MADISON – Lightning struck the Michigan softball team twice this weekend – in the form of bad weather.
On the road to Iowa City for a Big Ten matchup last Friday, the Wolverines’ team bus encountered the same band of storms that wreaked havoc on the University of Iowa campus just hours earlier.
Even in a large motor coach, the poor weather made the trip harrowing.
“Really, there was no place to stop,” Indian Trails bus driver and driving instructor Thomas W. Sumpster said. “That was the worst part about it. You held on tight because the crosswinds were really strong. We got (the team) there safe and sound, thankfully.
“It was just one of those nights that you hope goes away as soon as possible.”
The gusts were so strong that they diverted the players’ attention away from the movie they were watching.
“We were all watching a really long movie,” senior Grace Leutele said. “The wind was getting to us, and we just saw brake lights going on and off. It was kind of exciting.”
The weather didn’t improve Sunday after Michigan traveled Madison for a scheduled doubleheader against Wisconsin.
Though rain (severe at times) had lingered in the area since early Sunday morning, the first game of the afternoon started just 30 minutes late.
The sky was overcast and the wind gusted, but it looked like the teams would luck out, and the weather would hold.
In the top of the third inning of the first game, with two out and the bases loaded, Alessandra Giampaolo stepped to the plate with a chance to break a scoreless tie.
Giampaolo fouled the first pitch out of play. Just as she dug in for the second pitch, lightning struck, and the players, coaches and umpires ran off the field.
The weather worsened from that point on. Lightning and booming thunder continued to strike, and a wind from the southeast nearly tore the stars and stripes off the flagpole behind the centerfield wall.
Eventually, the Wisconsin field crew, comprised primarily of players, managed to get the tarp on the infield.
But the damage was done.
Michigan coach Carol Hutchins said she was upset to see the weather put an early close to a lackluster weekend for the Wolverines.
“It was a disappointing end to a disappointing weekend,” Hutchins said.
The game would have been called sooner, but Hutchins held out hope that the field could be made ready.
The final verdict didn’t come until Hutchins and associate head coach Bonnie Tholl studied multiple radar images and asked the Wisconsin staff about the condition of the field.
“This is the hardest decision I make,” Hutchins said. “It’s much easier to decide when to take out your pitcher.”
Hutchins waited more than two hours before agreeing to call the game and heading for the bus. At that point, large puddles had gathered in the outfield, and the tarp covering the infield floated up and down like a plastic bag caught in an updraft.
Weather prevented Michigan from playing three conference games last season.
After a loss to Penn State on April 22, 2005, Michigan saw the second game against the Nittany Lions on Saturday and a doubleheader against Ohio State on Sunday cancelled because of snow in Ann Arbor.
Some couldn’t help but notice the irony of the bad weather in both Iowa City and Madison.
“This weather just has not cooperated,” the 16-year bus-driving veteran Sumpster said. “It just seems like this weather wants to follow us.”
For others, it wasn’t irony, but luck that explained the weekend’s weather.
“If we didn’t have bad luck we wouldn’t have any luck at all,” Hutchins concluded.