RW 8 - Tuesday, April 16, 2013 0 The Michigan Daily.- michigandaily.com 'M' rolling into Indiana By ERIN LENNON Daily Sports Writer After eight innings in the second game of a doubleheader against Michigan State on Sunday, the No. 12 Mich- igan softball Michigan team (12-0 Big Ten, 35-7 over- at Indiana all) passed the Matchup: halfway mark Michigan 35-7; to history with Indiana 19-23 its 17th straight When: Tues- victory. day p.m., The longest 4 p.m. winning streak Where: IU in program his- Softball Field tory came in TV/Radio:* 2005 - the year BTN of Michigan softball's first and only national championship - when the Wolverines won each of their fir-st 32 games. In order to break the record, 'Team 36' will have to go unbeaten through the rest of the regular season and through the Big Ten Tournament, which begins on May 9 at Nebraska. Already, Michigan coach Carol Hutchins believes it's possible. "I think we can be one of those (elite) teams," Hutchins said. "We've shown it. We've beat- en some of the elite teams, but we've also lost to teams I think we should've beaten. It's how you show up every day." What might be a more attain- able goal for-this young team is a record set in 2001, when the Wol- verines won 16 straight Big Ten matchups. Thus far, Michigan is a perfect 12-0 and is set to face two of the conference's weaker oppo- nents this week. It starts with a doubleheader against Indiana in Bloomington on Tuesday. The Hoosiers' (3-9, 19-23) only Big Ten wins this sea- son came against Big Ten bottom- feeder Penn State and will enter having been swept over the week- What win streak? By JEREMY SUMMITT Pitching. and defense has Daily Sports Writer always been the philosophy, week in and week out. Precisely, The Michigan baseball team they continue to be the ingre- isn't thinking about its nine- dients that have allowed the game winningstreak. offense to grill opponents, and "Once you start talking about why the Wolverines currently sit streaks, that's in first place in the Big Ten stand- a good recipe ings. The Michigan offense has to end them," Notre Dame outscored its opponents 46-11 said Michigan at Michigan during the nine-game streak, but coach Erik the Wolverines' young weekend ,Bakich. Matchup: pitching staff, consisting of two To be fair, 9ot e sophomores and one freshman, the Wolver- gn-14 has been the most evident reason gan 20-14 ines don't for success. have much When: Tues- "Our pitching has been excel- time to think day 4:05 p.m. lent the last few weeks," Bakich about their Where: Wil- said. "We've had alot of guys that consecu- pon Complex have been able to come in and tive week- TV/Radio: pound the strike zone and let our end sweeps mgoblue.com defense work. You can see their of Michigan confidence level really improv- State and ing." Penn State. Michigan will host But during the non-confererce Notre Dame (4-8 Big East, 19-14 games, that budding rotation will overall) on Tuesday before East- probably spend most of the time ern Michigan comes to town on hanging out in the dugout, as Wednesday. per usual for midweek match- Michigan (7-2 Big Ten, 20-14) ups..Bakich said that sophomore toppled the Fighting Irish, 4-1, right-hander James Bourque will last week in South Bend, Ind., start one of the games, but the while an early-season matchup other starter is yet to be named. against the - Eagles (5-7 MAC, Bourque holds a 4.32 earned- 15-18) was cancelled due to run average is 33.1 innings, and inclement weather. Notre Dame he's remained steady in his role has lost a season-high five games as a weekend bullpen option and in a row, scoring just 12 runs in a midweekstarter since early this that span. season. It'sunlikelythat whoever But much like the Wolverines, joins Bourque as the other starter Eastern Michigan has found its will have started a game this sea- groove lately, winning six of its son. last eight games. Many of those Michigan remains shorthand- wins were against non-confer- ed in pitching options after soph- ence opponents, and the Eagles omore right-hander Matt Ogden remain in the middle of the Mid- pitched six scoreless innings American Conference standings. Sunday in relief of sophomore Michigan has finally found left-hander Logan McAnallan. that pitching and defense make But there shouldn't be much up the best recipe for winning, of a reason that the Wolverines' even though the combination recent aggressive pitching and isn't any different from what stingy defense can't add two tal- Bakich preached before the lies to the win column this week. opening weekend in California. In fact, it's all Michigan's recipe But now, the Wolverines are exe- for success has accomplished cuting. recently. 