After the Michigan softball team’s 6-0 shutout loss to Ohio State Saturday, the Wolverines’ coaches and players gathered in the locker room for a short talk.
The message following the defeat, which was perhaps Michigan’s worst performance since Big Ten play began, was simple:
“Nobody’s perfect,” freshman right-hander Erin Hoehn said Saturday, repeating the concise post-game debriefing. “We didn’t play good ball today and we all told each other that, but tomorrow, we’re gonna bring the energy and get the bats fired up.”
That pep talk didn’t work.
The Wolverines (38-16 overall, 19-5 Big Ten) went down early and never caught up to the Buckeyes (31-19, 12-11), falling 2-1 in an anticlimactic regular season finale.
“The moment got too big,” Michigan coach Bonnie Tholl said Sunday. “So a learning experience for all of us, that all of a sudden we were no longer swinging and playing free. The first Big Ten win of the season counts just as much as the 10th Big Ten win and the final Big Ten game. All the wins count the same and we kind of lost perspective of that a little bit. That’s what I really believe happened the last two days.”
The Wolverines’ day behind the plate started off slow, as Michigan’s batters lined out, grounded out and struck out all the way down the order. For a while, this has been Michigan’s way, letting its opponent tack on a few early runs before sending balls past the wall when it mattered. This didn’t work on Saturday — Ohio State’s two early runs and an additional four in later innings went unanswered.
And for a while on Sunday, in the Wolverines’ series finale against the Buckeyes, it looked like a similar story would unfold.
After Ohio State center fielder Kirsten Eppele cracked a home run past the bullpen adjoining the left-field fence in the second inning, the onus was on Michigan’s bats to respond. But for the opening three frames, the Wolverines walked dejectedly from the plate as quick as they stepped up to it, going three-up, three-down in three consecutive innings.
The first run that Michigan mustered, after succinctly cycling through their lineup and letting up another homer from Eppele that extended the Buckeyes’ lead to 2-0, was a bomb from junior left fielder Ellie Sieler that sailed just left of the right-field foul pole.
In past games and some comebacks, Sieler has been the Wolverines’ engine, setting Michigan’s sometimes-dormant offense into motion with an opportune home run or hit. That wasn’t the case for the Wolverines on Sunday, as Sieler’s hit was just one of Michigan’s two the entire game.
“Any hit is definitely nice,” Sieler said. “It just gives me confidence to just keep trusting my swing and not try to think too much and try to do too much and just go for the pitch I like moving forward.”
Thinking too much and doing too much defined most of the Wolverines’ maladroit plate appearances. For three more innings, Michigan’s batters continued to whiff at pitches, and any contact they made sent balls squarely into Ohio State’s gloves.
It was an offensive letdown for the Wolverines who, coming into their series against the Buckeyes, were riding a 13-game win streak propelled by big-hitting highlights. Following the final out of the game, Tholl trudged to the dugout as her team wrapped up a low-scoring, deflating 2-1 loss.
Tholl has repeatedly preached that belief results in momentum, but Sunday’s defeat lacked the latter.
“We’ve been saying belief is our momentum,” Tholl said April 30th, as the Wolverines were preparing for their series against the Buckeyes. “ … That’s really what has put us in a really good place.”
Michigan’s mid-season turnaround, which featured comeback wins and a deluge of homers, was also packed with belief and momentum. The Wolverines had plenty of belief on their senior day, their series finale and their final game of the regular season — but for Tholl, belief is a double-edged sword.
“I think that a little bit of that belief became a little bit of wonder,” Tholl said, pausing to reflect for a moment. “And when that becomes a wonder it’s really not true belief.”
Michigan’s belief never translated into momentum, and the Wolverines were left wondering how their regular season ended in a loss.