Michigan pitcher Megan Betsa, the NCAA’s strikeout leader, allowed one hit and threw 14 strikeouts against the Maryland softball team on Friday to earn her 16th win, 5-1.
Infielder Anna Kufta provided Maryland’s lone knock with a home run to left field in the first inning. In recent practices, coach Julie Wright told her players to be aggressive early in the count against Betsa. So, after Betsa struck out infielder Juli Strange and outfielder Amanda Brashear, Kufta swung at the first pitch.
The freshman spread her arms, yelled and charged toward her teammates surrounding home plate when she rounded third, celebrating her team-high fifth homer of the year and second in the last the two series.
“I was hoping that it would start something for our team,” Kufta said.
Instead, after the game-tying homer in the first, the Terps managed only three more baserunners via a walk and two hit batters.
The outing continued Betsa’s dominance over the Terps in her career. As a sophomore, Betsa tossed a no-hitter in College Park, and she allowed two hits in two appearances against Maryland last year.
Betsa “made some adjustments,” Wright said. “She threw some soft pitches early in the count that we sort of chased. … We wanted to attack the first good, hard strike versus the soft strike.”
Pitcher Madison Martin limited Michigan to eight hits over seven innings, but she allowed four earned runs — too many to counter Michigan’s pitching staff, which ranks 19th in the country with a 1.74 ERA.
After scoring one run in the first, the Wolverines stranded the bases loaded. In the second, Wolverines catcher Katie Alexander led the frame with a double and scored on an RBI single from infielder Faith Canfield to retake the lead, 2-1.
Martin logged four scoreless frames before Wolverines infielder Madison Uden singled to start the sixth and designated player Amanda Vargas pulled a home run just inside the left field foul pole. An error by infielder Skylynne Ellazar in the seventh added one more run to make it 5-1.
Martin “stepped up, she battled against – whatever they’re ranked in the country,” Wright said of her hurler’s performance against No. 18 Michigan. “She made one bad pitch, obviously, with the home run, but I thought she pitched really well. She’d been struggling in the Big Ten as of late, and I thought she put together a fantastic game.”
Betsa, however, controlled Maryland’s lineup with her third straight one-hit game against the Terps. Maryland will likely face Betsa again on Sunday to close the series.
“She is good and I give her that credit,” Wright said. “But there were some at bats that I felt like we gave away, and I felt like we could’ve hit some pitches that we took.”
