Blue splits six games

By Arun Gopal

Daily Sports Editor

After a forgettable performance on the road last weekend against Iowa and Northwestern, the No. 13 Michigan softball team rebounded nicely at home on Thursday. The Wolverines swept a doubleheader from Indiana State, winning the first game 7-0 and the nightcap 6-2.

"We tried to preach to them that you can't control the past," Michigan assistant coach Bonnie Tholl said. "We just tried to start a clean slate."

But, those victories could not remove the sting from the Wolverines' four-game road trip last weekend.

Michigan journeyed to Iowa and Northwestern with hopes of tightening its grip on the Big Ten Conference lead. Instead, the Wolverines came away with three straight shutout losses, the last of which was a 12-0, five-inning mercy-rule defeat at the hands of Northwestern.

"We're a team that typically goes out to win, but we came out on the defensive instead of trying to win," Tholl said. "We controlled the first game against Iowa, and we really played well until the sixth inning of the second game, but then we just fell apart. We have to regain our aggressive mentality."

Initially, it looked like Michigan would achieve all of its goals for the weekend.

In a battle of the two best teams in the conference, the Wolverines shut out Iowa, 5-0, on the Hawkeyes' home field in the first game of a Friday twinbill.

Although Iowa was able to rebound and win the second game by an identical 5-0 score, Michigan was still able to salvage a split heading into a pair of games at Northwestern.

It was in Evanston where the wheels really fell off. The Wildcats won the Saturday game, 1-0, on a solo homer by Erin Jancic. Northwestern followed that up with the aforementioned 12-0 thrashing on Sunday.

"There was a sense of shock," Tholl said. "There was also a lot of disappointment. It made us understand that, sometimes, the process is more important than the result."