Kornacki: Wagner's Pitching, Two Long Homers Lift Wolverines
4/22/2015 12:00:00 AM | Softball
April 22, 2015
By Steve Kornacki
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- This Michigan softball victory was about an undeniable spirit rising as surely as the rain was falling.
It began with pitcher Haylie Wagner coming into pitch in relief and lifting her team by shutting down Michigan State, and it climaxed with left-handed sluggers Kelsey Susalla and Lauren Sweet crushing back-to-back solo homers in the fifth inning to bring about the final score of 4-3.
Susalla cranked one that very nearly cleared the 18 rows of aluminum bleacher seats in right field for her 11th homer of the season.
That tied the score and put a charge into the fans, who endured three rain delays totaling 1:23 Tuesday night (April 21). But what happened next caused an absolute frenzy to break out at Alumni Field.
Sweet got ahold of a pitch from Bridgette Rainey and sent it to the moon -- or at least half the way to Yost Ice Arena. It completely cleared the steep rows of right-field bleachers. It was hit so high and so hard that it probably would've cleared 30 rows.
"We hit all of the ball," Wolverine head coach Carol Hutchins said of Susalla's shot, "and then we hit more of it. Both of them just pounded it. We know that if we just stay in the game, we can make some things happen. We know we can score runs."
That's the kind of confidence a team like No. 4 Michigan builds in winning 11 consecutive games and pushing its records to 42-6 overall and 15-2 in the Big Ten.
Hutchins said it was the first homer to clear the seats this season, and Sweet's ninth of the year overall. Hutchins believed it to be only the third homer to ever clear that section of seating, which was erected for the 2010 season.
"The last one I remember was (Kelly) Christner last year against Indiana," said Hutchins. "Taylor Hasselbach then did it later in the year. That's a ways. That's a 300-foot shot, easy."
The homers ended up being the difference in the game.
Susalla said, "We were struggling a little bit with our hitting, and being able to tie it up and have a chance to take the lead was really exciting."
Sweet, sitting next to Susalla during the media interview, couldn't keep the smile off her face.
"To do them back-to-back like that was cool because we gained the momentum," Sweet said. "I'm excited to hit because she just hit a bomb, and I thought, 'I'm going to hit one, too.' I was just going up there to hit it hard and attack the first pitch -- that was our game plan."
And on clearing the bleachers?
"That was pretty awesome," said Sweet, who is only 5-foot-5. "Somebody the other day asked me, 'Have you ever hit one over those stands? It's so far.' And I hadn't hit one over them even in batting practice. And I got so fired up when I was rounding first."
The Wolverines were slow out of the blocks in this one, trailing 3-0 after two innings as right-handed pitcher Megan Betsa lost her magic for a rare off outing. Betsa fired a five-inning no-hitter against the Spartans last week, when she also beat Indiana twice and allowed just two runs over 17 innings to earn national pitcher of the week honors.
But the lefthanded slinging Wagner (18-2, 1.84 ERA) came on and blanked MSU for five innings, striking out four and allowing five hits. She applied the clamps and fired up her team in doing so. Wagner is a hustler with charisma and pitches with supreme confidence.
"It's contagious," Hutchins said of Wagner's spirit. "The pitcher can set that tone for a team whether they come out tentative or whether they come out and say, 'I got this. I'll hold them.' She was great tonight.
"She had a great edge about her. And she had a great command and presence. She came in, and she wanted to pitch and she wanted to win, and that's the kind of attitude you want on the mound."
Credit also goes to Hutchins for making the pitching move at just the right time -- rather than waiting to see if her 20-game winner, Betsa, could find her focus.
Wagner got into a real groove over the final three innings and allowed only one single to the last 12 batters she faced.
"I just knew going in there that I had to attack them," said Wagner, a senior from Orange, California. "We needed to pick up the energy in the dugout, and I was willing to be the leader out there. My mindset today was attacking every single pitch."
She speared a one-hop liner above her head to throw out Destinee Luna in the sixth inning, and second baseman Sierra Romero made the play of the game in the seventh.
Kassidy Kujawa pulled a ball into the hole, and Romero sprinted to it before making a diving snag. She threw to first baseman Tera Blanco, who made a nice scoop to retire the leadoff hitter in the final inning on a bang-bang play.
"The play -- that's Romo," said Hutchins. "She's got a great will. She has a great will to get it done and win, and it was an equally nice pick by Tera."
Romero and Blanco made the last big play, before Wagner got a groundout and foul popup for a 1-2-3 seventh.
"She just was confident tonight," said Sweet, "and that's the biggest thing when you're pitching. You have to be confident and show that confidence because that's what's going to make you great out there. And she really brought that. She fired us up, and it was a great night for her."
Susalla added, "We feed off of her confidence, and we know that when she is pitching well and feeling confident that she is going to get it done."
The spirit rose from Wagner and flew off into the night air on the shots by Susalla and Sweet. It was a fun night for the Wolverines. Neither rain nor gusting winds nor cold temperatures could stop them. Michigan is hot.
