With the bases loaded and the Michigan baseball team trailing Big Ten-leading Minnesota by four runs, Ryan LaMarre, arguably the Wolverines' best batter, came to the plate.

The Golden Gophers were by no means intimidated by Michigan the way they had been the past three years — each of which resulted in the Big Ten Championship crown coming back to Ann Arbor. But this time, Michigan was sitting in an unimposing seventh place.

So with pride on the line, LaMarre’s at-bat meant much more to the Michigan baseball team than any normal at-bat would have. It was a chance to experience the glory days of the last three years, in which they’d lost a total of only 19 games in-conference. It was a chance to prove that coach Rich Maloney’s team could win without 2007 Big Ten Player of the Year Nate Recknagel and 2007 Big Ten Pitcher of the Year Zach Putnam — a feat even Maloney knew would be difficult.

And when LaMarre’s swing sent a Minnesota pitch screaming towards left field, the whole of Ray Fisher Stadium held its breath.

But the ball fell just a few feet short of the wall in left field.

Maloney and the majority of the roster will tell you that, for the umpteenth time this season, the team was “one away” from a victory.

After the Wolverines dropped two out of three games against Ohio State, LaMarre said on May 3 that they were “one or two bounces away” from winning in their two losses.

When Michigan dropped the last two games of its weekend series against Indiana, Maloney said the team had “four weekends in a row where (they) had a chance to win the series.” But they were always just a few plays away.

Heading into the final weekend of the Big Ten regular season, still in seventh place, the infamous “one-away” sports cliché is what’s holding Michigan back.

After a 16-6 victory Thursday night over conference bottom-feeder Northwestern, Michigan is locked in a final weekend tug-of-war with sixth place Purdue, which currently holds the last set of keys to next week’s Big Ten Tournament in Columbus.

And wouldn’t you know it. The Wolverines are just one game out of sixth place.

Sure, there’s a lot for Michigan to sulk about this season.

Senior tri-captain Kevin Cislo is out for the year after a nagging shoulder injury started affecting his performance too much.

On Apr. 17, a dominant performance in East Lansing from ace pitcher Chris Fetter was erased in extra innings after a two-out Spartan grounder slipped past shortstop Anthony Toth allowing the winning run for Michigan State.

And most of all, the three-peat champions of the Big Ten saw their conference season end without a title, something only senior tri-captain Tim Kalczyinski had seen in his time at Michigan.

But LaMarre, who slowly trotted back to the dugout after his grand slam fell short, said it best: “We’ve had three straight Big Ten championships. No one is feeling sorry for us where we are.”

And if the Wolverines have any chance of making the Big Ten Tournament next week, they have to make sure they don’t feel sorry for themselves either. Because if you ask any team at the University of Michigan, one lucky break could have changed the course of a number of their seasons.

In the 2007 football season opener, I’m sure former kicker Jason Gingell and the rest of the Wolverines would’ve gladly taken an extra second to ensure that the field-goal-block-heard-round-the-world never happened, allowing them to walk out of the Big House as one-point victors over Appalachian State.

In the 2008 NCAA semifinals against Notre Dame, I’m sure the Michigan hockey team would’ve loved to erase the first few minutes of their matchup in which the Irish grabbed two quick goals. At game’s end, the Wolverines were just “one away” from the National Championship.

Instead of wondering how this team found itself on the outside looking in, it should be looking at the fact that two more wins against Northwestern and two Purdue losses (against a solid Illinois team) mean a chance at a fourth straight conference crown.

And for a team that’s hoisted the Big Ten trophy the last three years, pride could be enough to get them to Columbus.