Freshman Amanda Chidester may not yet have a specific position to call her own on the Michigan softball team, but she’s clearly making a name for herself as the Queen of Clutch.

With five game-winning hits already under her belt through the first fourteen games of the season, Chidester was exactly who No. 6 Michigan wanted at the plate in the 13th inning of last Tuesday’s 1-0 win against Florida State in Tallahassee.

With the score tied at zero, one out and junior Maggie Viefhaus on second base, Chidester lined a double just over the head of the Seminole third baseman and Viefhaus sprinted home for the first run of the extra-inning affair.

Chidester, who played right field in the game, said there isn’t anything special about her clutch hitting this season. She just tries her hardest to keep the same approach in every single at-bat — see the ball and hit it hard.

Despite some early struggles hitting off Florida State's Sarah Hamilton, her foolproof approach eventually worked.

“(Hamilton) kept the hitters thinking, which is what a pitcher is supposed to do,” Chidester said. “It got me out of my hitting game because I was thinking the whole time instead of going up and seeing the ball and hitting it. In the 13th inning, to finally get a hit off her, that was exciting.”

Tuesday's win was emblematic of the rest of the Wolverines' eight spring break games, Michigan finished the week with a 5-3 record The pitchers consistently turned in stellar performances, but hitting was at a premium in a series of pitchers' duels. Michigan scored two runs or less in four of its eight games, and in two of Michigan's losses, the Wolverines lost by just one run.

“We’re not hitting as well as we can, and I don’t think we're clicking as well as a team as we're going to,” Michigan coach Carol Hutchins said. “That’s what the early season is for. The offense needs to step up. Our pitchers have carried their fair share of the load."

The Wolverines should have ample time to work out the kinks on offense. They have 14 road games remaining before the Big Ten opener on March 21 against Northwestern.

“It was a good experience to see where we actually are,” junior pitcher Nikki Nemitz said. “They were all close games, and having that energy and effort there the entire game helps for getting a feel for what it’s going to be like in the postseason.”

This past weekend should have provided one of the biggest early tests of the season for the Wolverines. They were slated to face off against four top-25 teams in seven games at the NFCA Leadoff Classic in Columbus, Ga. But bad weather wiped out five of the team's games, and even the team’s flight back to Ann Arbor was scratched in favor of a long bus ride.

“One thing you learn when you coach in softball is that you just worry about the teams you play,” Hutchins said. “We can’t control the weather and obviously not the airline. We’re just a team that’s trying to evolve and get better every game.”