Sports
Monday, May 14, 2007
The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
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Am
Sophomores Bettie Wade (left) and Tiffany Ofili
(right) won Big Ten titles this weekend and helped
Michigan win a share of the Big Ten championship.
SOFTBALL
Big Ten
loss
doesn't
faze Blue
By DAN FELDMAN
Daily Sports Editor
COLUMBUS - Michigan soft-
ball coach Carol Hutchins has been
imploring her players all year to judge
their success by their own play - their
swings, not their hits; their pitches, not
what the opposing hitters do with them;
their demeanor, not how it translates
into wins and losses.
Well, they're listening.
For the first time in three years,
Michigan didn't win the Big Ten Tour-
nament. But the Wolverines seemed
anything but downtrodden after the
loss.
"We wanted to come out this week-
end and just play good games and see
the ball and hit it and come together
as a team, and I think that's the biggest
thing we achieved this weekend, even
though we lost," junior first baseman
Samantha Findlay said.
Added freshman rightfielder Angela
Findlay: "We're as together as we could
be right now."
Continuing that trend will be impor-
tant for Michigan as it enters the NCAA
Tournament this weekend. No. 10
Michigan will host a Regional as the
ninth overall seed. The Wolverines
open Friday with Eastern Michigan,
who Michigan beat 3-0 two weeks ago.
Louisville, who the Wolverines beat
2-0 in March, and No. 15 Oregon State
and are also in the Ann Arbor Regional.
Should Michigan win its Regional, the
Wolverines would face the winner of
the Hempstead Regional, where No. 8
Baylor is favored, in a Super Regional.
Michigan lost 5-2 to Northwestern
in the Big Ten Tournament semifinals
Friday in a rematch of last year's tour-
nament championship game.
The Wildcats feature a very top-
heavy lineup. Their first four hitters bat
.374 and the last five hit just .215.
So with that in mind, freshman Nikki
Nemitz intentionally walked North-
See SOFTBALL, Page 14
Career best gives M' title
By JASON KOHLER
For the Daily
One inch.
That was the difference for
the Michigan women's track and
field team at the Big Ten Outdoor
Championship yesterday.
Firstplaceinthe day'slastevent,
the long jump, would give the Wol-
verines the outright Big Ten Title.
Second place would mean sharing
the title with Illinois.
Sophomore co-captain Bettie
Wade jumped a career best six
feet. But Iowa's Peaches Roach
matched her to force a jump off,
which Roach would win.
"If the Iowa girl would have
missed (her last) attempt- and
(they) went to the next attempt,
Betty would have got her," asso-
ciate head coach Mike McGuire
said. "It couldn't have been any
closer."
Said Wade: "I couldn't quite
pull it through to get the win. But
we both jumped high, so I was
happy."
Michigan still won its first Out-
door Championship since 2004
and the first shared title in Big
Ten history.
After the high jump the Wol-
verines didn't know whether they
had won and waited in anticipa-
tion for about a half an hour.
"For a while there, no one was
really sure if we had done it," said
graduate student Anna Willard,
who is using her final year of eli-
gibility after coming to Ann Arbor
from Brown.
When the final score was
announced, Michigan and Illinois
tied for first with 129 points, Penn
State finished third with 121.50,
and favorite Minnesota placed
fourth with 106.
Heading into the final day of
the Championship, Minnesota
had a commanding lead with 62
points, while Michigan stood at
third place with 37 and Illinois at
seventh with 23.
"Minnesota just had some per-
formances that didn't work out for
them, and we had some perfor-
mances that did," Michigan coach
James Henry said about the turn-
around. "That's the way it was
across the board."
In her first and last Big Ten
Outdoor Championship, Willard
became the first Wolverine to
ever win three individual events.
She took first in the 3,000-meter
steeplechase and the 1500- and
5,000-meter runs,
"I just wanted to do the best as
I possibly could, and that meant
tripling," Willard said.
Sophomore Tiffany Ofili won
the 100-meter hurdles for the
second straight year (13.14) and
fifth-year senior co-captain Katie
Erdman won the 800-meter
(2:05.17).
Wade helped the Wolverines
even more earlier with first place
in the heptathlon, Michigan's first
win in the event since 1998.
The Wolverines gained 37
points yesterday in the middle-
distance races, including 21 in the
1,500-meter. Willard won(4:15.93)
and Erdman finished second, .02
seconds behind Willard.
"One of our goals was to do as
much damage in the 1,500 as we
could," Erdman said. "It was a
great feeling to finish that race
side by side with her."
As pleased as he was with the
1,500-meter, Henry thought many
of the other wins were also key.
"Well, what we always say,is that
themiddle-distanceanddistanceis
our 'bread and butter,' but I've also
told the other areas, they're the
'meat and potatoes,' " Henry said
through the athletic department.
"Balance is our bottom line, bal-
ance occurred for us and it helped
us through this championship."
One second, one inch, one point
could have tilted the score and the
Championship either way.
"When you get to 129 points,
it's a matter of a lot of people com-
ing through and getting a point or
two more than they were project-
ed," McGuire said.
Every point mattered yesterday,
and all those points added up to a
Big Ten Title, even if it's shared.