On Saturday evening, with the shadows slowly creeping over The Fish, Iowa's L.J. Mims hit a soft liner toward centerfield. The Michigan baseball team rushed to the edge of its dugout and seemed to tug the crowd of 1,034 fans with them, waiting in anticipation.

First, the ball fell snuggly into a mitt.

Then pandemonium.

Junior Eric Rose's putout to end a 4-1 victory over Iowa in the second game of Saturday's doubleheader not only marked the end of the game, but also the beginning of a new era: one of a Big Ten champion.

In only his fourth season at the helm, Michigan coach Rich Maloney led the Wolverines to their first regular-season championship since 1997.

Entering the day, Michigan was a game ahead of Northwestern in the Big Ten standings and needed the Wildcats to split their doubleheader with Purdue for a chance to clinch with a sweep on Saturday.

When it was announced Northwestern fell to the Boilermakers 3-0 in the second game of that doubleheader, the Wolverines knew it was all on them.

"Coach preaches to us a lot to take care of our business and we'll determine our success," junior Eric Rose said. "But when we heard that (Northwestern) lost and all we (needed was) just one win to at least clinch a tie, it definitely motivated us."

The announcement came just before Michigan's turn to bat in the eighth inning of the first game and it put a charge into the atmosphere at the Fish.

Until then, the fans had witnessed a good old-fashioned pitcher's duel. The Wolverines' Chris Fetter and the Hawkeyes' Jeff Maitland traded zeroes on the scoreboard for seven innings before each was pulled for a reliever in the eighth. Iowa failed to push any runs across in its half of the eighth and left the door wide open for the home team to take its first step toward conference supremacy.

Rose led the inning off with a single and moved to second on a sacrifice bunt. After an intentional walk and a strikeout, Michigan pulled off a rare double steal to put runners on second and third with two outs for freshman Adam Abraham. With a full count on him, Abraham flung the bat out at a tough pitch and hit a seeing-eye liner up the middle to score Rose from the third and put the Wolverines one win away from a championship.

"We knew we had at least a share (of the title) right there and it turned into a little mini celebration," senior Jeff Kunkel said. "After the second game, everybody just went nuts (because) we had it outright. It's just a great feeling anytime your team works as hard as we did and you pull it out and win a championship. That's the ultimate goal."

Michigan didn't waste any time notching a run in the second game. Sophomore Nate Recknegal knocked in Rose with one out in the first inning for a 1-0 lead

Then, Iowa sealed its fate and the Wolverines' championship season in the following inning.

After freshman Derek VanBuskirk hit a two-out single, Hawkeyes second baseman Travis Sweet had a chance to end the inning but bobbled an easy ground ball off the bat of senior A.J. Scheidt.

This led senior Mike Schmidt to drive a three-run homerun (his 10th) into leftfield to put Michigan up 4-0. Four runs were all freshman starter Zach Putnam needed to secure the win for his teammates - he allowed just one run in six innings pitched.

The Wolverines will now turn their attention toward the Big Ten conference tournament, which will be hosted in Ann Arbor from May 24-27.

Even though an at-large bid for the NCAA tournament looks very possible, Michigan wants the guaranteed spot reserved for the tournament champion.

"If we win the (conference) tournament, we're a lock for sure," Rose said.

Iowa 0
Michigan 1

Iowa 1
Michigan 4