0 6 Junior first baseman Taylor Hasselbach hit a two-out, pinch-hit home run over the weekend to help Michigan sweep MSU, end by Purdue. The Achilles' heal for Indiana this season has been poor pitch- ing. Hoosier pitchers carry a team earned-run average of 3.45, while the offense has been held to just over three runs per game. And against a Michigan offense that makes quick work out of aces, the matchup could be a promising one. The Wolverines have thrived in the early innings this season, and, of late, have seen very little of the sixth and seventh innings. Through the first 12 contests of the Big Ten season, Michigan won via mercy rule in seven games. Against Michigan State, the offense scored a total of 32 runs to complete two run-rule victories. It marked the fourth straight mercy- rule win for Michigan and the 16th this season. "Our rentire game plan the whole time is hit the low pitch and lay off the high," said senior sec- ond baseman Ashley Lane. Freshman Sierra Romero - who won her fourth straight Big Ten Freshman of the Week award - represents just one power bat the Hoosier pitching staff will face on Tuesday. Behind the slug- ger, Hutchins has gone to several bench players, namely freshman first baseman Kelsey Susalla and senior co-captain outfielder Jac- lyn Crummey. With Crummey hitting .475 in limited at-bats and Susalla contributing with 13 RBI, it is easyto see why. "(Romero's home runs) ignited us. If nothing else, she ignites us. The kids have had so much con- fidence in her all year," Hutchins said. With two outs in the bottom of the third inning Friday, Susalla - who has earned more playingtime of late - hit her second home run in as many gaines. Her shot was the first of back-to-back pinch-hit home runs from utility players. A deep bench means pitchers can no longer afford to walk Romero. "If one thing isn't working for us, we pick it up in another area," Lane said. "If one person can't do it, we know another another per- son can." Michigan has been doing just as much damage without swinging the bat this season. "The one thing I like about this team is that nothing fazes them," Hutchins said. "They don't seem to worry about things they can't control, and that's what I like about them." Patience has been a virtue in two-out situations, especially when Romero is at the plate. In an April 6 game against Ohio State, the Wolverineswalked eighttimes en route to an eight-run inning. After the Spartans intentionally walked the bases loaded with two outs, Romero hit her second home run of the weekend. "I don't think I've seen any- thing like this (team)," Hutchins said. "I've seen some explosions from my teams, but I can't even remember." Wolverines jell too late to keep streak alive 0 It takes some perspective to understand why a 16-12 regu- lar season is particularly disap- pointing. After all, a winning record is a winning record, and given the brutal competition the Michigan water polo team faces, being over .500 seems LEV like an FACHER achievement in itself. On Water Polo Believe it or not, though, the 2013 season will likely go down in the record books as the worst year of Michi- gan water polo. Ever. Since the program's establish- ment in 2001- the firstyear the NCAA sponsored a champion- ship in women's water polo - the Wolverines have never won fewer than 20 games in a given season. And if you give them a pass for the program's inaugural year, that number jumps to 22. In those 12 seasons, the pro- gram has won the CWPA West- ern Division 11 times, the CWPA Eastern Division Tournament five times and made five NCAA tournament appearances. But this year, Michigan won 16 games in the regular season and failed to win the CWPA Western Division for the first time since 2001. Back then, Michigan coach Matt Anderson was an assistant at Indiana, working for the man who is currently his chief adver- sary, Barry King, who's in his 16th season at the helm for the Hoosiers. Anderson had plenty of tal- ent to work with this season. Senior attacker Kiki Golden, for instance, has consistently domi- nated