Wednesday afternoon was just another day of work at Alumni Field for Michigan softball junior pitcher Jordan Taylor.

But after five innings, she glanced at the leftfield scoreboard from the mound and saw nothing but zeroes in Penn State’s line. She had a chance to notch the second perfect game of her career.

The second-ranked Wolverines (11-0 Big Ten, 35-5 overall) took a seven-run lead into the bottom half of that inning — they needed one more run to mercy their opponents. The third batter, senior leftfielder Kristin Larsen, roped a double to left center, scoring freshman pinch hitter Ashley Lane from second to seal the deal.

“I kind of had that ‘oh, that just happened' moment,” Taylor said. “It was the top of the fifth. I had to think back to whether or not I had walked anybody. I didn’t know. It’s funny — I don’t even think (Michigan coach Carol Hutchins) knew.”

Taylor improved her record to 18-2 on the season, striking out nine Nittany Lions (5-6, 26-5) en route to her third Big Ten shutout victory. The perfect game was the just the seventh perfect game in the program’s history and Taylor’s second in the past eleven days.

The middle of the lineup powered Michigan’s offense in game one, as the second, third and fourth batters all went deep off of Penn State’s Lisa Akamine. Senior third baseman Maggie Viefhaus and senior catcher Roya St. Clair went back-to-back in the third frame, and senior rightfielder Angela Findlay smashed her twelfth of the season in the next.

Overall, the team’s power numbers have been a pleasant surprise this season — the lineup is slugging a combined .575, up from last season’s .457.

“It’s going to come down to one of those big hits or one of those home runs eventually,” Viefhaus said. “It doesn’t really show it in these games, but eventually we’re going to need those big hits. You can’t defend a home run.”

Needless to say, senior lefthander Nikki Nemitz had some big shoes to fill for game two. Just twenty minutes after the Wolverines celebrated Taylor’s big game, she took the mound for warm-ups.

It’s difficult to follow perfection.

But Nemitz kept her cool — she struck out four Penn State batters over three innings of one-hit ball before handing the ball over to freshman hurler Stephanie Speierman with an 8-0 lead. And the ruling on the infield single she surrendered in the top of the first, which was fielded poorly by senior shortstop Molly Bausher, was certainly questionable.

“And how do you match a perfect game? The only way you can do it is to throw one of your own,” pitching coach Jennifer Brundage said. “And then, when it goes out the window in the first inning — it’s what I credit Nikki with — I really credit her ability to come back and rebound from that, and throw a great game of her own.”

Speierman’s appearance followed the same dominant theme, as she tossed two hitless innings to complete the 8-0 mercy-rule victory in one of her rare Big Ten appearances.

It was Michigan’s tenth five-inning game in its last 13 matchups.

After the game, Taylor revealed her secret to keeping herself motivated on the mound.

The Valencia, Calif. native makes little “agreements” with her mother before most of her games — she received a bottle of perfume from her mother after her perfect game against Minnesota two weekends ago.

“I didn’t bargain for anything this time. I didn’t think it was going to happen this fast,” Taylor said. “But I spend a lot of my mom’s money anyways.”

With the ability to surprise herself, it looks like Taylor should make another deal quickly before she take on a weak Purdue lineup this weekend in West Lafayette.