The crowd knew it was gone as soon as Sierra Lawrence’s bat made contact with the ball.

The freshman left fielder’s grand slam sailed deep into left-center field, threatening to clear a grove of pine trees that divides Alumni Field from the neighboring baseball complex. Standing on the concourse behind the third-base grandstand, two men in matching blue jackets saw the moonshot bounce off a tree trunk and grinned.

Dave Rowe and Fred Hutchinson, members of the event staff, stood close together, noses running. Now retired, the toll of a lifetime of work is etched into their faces. Though both have lived around Ann Arbor for years, it’s their dedication to Michigan athletics that has brought them together on Sunday afternoon. Rowe and Hutchinson have attended every softball game this year, arriving almost two hours early with ticket scanners as they wait for fans. They stand on the shadowed sidewalk between the Wilpon Complex and Oosterbaan Fieldhouse, greeting everyone who walks by with a courteous nod and a warm smile.

The ninth-ranked Wolverines boast the longest winning streak in the nation — 21 games — and are well on their way to a sixth-consecutive Big Ten title. But Rowe and Hutchinson have watched little of it. From their vantage point, they can only see the warning track and the scoreboard, which they have to combine with the public-address announcements to paint a mental picture of the game. Fortunately for them, Michigan has hit more home runs and triples than any other team in the Big Ten, providing the duo with plenty of excitement.

“We watched that one fly up past the pine trees,” Rowe said of Lawrence’s grand slam. “Even though you can’t see much from this angle, you can see the scoreboard and that’s the part that matters to us.”

This year hasn’t been easy for Rowe and Hutchinson. The weather remains unseasonably cold, and they have to stay outdoors even as snow flurries and blustering winds remind them of winter. Still, when the event staff talk about their jobs, their eyes light up. Sometimes, though, they resort to creative measures to make it bearable.

“We all wear something underneath our pants — long johns,” Hutchinson said with a laugh.

Added Rowe: “It was brutally cold yesterday and we froze our butts off. But it’s good to be around the youth and the enthusiasm. I enjoy being around the spirit of the kids.”

After the fourth inning, the duo is free to sit wherever it pleases in the stadium. Even then, they haven’t seen very much Michigan softball. The Wolverines have won 15 games in such convincing fashion that they were shortened by the sport’s run rule, most of them in the fifth inning.

But on Sunday afternoon, Michigan and Iowa gave Rowe and Hutchinson plenty to cheer about. In the first game of a doubleheader, the teams combined to hit five home runs, and the contest became dangerously close in the seventh inning when the Hawkeyes cut their deficit to two and had the tying runner in scoring position. But the Wolverines held on for the win and preserved their perfect home record.

In the second contest, Rowe and Hutchinson nodded in approval when freshman shortstop Sierra Romero’s first-inning blast cleared the maize-and-blue outfield wall to give Michigan an early lead. It’s a sight they’ve seen repeatedly this season, as her 19 home runs lead the Big Ten. And as Romero helps her team close in on a conference title, Rowe and Hutchinson said they feel emotionally invested in the softball program and hope the Wolverines can bring home the trophy.

“You root for them,” Rowe said. “Any event you work, you take some pride in it. It’s a lot of fun and I’m glad I signed up for it.”