{"id":4936,"date":"2026-04-27T04:49:49","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T04:49:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2026\/04\/27\/long-balls-sink-michigan-in-loss-to-indiana\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T04:49:52","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T04:49:52","slug":"long-balls-sink-michigan-in-loss-to-indiana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2026\/04\/27\/long-balls-sink-michigan-in-loss-to-indiana\/","title":{"rendered":"Long balls sink Michigan in loss to Indiana"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>With its postseason hopes on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/softball\/indiana-sets-the-stage-for-michigans-postseason-hopes\/\">line<\/a>, the Michigan softball team came into its rubber match with Indiana ready to swing for the fences.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, it was the Hoosiers who did just that.<\/p>\n<p>On Sunday, the Wolverines aimed to continue their momentum from a Game 2 win in an effort to win the series against a strong Indiana team. In that game, Michigan minimized the Hoosiers\u2019 impact off long balls, allowing just one home run late that ultimately proved fruitless. But today, the Wolverines couldn\u2019t keep Indiana at bay, giving up eight runs off three homers.<\/p>\n<p>Indiana made their long ball presence known early \u2014 center fielder Ellie Goins stepped up to the plate with two outs and the bases loaded, saw three pitches and sent the fourth screaming over the outfield wall. In just the first inning, Michigan had already given up four runs, thanks to one well-timed homer from the Hoosiers.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cThat has been the issue, closing and shutting the door when we have two outs,\u201d Wolverines coach Bonnie Tholl said. \u201cTone set, yet we still have to respond. We have a long game to respond.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And Michigan responded with a long ball of its own \u2014 a two-RBI homer by junior left fielder Ella Stephenson in the bottom of the first put the Wolverines back in the game, giving them a spark of hope. But that hope was short-lived, as another home run by Indiana sent it even further ahead: This time, a three-run shot increased the Hoosiers\u2019 lead to five, and Michigan was never able to catch up.<\/p>\n<p>Entering the fifth frame, the Wolverines were trailing by just four runs which, although daunting, kept them in the game. But not for long.<\/p>\n<p>A solo shot in the fifth inning extended Indiana\u2019s lead once again, but it wasn\u2019t just homers that made the Hoosiers\u2019 offense dominant on Sunday. Up eight runs later that inning, Indiana outfielder Cassidy Kettleman smoked a drive that bounced off the left field wall and allowed another run to score, putting the cherry on top of a dominant performance that run-ruled Michigan in five innings, 11-2.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe balls were elevated a little bit too much, maybe too hittable for, certainly, for the balls that (junior right-hander Gabby Ellis) gave up,\u201d Tholl said. \u201cYou know, certainly our pitching coach did not call them to be an elevated ball like neither (sophomore right-hander Kat Meyers) nor Gabby really utilize the rise ball in that situation. And I think that the pitches that they called were supposed to be lower half of the zone and I\u2019m not quite sure that they got there. That\u2019ll be something that we review in video.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>While the Wolverines\u2019 defense wasn\u2019t producing efficiently, neither was its offense. For a team that has prided itself lately on its ability to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/softball\/michigan-continues-to-live-and-die-by-long-ball\/\">swing<\/a> the bat, Michigan saw little success today, scoring merely two runs off Stephenson\u2019s homer early. Although the Wolverines managed six hits \u2014 just two less than the Hoosiers\u2019 eight \u2014 Indiana\u2019s came with a lot more force, bringing in runs when Michigan wasn\u2019t able to.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFinding a way to keep the ball in the ballpark and not allow solid contact (is important),\u201d Tholl said. \u201cThat\u2019s huge, but looking at our offense, two runs is not enough. It\u2019s well below our average. And regardless of what the other side is doing, we still have a role to do and as offensive players, we need to make some things happen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But the Wolverines weren\u2019t able to make those things happen, and the Hoosiers were. It was this fatality that cost Michigan on Sunday, and the Wolverines had to sit and watch as Indiana sent dominant home runs sailing over the wall, taking the game with them.<\/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>With its postseason hopes on the line, the Michigan softball team came into its rubber match with Indiana ready to swing for the fences. Instead, it was the Hoosiers who did just that. On Sunday, the Wolverines aimed to continue their momentum from a Game 2 win in an effort to win the series against [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4937,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[4552,1479,2368,595,222,4553],"class_list":{"0":"post-4936","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-balls","9":"tag-indiana","10":"tag-long","11":"tag-loss","12":"tag-michigan","13":"tag-sink"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4936","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=4936"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4938,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4936\/revisions\/4938"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}