In its back-to-back Big Ten Tournament championships, the Michigan softball team has relied on a dominant presence in the circle as the backbone of its success.
In their last two tournament appearances, the Wolverines looked to former right-hander Lauren Derkowski to stifle some of the nation’s premier teams. While winning rather comfortably in 2024 as a No. 2 seed — handling teams they were expected to beat — Derkowski was the driving force in 2025 behind an astonishing dark-horse run. Dismantling national powerhouses like UCLA and Oregon en route to another Big Ten Tournament championship, Derkowski earned Big Ten Tournament Most Outstanding Player for the second year in a row, posting a remarkable 1.11 ERA with 12 strikeouts in the tournament.
But through 49 games this season and with the 2026 Big Ten Tournament just around the corner, Derkowski’s absence has been impossible to ignore.
It’s no secret that Michigan has struggled to find consistency from its pitching staff. While expectations fell onto junior right-hander Erin Hoehn to assume the ace role, she has yet to fully meet Derkowski’s high standard. Hoehn has shown flashes of promise — such as her 5.2 scoreless inning performance against then-No. 11 Virginia Tech — but lacks the sustained consistency needed to anchor a team with legitimate title aspirations. With severe postseason implications on the line in Game 1 against Indiana last week, Hoehn lost the lead almost instantly after the Wolverines gained it, forfeiting a single and a home run off the first two pitches in the fifth inning.
“It’s unacceptable if we are tightening up in the circle when we go ahead, because, quite frankly, the ball doesn’t move nearly as well if you tighten up,” Michigan coach Bonnie Tholl said Friday. “It’s unacceptable for a junior to do that. And so if that’s the situation, she has to admit to it. And we got to get her on a different path, which we’ve been working diligently at.”
With an ERA of 4.61 over 101.2 innings played compared to her 2.94 ERA over 128.2 innings last year, Hoehn has not taken the expected step forward to fill Derkowski’s championship-level shoes.
Without a clear first option, the Wolverines have struggled to find answers for potent offenses. Michigan has just three pitchers ranked among the Big Ten’s top 53 by ERA, with sophomore right-hander Kat Meyers’ 4.32 leading the team and Gabby Ellis trailing both Hoehn and Meyers with a 4.90. The Wolverines’ inability to play a consistent starter has snowballed into large deficits early in games, requiring Tholl to plug in several pitchers in hopes that one of them can stop the bleeding.
While this strategy has worked occasionally — such as freshman right-hander Grayson LaMarche shutting down Northwestern — deflating 13-2 and 11-2 losses against Ohio State and Indiana, respectively, indicate that this solution is not sustainable.
“We have been trying to implement a couple of different things in sports psychology, in different training methods, in different practice settings,” Tholl said April 19. “Just trying to mix things up with the pitchers on game day.”
Through its 21 Big Ten games, Michigan sits at 8-13. While only 11-11 in 2025, it overcame its offensive woes through stingy pitching from Derkowski and reliable relief from Hoehn. Now, the Wolverines finally have the offense that they’ve been looking for in the past years to complement their stout defenses. But while sophomore right fielder Lauren Putz and junior center fielder Jenissa Conway have emerged as catalysts for an offense that can take over games, the pitching continues to cost them said games.
In Game 3 against Wisconsin, Michigan capitalized on the Badgers’ errors to take a commanding 8-2 lead into the fifth inning. However, just as the Wolverines seemed to have the game tightly secured, the pitching staff gifted Wisconsin free bases, allowing seven runs in the bottom of the fifth in an eventual 14-12 loss. Facing Houston in the Houston-HCU invitational, Michigan blew a 9-4 lead in the seventh inning following three home runs from Houston to snatch a 10-9 victory. Against lineups like UCLA’s or Nebraska’s, which are built to punish mistakes, the Wolverines’ pitching inconsistencies will prove costly.
“It’s not even so much about the home runs, it’s about giving them free bases,” Tholl said April 26. “That sets it up when you have two outs. That has been the issue, closing and shutting the door when we have two outs.”
The Big Ten yields some of the most dangerous offenses in the nation. Ohio State and Indiana have already shown Michigan just how lethal their offenses can be — claiming those double-digit wins over the Wolverines. No. 6 UCLA possesses one of the best offenses in college softball, with five batters averaging over .400 and launching a staggering 163 homers on the season. Along with an oppressive pitching staff, Nebraska’s relentless ability to hit the long ball has earned it the current No. 2 ranking in the nation. Without a reliable presence in the circle to stabilize a struggling pitching staff, Michigan appears outclassed and outmatched on paper.
Currently sitting at 11th in the Big Ten, the Wolverines will have to navigate a gauntlet of some of the best teams in the conference early on in the conference tournament. And without Derkowski, Michigan’s high-powered offense will not be enough to offset its shortcomings in the circle.
