14
Thursday, May 27, 2021
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
SPORTS
SEATTLE — Boos rang out in a
cacophony from the Seattle University
fans as centerfielder Bailey Thompson
was rung out on a changeup that
floated in and picked the bottom right
corner of the zone.
From the press vantage point,
nearly behind the plate, the pitch
thrown by senior left-hander Meghan
Beaubien was objectively a strike.
So why the jeers from the Redhawk
crowd? They haven’t seen a pitcher of
this caliber since Washington’s Gabbie
Plain on March 13, and it was clear
neither had the Seattle players.
Leaving the game with no hits
allowed and 12 strikeouts, Beaubien
was lethal. She picked apart hitters
with surgical precision, choosing
her placement and offspeed pitches
systematically and scientifically.
“It’s a nice little pride thing,”
Beaubien said. “It’s nice to throw that
and say that no one got any hits on you
that game.”
Meanwhile, the Redhawks looked
flustered in nearly every at-bat,
swinging at bad-opportunity pitches
and watching good ones pass by them
before turning around and heading
back to the dugout.
“I
think
a
combination
of
everything I got was really going for
me today,” Beaubien said. “That helps
keep hitters off balance.”
When Seattle did make contact,
they
were
typically
groundouts
handled well by the Wolverine
infielders.
Rarely,
Michigan’s
outfielders had to get under a deep ball
to convert the out.
Despite the controlling pitching
appearance, the start of the game
foreshadowed a much shakier outing.
On the third batter of the game,
Beaubien accidentally launched a ball
backwards from her windup, counting
as a ball. She came back with another
pitch that soared high. The third came
inside, striking Thompson on the
forearm and giving up the free base.
The entire at-bat for Beaubien was
shambolic.
Beaubien came back the very next
batter to prove everyone wrong. It
took seven pitches as Seattle first
baseman Madison Catchcart fought
off Beaubien’s assault, but in the end
Beaubien won, ringing Catchcart up
on a heater and sending the Redhawks
back to their dugout empty handed.
For the rest of the game, she was
as stout as can be, not a single sign
of uncertainty peeking through her
confident performance.
And with little support from her
offense, Beaubien needed to. She
willed her team to a 2-0 victory in the
opening game of the NCAA Seattle
Regional.
Michigan offense struggles in loss against Maryland
Sophomore
infielder
Jimmy
Obertop swung right through a
curveball, striking out and leaving
two runners on base with the
score 7-3 in the eighth inning.
The Maryland bench erupted as
Michigan’s first real chance to get
back in the game disappeared.
The Wolverines (26-15 Big Ten)
struggled on both sides of the plate
as they fell to the Terrapins (26-15)
on Sunday, 7-3.
Sophomore left-hander Jacob
Denner started on the mound for
Michigan, although it was a short
start. He struggled early, allowing
two home runs in the first inning
as Maryland jumped out to a 3-0
lead. Denner got through the
second but allowed a double in the
third and was pulled in favor of
senior right-hander Blake Beers.
“When you face good hitting
and you fall behind or you make
mistakes out over the middle of
the plate good hitters are gonna hit
it,” Michigan coach Erik Bakich
said. “They made us pay early in
the game and we got down.”
Beers did not fare much better
than Denner. He allowed an
inherited runner to score, and then
ran into trouble an inning later,
allowing two runs and two more
to reach base before he exited.
Freshman
left-hander
Logan
Wood took over and allowed one
run to score but was able to induce
a double play to end the inning
with the score at 7-3. Wood got
through 2.1 innings before leaving.
The back end of the bullpen did
well, as graduate student right-
hander Joe Pace worked a clean
1.1 innings in relief of Wood, and
junior right-hander Willie Weiss
finished off the game with two
scoreless frames.
“Logan Ward and Joe Pace and
Willie Weiss were able to land
their secondary stuff at a much
better rate than the first two guys
were,” Bakich said. “They got
ahead of hitters and had them off
balance.”
But the damage was already
done. The Michigan offense was
dormant, putting up just three
runs and four hits as the team
struggled to muster up quality at
bats.
“We didn’t have much going
on offensively after the second
inning,” Bakich said. “Credit to
their pitching, they were pitching
fine and it’s also our fault for not
making more hard contact. The
hard contact we made was caught.”
Sophomore
outfielder
Tito
Flores got the Wolverines on the
board in the second, crushing a
three-run home run to the left
after graduate transfer infielder
Benjamin
Sems
singled
and
sophomore infielder Ted Burton
doubled to level the score at three.
Those early hits turned out
be three of the four total that
Michigan lodged in the game
There
was
no
late-inning
magic today, as the eighth-inning
opportunity ended with Obertop’s
strikeout. In the ninth, a leadoff
walk by Sems was erased by a
Burton
strikeout
and
Mazur
grounding into a double play to
end the game.
The
explosive
Wolverine
offense struggled to produce and
early
pitching
struggles
gave
Maryland
an
insurmountable
lead and the series win. The loss
eliminates Michigan from Big
Ten title contention, as Nebraska
clinched the title by moving 3.5
games ahead of the Wolverines
with a win today against Ohio
State.
“It feels horrible,” sophomore
outfielder
Clark
Elliott
said.
“Especially on senior day, not to
mention the weight that it carried
for the postseason, it leaves a sour
taste in our mouth. You want to let
the seniors go out on a win, but we
just couldn’t get it done.”
STEEL HURLEY
Daily Sports Writer
Against first non-conference opponent of the season, Meghan Beaubien
delivers no-hitter
SAM BERNARDI
Daily Sports Writer
JULIA SCHACHINGER/Daily
Michigan softball player Meghan Beaubien threw a no-hitter against Seattle University.
BECCA MAHON/Daily
Michigan pitching struggled to contain the Maryland offense.
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