Michigan Softball season comes to an end in regional final

Michigan softball rallied back and made the regional championship but was eliminated by UCF and failed to make the super regional for a fifth consecutive season. 

Sunday was always going to be a long day for the Michigan softball team, but as it turned out, it wasn’t quite as long as the Wolverines would have liked.

At least at the start of the day.

After weather delays forced games to be stopped on Saturday and played on Sunday morning, it looked like Michigan softball was going to need to win three straight games on Sunday to advance to the super regionals.

First, the Wolverines needed to beat South Dakota State, which defeated Villanova in extra innings on Sunday morning, in a game that started Saturday evening.

U-M defeated SDSU 2-1 in the opening game of the regional and followed it up with a 4-1 victory over the Jackrabbits as Kristina Burkhardt scored a run in the first inning after getting on base, before belting a three-run home run in the second to put Michigan in front 4-0.

Alex Storako earned her 25th win of the season and did so by allowing just one run on two hits. She struck out 12 batters and walked just one.

That win gave Michigan softball another chance against UCF. However, due to the Wolverines’ 11-inning loss on Saturday to the Knights, the Wolverines needed to beat them twice.

The good news is that if Michigan won, it would have been able to play that game on Monday morning, instead of Sunday night because of a change by the NCAA. Yet, it didn’t matter as the Knights won the game 9-4 ending the 2022 season for U-M.

Still, it was another solid run for Carol Hutchins and the Wolverines.