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