Michigan Softball drops heartbreaker, might not play till Sunday

The Michigan softball team lost a marathon game in the NCAA Tournament to UCF on Saturday but can still advance with three wins. 

College softball games are normally seven innings, so the fact that Michigan softball and UCF took 11 innings to decide their NCAA Tournament game on Saturday shows what kind of an effort it was from both teams.

The Wolverines were able to build a 2-0 lead earlier in the game over 16th-seeded UCF. Michigan scored on a groundout by Annabelle Widra and then got an RBI in the fifth from Lexie Blair to build a 2-0 advantage.

Michigan softball held a similar lead on Friday and was able to close it out in the seventh inning. This time, in the bottom of the seventh, one strike away from victory, the Wolverines allowed a two-out hit that tied the game.

Meghan Beaubien pitched over seven innings for Michigan and allowed just two runs on three hits but she wasn’t able to get the decision and the Wolverines managed just five hits on 39 at-bats. U-M wasn’t able to score in the extra frames and the game finally ended in the 11th after four hours of game time.

UCF advances to the regional final where it will await the top one-loss team left. Michigan is supposed to play the winner of South Dakota State and Villanova tonight, but due to rain delays, the Wolverines might be sidelined until Sunday, which would mean needing to win three games in one day to advance to the super regional.

Michigan would need to beat the Villanova/South Dakota State and then defeat UCF in back-to-back games to advance. It will be tough, but it’s not impossible, however, the first opponent is the weather.