Michigan softball nabs 11th Big Ten tournament title with 3-1 win over Indiana Hoosiers
Michigan softball is on a roll. Or is that a Tholl?
After 29 seasons as an assistant coach with the Wolverines, and her second as the program's head coach, Bonnie Tholl won her first Big Ten tournament title, and the program's 11th overall, as niece Keke Tholl delivered when it counted most.
The Wolverines' first Big Ten tourney title since 2019 arrived with another rally as Keke Tholl came through — sort of — for a 3-1 victory over 8-seed Indiana on Saturday afternoon at Bob Pearl Field in Iowa City, Iowa. The Wolverines prevailed despite managing just two hits off Hoosiers pitching.
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With one out and runners on second and third in the bottom of the sixth, Keke Tholl — the hero of Friday’s semifinal victory — stepped to the plate. But instead of going deep, as she did Friday, she grounded back to Sophie Kleiman in the pitcher’s circle. U-M's Indiana Langford broke for home, drawing a throw from Kleiman, which went wild to the backstop, allowing Langford to score, and Maddie Erickson to come around from second to give U-M a 3-1 lead.
Lauren Derkowski then closed the door against the Hoosiers, working around two baserunners to give the second-seeded Wolverines their 11th B1G tourney title. U-M now will wait until Sunday night, when the Wolverines will find out their path toward the College World Series in Oklahoma City from the NCAA tournament selection show, set for 7 p.m. on ESPN2.
After striking out 11 Badgers in a 154-pitch outing in Friday night’s semifinal, Derkowski wasn’t as sharp early against the Hoosiers on Saturday. After a one-out single by Aly vanBrandt in the second inning, Derkowski allowed a two-out double by Aaliyah Andrews on a 0-1 pitch for an early 1-0 deficit.
But the Wolverines rallied in the fourth; Indiana Langford opened with a bunt single, then stole second with two ours. That gave Ella Stephenson a chance to tie it up, and the freshman from Algonac delivered with a single the other way, up the right-field line.
Keke Tholl finished the Big Ten tourney with a team-high five RBIs. Derkowski threw all 19 innings for the Wolverines, striking out 20 batters en route to winning the tournament's Most Outstanding Player award.
Contact Ryan Ford at rford@freepress.com. Follow him on X (which used to be Twitter, y’know?) @theford. Read more on the Detroit Tigers and sign up for our Tigers newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan softball wins 11th Big Ten tourney with 3-1 win over Indiana
