The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Sports
8 — Wednesday, June 1, 2022

FILE PHOTO/Daily

The Wolverines fell to UCF, ending their season.

Michigan defeats Rutgers, wins the Big Ten 
Championship

JOSEPH ZAIN RODGER
Daily Sports Writer

Two weeks ago, anyone outside of 
the Michigan baseball team would’ve 
called you crazy if you said the 
Wolverines could win the Big Ten 
Championship. 
After 
getting 
demolished 
by 
Maryland in three straight games — 
allowing 43 runs in the series sweep — 
Michigan was in jeopardy of missing 
the tournament altogether. But after 
the brutal losses, The Wolverines 
kept their cool, dominating the Big 
Ten over the past two weeks en route 
to a conference championship.
Michigan (32-26 overall, 12-12 Big 
Ten) beat Rutgers (44-15, 17-7), 10-4 
in the championship game. Scrappy 
RBIs, a clutch performance from 
junior left-hander Jacob Denner and 
a crucial dinger off the bat of junior 
catcher Jimmy Obertop completed 
the 5-seeded Wolverines’ improbable 
run to a Big Ten Championship.
Junior right fielder Clark Elliott 
and graduate center fielder Joe 
Stewart continued their dominance 
of the tournament with one run 
apiece in the top of the first inning. 
Elliott won the honor of best player 
in the tournament and five other 
Michigan players made the first team.
“My teammates here, they’ve been 
right by me for this whole entire 
journey, ups and downs this whole 
entire season,” Elliott said moments 
after winning the accolade. “So that’s 
a team award, it’s not an individual 
award at all. The coaches (and) 

teammates have had my back since 
the beginning. So that’s all for us.”
The victory was a team effort from 
early on.
A two-out home run just over the 
left field wall cut the deficit in half for 
the Scarlet Knights to end the second. 
They soon tied it up at two runs 
apiece with a triple deep to the right 
field wall in the third inning. Rutgers 
was not going home without a fight.
With junior second baseman Ted 
Burton on third with one out, junior 
first baseman Jake Marti executed a 
perfect suicide squeeze to bring him 
home and retake the lead at 3-2 in the 
fourth. Stewart gave the Wolverines 
an insurance run in the following 
inning off the bat of graduate third 
baseman Matt Frey, his ninth run of 
the tournament which ties the all-
time record.
“It’s a throwback, guys are just 
competing and I love watching it,” 
Michigan coach Erik Bakich said in 
a mid-game interview with the Big 
Ten network. “I love watching what 
they’re doing and we’re just finding 
different ways (to score), squeeze or 
double a ball-and-dirt read and then 
score on a hit. I just love the way 
they’re fighting out there.”
And the fight to score by any means 
possible continued throughout the 
game, displaying the Wolverines’ will 
to put runs on the board.
Marti earned another rare type of 
RBI in the sixth, the third consecutive 
inning with a score for Michigan. 
He swung and missed strike three, 
but the catcher let the ball go right 
by. Senior shortstop Riley Bertram 

scored from third and Marti made it 
to first, negating the out.
After his ninth consecutive out to 
start the bottom of the sixth, senior 
left-hander Jacob Denner found 
himself in a tough jam. With the 
bases loaded and two outs, he caught 
the batter looking for an impressive 
seventh strikeout of the game. The 
New Jersey native was dialed in 
facing his hometown team.
Obertop added to the Wolverines’ 
lead with a dagger in the top of the 
eighth with a three-run homer into 
the left field stands. His third of the 
tournament leads the Big Ten and put 
Michigan up, 8-3.
Senior pinch hitter Jack Van 
Remortel had the second suicide 
squeeze 
of 
the 
game 
for 
the 
Wolverines in the ninth, this time 
scoring two men in the chaos. Burton 
showed hustle racing to the plate all 
the way from second to widen the 
lead to 10-4, which held.
“This team has been fighting the 
whole year,” Obertop said. “It’s been 
tough, but we’re finally starting to 
get hot and at the right time. So we’re 
excited for this.”
And in the Big Ten Tournament, 
they got hot when they needed it the 
most, facing the top four seeds in the 
tournament — the first team ever to 
do so and beat all four.
Michigan’s had a wild past couple 
of weeks. The Wolverines are the 
hottest that they’ve been all season, 
and it’s at the perfect time. If they can 
continue their performance through 
the NCAA Tournament, they might 
just find lightning in a bottle again.

SARAH BOEKE/Daily

NO MERCY

