unfortunately, she couldn't break Komar a second time, and Oklahoma State won the title.

Michigan's tourney MVP, and the Big Ten Athlete of the Week, was freshman Piper Charney. Charney went 3-0 in singles and 2-1 in doubles, with two of her singles wins coming over individually ranked opponents. Her fourth match, also against a ranked foe from Virginia, was abandoned at 1-1. I am very interested to see if Charney ends up ranked in the next individual rankings.

My personal MVP for the tournament was Gala, who is simply very fun to watch play tennis in clutch moments. Gala was also 3-0 in this tournament with a fourth abandoned as it headed to a third set tiebreaker, but she got there while losing three first sets (two in wins and one in the abandoned match). When things were getting a little dicey against Cal, she stayed in it, keeping her match alive in a second set tiebreaker and then destroying a 6-1 third set. When things were getting really dicey against OK State, she put a 6-1 first out of her mind to come back and win the match and keep Michigan's path open. An impressive, gritty performance in an ultimately successful weekend for Michigan.

Smith Scores a Stunner as WLax Rolls

Michigan hasn't had their home opener yet, but is 2-0 and up to #10 in the polls. They have a scoring margin of +28 in those two games, after beating Jacksonville 19-1 and Cincinnati 14-4 in two true road contests.

I don't have anything particularly smart to say about two drubbings of inferior opponents, I just wanted to watch this goal from Jill Smith more times:

Behind the back falling down goal. Watch it a few more times. Watch it with audio and the other angles on the official account. That goal completed a first-half hat trick for Smith, who would score five on the day.

Sometimes, when something very cool looking happens in a sport like lacrosse or field hockey that I am still relatively new to, I have trouble gauging how cool it is. Was that a particularly sick shot or does the sport just look like that? With this goal, there's no doubt, Michigan has an early goal of the year candidate. Michigan will open the home portion of it's schedule Saturday against #4 Denver.

Softball Wins a Pitcher's Duel or Four

Last weekend, softball opened at the USF-Rawlings Tournament, with five games in three days against mid-tier competition and also ranked Florida. I said in the last piece that I think if Michigan went 3-2 I'd be happy and there were sets of 2-3 results that I'd be fine with. Michigan would go 4-1, losing to host USF but beating both of the power five opponents they played. Michigan delivered now-#19 Florida their only loss of the weekend (they were #17), and beat Oregon State.

The scores for those games? 5-3, 0-1, 3-2, 2-1 (10), 2-1. The game that went to extras was the Florida game, and all three combined runs were scored in the 9th or later. In a weekend that was somewhat shaky for the lineup, Michigan pulled out wins anyways. They're now featured in the "Also Receiving Votes" section of the poll and have some crucial resume pieces as they try to return to the NCAA Tournament.

Against Florida, Michigan's only hit of the game came in the third at-bat, when Kiki Tholl hit a one-out single. Junior pitcher Lauren Derkowski kept the bases clean for two innings and then gave up a double in the third. Derkowski did not give up a multi-hit inning during the game, and when they were still scoreless after the 7th Derkowski stayed on the mound. She would pitch a ten inning complete game. As a reminder, softball is typically only seven innings, but it was their second game of the day and they had used three pitchers in the first. They needed Derkowski to step up and step up she did.

In the eighth, Florida opened with a single, sending the ghost runner to third while the batter advanced to second after the single. Michigan intentionally walked defending national Player of the Year Skylar Wallace to load the bases, and Derkowski went to work. Three pitches later, two players had popped out, and Derkowski got a third to pop out on a 3-1 count to get out of the jam.

Michigan finally made its move in the top of the 9th, when an Ellie Sieler attempted sac bunt in the first at-bat resulted in a throwing error, allowing ghost runner Indiana Langford to run home. Michigan gave up a single in the first at-bat of the bottom of the 9th, allowing Florida to keep the game alive. Derkowski responded with a groundout and two swinging strikeouts, limiting the damage and sending the game to a 10th. The sac bunt "worked" in the 10th, putting ghost runner Lexi Dellamonica on third. Jenissa Conway got the game winning RBI on a groundout, putting the ball in a place where the only play was the play at 1st. Dellamonica scores, 2-1, and Michigan gets another chance to put it away. (They still only have one hit by the way.)

Florida couldn't match in the bottom of the tenth, getting the sac bunt to advance the ghost runner but unable to get her home. Wallace tried, but Michigan got the out at home on a fielder's choice and Derkowski got Michigan out of the game. Derkowski gets the 10-inning win, Michigan wins a ranked ballgame.

Derkowski went 2-0, only allowing 4 runs over 16 innings. Michigan's other starter, senior Jessica LeBeau, went 1-1 including the 1-0 loss to USF, and threw 18 strikeouts in just 13 innings. Freshman Jenissa Conway recorded a team-high 3 RBIs, including a two-run homer against Bethune Cookman.

What Else Is Blue

• Syla Swords and Canada women's basketball have qualified for the 2024 Olympics! They did it despite going 1-2 at their qualifying event, with their only win coming over Hungary. Canada looked unlikely to qualify when the fourth quarter of the final game, Hungary-Spain, began. Hungary had a 14 point lead and Canada needed a Spain win to qualify. Spain came back with a 23-8 quarter to win 73-72 and send Canada to the Olympics via holding the tiebreaker over Hungary, who was also 1-2. Syla played but not extensively, with her best game including 3 steals against Hungary.
• Men's Lax opened its season with a game against #3 Virginia that was out of hand very early. They would eventually fall 19-11, but came back for a big 21-5 win in the home opener against Canisius.
• Next week I need to talk about women's gymnastics more, but they did respond to the tough MSU loss by going to Minnesota and coming out with the win. Unfortunately, they may be without Naomi Morrison for a bit, and with some shaky beam scores over the last couple meets their depth is about to be tested.
• Baseball starts this weekend, with four games against Western Michigan in Arizona. To say the least there's a lot of new faces on the Wolverines, so we'll see how the lineups look and discuss it next week.