this year and currently sits at seventh on the list of all-time Michigan goal scorers. Senior goalkeeper Alex Adam- son also has her eye on the Mich- igan record books. She has a shot - depending on how far the Wol- verines advance in the postsea- son - to move into second on the all-time saves list. That would place her, interestingly enough, behind former Olympian and current Michigan assistant coach Betsey Armstrong, So what separated this season _, , ,. + _ ' . ' . rs p i Junior driver Audrey Pratt has set career highs this season in points, goals and steals. She's also one of just seven Wolverines to play in all 35 games this season. from years past? In short, the Wolverines typi- cally lose many, but not all, of their early-season games against the elite teams, usually West Coast powerhouses California, Hawaii and Arizona. This year, though, Michigan lost all of those games. Every single one. In January's Michigan Kick- Off Event, held in Ann Arbor, the Wolverines fell in consecutive games to No. 3 UCLA, No. 9 San Jose State and No. 7 San Diego State. One week later, Michigan traveled to the San Francisco Bay Area, only to fall to No. 1 Stanford in a blowout, No, 9 San Jose State (again) and No. 4 Cali- fornia. It didn't end there, either, The Wolverines lost twice to No. 10 Long Beach State in the next two weeks, followed by defeats at the hands of No. -8 Hawaii in March and No. 3 Arizona State in April. Even against No.20 Hartwick, a league opponent that Michi- gan beats fairly consistently, the Wolverines fell, 10-6, on April 6. Michigan's marquee win this season remains a 10-9 over- time, victory against then-No. 12 Indiana in Bloomington on March 30. It was a hugely impor- tant victory, no doubt, and in an intense rivalry game to boot, But that was the Wolverines' only marquee win, an obvious warn- ing sign for Michigan. In comparison, the 2012 Wol- verines pulled off upsets against No. 6 Hawaii, beat No. 14 UC Davis, took care of business mul- tiple times against Hartwick and. hung tight in the season's third game against No, 3 UCLA. The year before, Michigan was even more impressive, at one point winning eight consecutive games in Southern California, six of which came against top 20 West Coast schools. This year, the Wolverines relied on their freshman class more than ever. And the fresh- men seemed simply too young and inexperienced in the early going to be capable of pulling off a Hawaii or UCLA-type upset. Understandably, it takes time for a group of rookies to accli- mate to college competition and everything that goes along with it. Michigan's lack of success in the early season seems as attrib- utable to scheduling as anything else -- you don't see many other college teams sporting a fresh- men-heavy roster start their sea- son with seven straight games against top 10 competition. The class did grow into its role, but it took time. Two freshmen, driver Presley Pender and two- meter Bryce Beckwith, ended up finishing second and third in scoring for the Wolverines with 33 and 32 goals, respectively. Freshman driver Ali Thomason was a valuable contributor as well, recording 13 goals and 14 assists. The freshmen seemed par- ticularly comfortable during a 10-game winning streak in late March, despite the fact that the streak came against Michigan's weakest opponents - a list of schools that includes Mercy- hurst and Grove City. That run gave Michigan a respectable win-loss record but likely did little else to improve the team's stock going into the postseason, Golden carried the Wolverines all year. She represented far and away Michigan's biggest offen- TODDtNEEDLE/Daily sive threat, and her 51 goals and 28 assists might have made the difference between a winning and losing record in the regular season. But even Golden couldn't push the Wolverines over the edge in close early-season con- tests ok in recent CWPA Western Division matchups against Hart- wick and Indiana. The year is salvageable, with- out a doubt. A deep run into the CWPA Eisterns would probably do the trick. Actually winning the event - Michigan's only path to an NCAA Tournament berth - would make the 2013 regular season all but forgotten. But such a run would be quite the surprise for a team that has yet to demonstrate its ability to compete with the truly elite teams in women's water polo. With this team, though, it's toughto tell. I