Michigan Softball Upsets #1 Seed Oregon, Advances to Big Ten Tournament Semifinals

Michigan softball pulled off a major upset in the Big Ten tournament quarterfinals, shutting out number one seed Oregon 5-0. The two teams met just one month ago, when the Big Ten regular season champions swept the Wolverines in a 3-0 series. Clearly, with the high of beating the Wisconsin Badgers in round one at their heels, head coach Bonnie Tholl and her team were on a mission against Oregon this time around.

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The Michigan softball squad eked out their round one win against the nine seed Wisconsin Badgers on Wednesday evening, with Jenissa Conway hitting her 17th home run of the season to put the Wolverines up 3-1 at the bottom of the fifth. The Badgers scored once at the top of the seventh, but couldn’t get across the plate again before the Wolverines shut the door with their third out of the inning, ending the game in the seventh.

The Wolverines Didn’t Allow the Ducks a Single Run in the Quarterfinals

 

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It’s hard to single out any one player’s performance in this game, as it truly was a team effort in keeping Oregon off the board, and putting up five runs over the course of the game’s seven innings. Right fielder Ella Stephenson caught an impressive would-be home run at the very edge of the field for an out, third baseman Maddie Erickson hit a double at the top of the second for her first of two RBIs, and pitcher Erin Hoehn struck out a batter in each of the last three innings.

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Of course, center fielder Jenissa Conway, who has made a huge difference in nearly every game she’s played this season, had an RBI from one of her two hits. Shortstop Avery Fantucci hit a double which allowed her to advance to third on a wild pitch, and eventually score as a result of Conway’s RBI. And as if her performance in the field wasn’t enough, Ella Stephenson had an RBI at the top of the fifth, kicking off the three run sequence which essentially put the game away.

The Michigan Wolverines have all the momentum they could possibly hope for heading into the Big Ten tournament semifinals, where they will take on 12 seed Purdue after their electrifying upset over four seed Ohio State.

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