The Michigan softball team practices like it's on ESPN — and on Saturday, it paid off.

The Wolverines have a drill named after the sports channel. Without a ball, the players imagine diving, making spectacular catches and completing highlight reel, SportsCenter-worthy plays.

On Saturday, senior co-captain Teddi Ewing made her ESPN-caliber play. And later, she was thrown out at first base when she was on the wrong end of a highlight play nearly as impressive.

With a 3-2 lead in the fifth inning of Saturday's second game, Ewing displayed amazing athletic ability. Boilermaker second baseman Kelly Miller led off with a strong hit to mid-leftfield for what looked like a base hit. Ewing, a shortstop, threw herself in the air and managed to turn 180 degrees before landing feet toward home base, her stomach in the dirt, ball in her glove.

The play helped close out the 4-3 win to complete the weekend sweep.

“I always say with diving, you never know unless you try,” Ewing said. “So if I think there’s any chance of getting it, I just go for it. And it’s always nice when it lands in the glove.”

In the sixth inning, Ewing got a taste of her own medicine. She made solid contact at the plate for what looked like a potential double, but Purdue outfielder Beth Cinadr made a diving catch in leftfield for the out.

Cinadr’s dive was characteristic of the scrappy Boilermakers.

After No. 10 Michigan won 3-1 in the opening game, spurred by a 2-0 first-inning lead, Purdue found its confidence and rhythm in the second contest.

“The bottom line is, you can’t get your confidence or your lack of confidence from the other team,” Michigan coach Carol Hutchins said. “And they stayed confident for two reasons: One, because they were in the game. When you are in the game, you have a chance to win it. And two, if you look at it on paper – who’s supposed to win — they have no pressure.”

The second game went to extra innings before junior catcher Roya St. Clair broke the stalemate with the game-winning hit for the Wolverines in the ninth.

Unranked thus far this season and winless against the Wolverines in three seasons, the Boilermakers’ excitement was evident in their performance as a victory against the No. 10 team in the country seemed possible.

“In our case, we have to avoid those kind of thought processes,” Hutchins said. “Our thought process is play the game because the game doesn’t know who’s supposed to win. The game only knows there are three outs, three strikes and that’s how you play the game. If you approach it like that consistently, you have a better chance.”

Pitching was a major factor in the close games.

In the opening contest, Michigan came away with a 3-1 win largely due to junior Nikki Nemitz's three-hit performance. She stayed ahead in the count consistently and gave up no walks. Meanwhile, Purdue’s Suzie Rzegocki, who pitched both games for the Boilermakers, consistently fell behind and surrendered nine hits, walking five Wolverines en route to a 3-1 loss.

The pitching performances flip-flopped in game two when sophomore Jordan Taylor started in the circle for the Wolverines. Taylor let up three runs and fell behind in the count often.

Rzegocki regained an advantage from the strip despite throwing 89 pitches in the opening loss.
Once Purdue tied it up at three in the sixth, Nemitz went in for Taylor and quickly ended the inning with back-to-back outs.

The game went into extra innings, the fifth overtime game for Michigan this season. The Wolverines are 3-2 in those contests.

Finally, in the ninth inning, freshman outfielder Bree Evans bunted to get on base before St. Clair hit a solid ball to the outfield, her fourth game-winning hit of the season.

“I had been hitting her pretty good all day,” St. Clair said. “I worked the count a little bit. Anything she was going to bring near the plate, I was going to take a good cut at it, try to get it into the gap and score that run."