{"id":5181,"date":"2026-05-18T05:49:04","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T05:49:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2026\/05\/18\/michigan-offense-dormant-in-season-ending-loss-to-oklahoma\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T05:49:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T05:49:08","slug":"michigan-offense-dormant-in-season-ending-loss-to-oklahoma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2026\/05\/18\/michigan-offense-dormant-in-season-ending-loss-to-oklahoma\/","title":{"rendered":"Michigan offense dormant in season-ending loss to Oklahoma"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>NORMAN, OK \u2014 In the bottom of the second inning, junior two-way player Erin Hoehn rocked a shot to left center field, sending the ball over the outfield wall and notching the Michigan softball team\u2019s second hit of the game.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately for the Wolverines, it would be their second-to-last.<\/p>\n<p>On <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/softball\/michigan-overpowered-8-1-by-oklahoma-in-ncaa-regional-final\/\">Sunday<\/a>, Michigan had a chance to advance to its first NCAA Super Regional since 2016, but it would need to get through Oklahoma first. Facing the best offense in the country, the Wolverines were going to have to score to keep this one close. After a 12-run, 14-hit showdown against Kansas <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/softball\/offense-carries-michigan-to-12-10-win-over-kansas-in-ncaa-regional-flipping-script\/\">Saturday<\/a>, it looked like Michigan might be able to carry that momentum to the regional final \u2014 but the Wolverines couldn\u2019t, and it cost them big in what proved to be their last game of the season.<\/p>\n<p>Michigan started off with marginal success, but it was the only success it would see all game. In the bottom of the first inning, junior left fielder Ella Stephenson reached base first\u00a0 off a single down the right field line. After Hoehn\u2019s home run marked the second hit in the bottom of the second, a single by senior third baseman Maddie Erickson in the same frame marked the third and last hit of the game.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>For the next five innings, the Wolverines\u2019 bats were silent.<\/p>\n<p>The rest of the game saw a multitude of one-two-three innings in the Sooners\u2019 favor. No Michigan runners reached base, stripping the Wolverines of any chance to close the ever-growing gap between them and Oklahoma.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have those days,\u201d Michigan coach Bonnie Tholl said. \u201c\u2026 And that was the result of a really good pitcher hitting her spots, and us just not adjusting just enough. It\u2019s a game of inches, and those inches are at the plate as well.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Wolverines\u2019 lackluster offense was largely in part due to the Sooners\u2019 dominant pitcher, left-hander Audrey Lowry. Her deadly offspeed pitches caught Michigan batters offguard, unable to make contact. When the Wolverines could put bat to ball, they were measly hits, typically resulting in groundouts \u2014 of which Michigan totaled 13 on Sunday. Lowry was too strong for the Wolverines to handle.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAudrey Lowry,\u201d Tholl said about the reason for Michigan\u2019s offensive struggles. \u201cRight, she\u2019s a talented pitcher, lucky pitcher, it\u2019s the reason we recruited her as well. We didn\u2019t make the adjustments needed to square balls up, like I think we certainly can.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>If they can square those balls up \u2014 which the Wolverines have shown in the past with dominant offensive performances \u2014 they weren\u2019t able to Sunday, and it cost them big on a postseason platform with little room for error. The Sooners jointly led the country in home runs in the regular season, breaking the single-season record with 162, while also leading the nation in team batting average. While it would\u2019ve been extremely difficult for Michigan to keep up even on a good offensive day, three hits and five innings without runners on base meant there was no chance for the Wolverines to hold on in the regional final.<\/p>\n<p>Even without Lowry in the circle, Michigan struggled. She was pulled in the bottom of the fifth inning, and the next two pitchers that Oklahoma brought in held down the fort for the last 2.1 innings. Lowry laid the blueprint that the other Sooners pitchers followed, locking down the Wolverines to close out the game.<\/p>\n<p>If Michigan wanted a fighting chance against a dominant Oklahoma team, it needed to produce offensively. The Wolverines weren\u2019t able to do that Sunday \u2014 arriving at the plate just to turn and head back to the dugout, taking their postseason hopes 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>NORMAN, OK \u2014 In the bottom of the second inning, junior two-way player Erin Hoehn rocked a shot to left center field, sending the ball over the outfield wall and notching the Michigan softball team\u2019s second hit of the game. Unfortunately for the Wolverines, it would be their second-to-last. On Sunday, Michigan had a chance [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5182,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[4698,595,222,835,2788,4706],"class_list":{"0":"post-5181","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-dormant","9":"tag-loss","10":"tag-michigan","11":"tag-offense","12":"tag-oklahoma","13":"tag-seasonending"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5181","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=5181"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5183,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5181\/revisions\/5183"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}