The last time the Michigan softball team played Michigan State, just two weeks ago, late runs from the Spartans turned what was looking to be a routine win for the Wolverines into a three-hour affair that went late into the night.
Clearly, Michigan took that game personally.
The Wolverines (29-14 overall, 10-3 Big Ten) put Tuesday’s rematch against Michigan State (15-25, 2-11) out of reach early, capitalizing on an explosive first inning en route to a decisive 5-1 win.
“Every approach we take, every inning, every start of the game,” Michigan coach Bonnie Tholl said. “We see it as our opportunity to get on the board first. … Over the weekend we failed to do that. But anytime you can score runs, I’ll take those runs. Doesn’t matter if it’s the first inning or the seventh inning or the ninth inning.”
Slow starts and scoreless first innings — occurrences that have turned into trends for Michigan in recent games — were nowhere to be found on Tuesday.
In the bottom of the first inning, the Wolverines utilized the small-ball offensive tactics they’ve relied on all season. A single from junior left fielder Ellie Sieler, a bunt from sophomore second baseman Indiana Langford and a pitch that hit sophomore third baseman Maddie Erickson loaded the bases quickly for Michigan.
Stepping up to bat was Keke Tholl, the senior first baseman who, boasting the Wolverines’ only grand slam of the season, was looking to add one more to her record. A grand slam never came, but after working a full count a sacrifice groundout from Keke scored Sieler while keeping two on base.
Through nearly half of the lineup and only having logged one out, Michigan’s bats stayed hot. Redshirt freshman catcher Lilly Vallimont blooped a one-run single, and Conway brought in another, blasting a ball just a foot short from clearing the left-field wall.
The Spartans’ pitching was snowballing, and the Wolverines were chipping away at the surrounding defense with each consecutive hit. Michigan continued to pass the bat as a deep single from freshman right fielder Ella Stephenson sailed to center field, landing perfectly between Michigan State’s defense and scoring two more runs — accruing a total of five runs over just one inning.
“It’s definitely a lot of fun to jump on the Sparties earlier, bury them,” Stephenson said, laughing before reconsidering. “Don’t put ‘bury’ — we didn’t really bury.”
Stephenson was right. After a string of blank opening frames for Michigan in previous games, it seemed like this first inning — in which all of the Wolverines’ five hits became runs — was preparing the grave for an eventual Spartan entombment.
But with the whole game left to play, a burial never came.
Instead, Michigan proceeded to fill the next four innings with ground outs, fly outs and Wolverines stuck on base — watching at-bats produce pretty much anything but runs.
While the Spartans began to stifle Michigan at the plate, they eventually got on the board in the third inning after a ball slipped from Stephenson’s glove just over the right-field wall. Both offenses regressed to dormancy shortly after, a pattern that the Wolverines have shown throughout the season.
“I would have liked us to continue to strike the ball well, but that didn’t happen,” Tholl said. “Their opposing pitcher did a really nice job when she came in in relief. I think that we showed moments of where we were really going to start getting on her if we had another inning, because we had seen her a little bit.”
But another inning never came — and Michigan really didn’t need one.
Because against the worst hitting team in the Big Ten in Michigan State, an eruption of scoring in the opening frame was more than enough.