It was a weekend of firsts for the Michigan baseball team in its series against Oakland.

The team made its home debut on Friday, and highly-touted freshman Zach Putnam notched his first collegiate victory. With Saturday's win, the team's record was above .500 for the first time this season. On Sunday, the Wolverines pounded out nine runs in the first two innings of games one and two, combined.

But the most important of all the team's firsts this weekend was the sweep it picked up against Oakland (1-17). Michigan (10-7) took all four games from the Grizzlies. After an easy 14-5 victory on Friday afternoon, the team slipped past Oakland, 8-7, on Saturday. The team won 3-2 and 8-5 in the doubleheader yesterday.

Redshirt freshman Chris Fetter threw five innings for the win in game two, and senior Paul Hammond tossed two innings of relief to nail down the victory.

With the Wolverines trailing 2-1 after the first inning, the first five Michigan hitters reached base to start the bottom of the second. A questionable call helped the Wolverines during the inning. After swinging and missing for a third strike, sophomore Doug Pickens ran to first after seeing Oakland catcher Andy Brinker drop the pitch. Oddly, Brinker held the ball instead of throwing to first for the out. Freshman Kevin Cislo capitalized on the mistake, tripling on the next pitch to score both Pickens and senior A.J. Scheidt, who had previously singled. Junior Brad Roblin then walked and stole second, and junior Leif Mahler, who had three hits in the game, followed that with a single up the middle, scoring both Cislo and Roblin to put Michigan up 5-2.

Michigan's four, five and six hitters all contributed later in the game as well. Batting cleanup, Derek VanBuskirk hit a sacrifice fly to score a run in the fourth inning. The five hitter, senior Mike Schmidt, hit a solo homer in the fifth to push Michigan's lead to 7-4. Senior Jeff Kunkel hit sixth and knocked in a run in the bottom of the sixth, scoring VanBuskirk to give the team its eighth and final run. Hammond then came in and pitched a perfect seventh, striking out two Oakland hitters.

The sweep serves as a teaching tool for the some of the players.

"We learned a couple things about ourselves this weekend," said senior Drew Taylor, who threw a two-hitter and picked up the win in game one. "We can work on our defense and execution at certain times over the next week heading into the Big Ten season. There were a couple facets of the game in which we were lacking, even though we found a way to win."

Defensively, Kunkel had an impressive weekend, throwing out two runners attempting to steal and picking off another two who were too far off first base.

"(Defense) is something I take a lot of pride in," Kunkel said. "If I can help control the other team's running game, especially picking a guy off . then I will help the pitcher out."

But Kunkel's defensive performance stood apart from that of his teammates.

The team committed 10 errors over the weekend, including four on Friday, and four in the second game of Sunday's doubleheader.

"I was disappointed with our defense this weekend -- no question," Michigan coach Rich Maloney said. "We have been solid (defensively) all year, and it needs to be a strength everyday. For our fans this weekend, we didn't show the same defense we've played all year."