{"id":1363,"date":"2025-05-18T11:30:45","date_gmt":"2025-05-18T11:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/05\/18\/michigan-takes-a-risk-in-the-circle-but-texas-offense-capitalizes\/"},"modified":"2025-05-18T11:30:49","modified_gmt":"2025-05-18T11:30:49","slug":"michigan-takes-a-risk-in-the-circle-but-texas-offense-capitalizes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/05\/18\/michigan-takes-a-risk-in-the-circle-but-texas-offense-capitalizes\/","title":{"rendered":"Michigan takes a risk in the circle but Texas offense capitalizes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 \u00a0After back-to-back home runs put No. 6 Texas up 5-3 in the third inning Saturday, Michigan softball team coach Bonnie Tholl took a gamble.<\/p>\n<p>The demanding Longhorns offense was able to line their timing up and get on the board from the jump against senior right-hander Lauren Derkowski, a rare occurrence since the start of a dominating postseason campaign from the veteran. In the wake of Texas\u2019 third-inning assault, Tholl made a rather unorthodox change. Instead of sending in sophomore right-hander Erin Hoehn, the other half of the pitching tandem that propelled the Wolverines to the Big Ten Championship, Tholl called the number of senior right-hander Emerson Aiken.<\/p>\n<p>It was a calculated and time-constrained risk, as Tholl had confidence Aiken\u2019s differing approach would momentarily throw off the momentum Texas had so quickly gained at the tail end of Derkowski\u2019s time in the circle.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEmerson throws a good seven, eight miles an hour different than Derkowski,\u201d Tholl said. \u201cWe thought, \u2018let\u2019s get her through at least an inning and then bring Erin in.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>But an inning was all the Longhorns needed to blow a tight game wide open. The elite offense had no issue adjusting to the slower pitching velocity, quickly getting their first two batters on base for utility player Kaydee Bennett to launch a three-run home run over the right-field wall.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A few more hits later the Longhorns notched another run on a fielding error, and what had been a two-run margin shifted into a six-run blowout. The gamble didn\u2019t pay off.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s the decision I made, and it was the wrong decision,\u201d Tholl said.<\/p>\n<p>Instead the bad beat opened a lead so large that any later effort from Hoehn would just prove a futile waste of her strength ahead of the Wolverines\u2019 second game of the day. An outing where Michigan\u2019s season was in jeopardy, and Hoehn\u2019s heroics would certainly be called upon. It was smarter to preserve her.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen we got to that point, and then we got behind by a few more, you don\u2019t necessarily want to put Erin in because you think you\u2019re going to see Texas again, or you have to win this game and rest her,\u201d Tholl said. \u201cIt was a tough decision.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>Instead of taking another risk and hoping a strong close from Hoehn could be backed up by a late offensive explosion, Tholl opted to stay the course for the rest of the outing. And for the first time since the first round of the Big Ten Tournament, Hoehn stayed in the dugout.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, Aiken was subbed out first for freshman right-hander Haley Ferguson and later sophomore right-hander Reganne Bennet. Texas was able to muster seven more runs off the pair in the final two innings.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The result of the pair\u2019s efforts proved that it was just that kind of hard-hitting day for the Longhorn offense. Texas found prolific success against every pitcher Tholl threw at it Saturday, and Hoehn may have been no different.<\/p>\n<p>But as the Longhorns\u2019 lead continued to grow, Hoehn never got the chance to prove otherwise. From her spot in the dugout, all she could do was watch.<\/p>\n<aside>\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p><h3 class=\"jp-relatedposts-headline\"><em>Related articles<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 \u00a0After back-to-back home runs put No. 6 Texas up 5-3 in the third inning Saturday, Michigan softball team coach Bonnie Tholl took a gamble. The demanding Longhorns offense was able to line their timing up and get on the board from the jump against senior right-hander Lauren Derkowski, a rare occurrence since [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1364,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[1515,789,222,835,1514,339,393],"class_list":{"0":"post-1363","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-capitalizes","9":"tag-circle","10":"tag-michigan","11":"tag-offense","12":"tag-risk","13":"tag-takes","14":"tag-texas"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1363"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1365,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1363\/revisions\/1365"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}