{"id":37309,"date":"2022-06-05T05:23:20","date_gmt":"2022-06-05T05:23:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/michigan-baseball-pounds-louisville-ace-advances-to-ncaa-regional-final\/"},"modified":"2022-06-05T05:23:20","modified_gmt":"2022-06-05T05:23:20","slug":"michigan-baseball-pounds-louisville-ace-advances-to-ncaa-regional-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/michigan-baseball-pounds-louisville-ace-advances-to-ncaa-regional-final\/","title":{"rendered":"Michigan baseball pounds Louisville ace; advances to NCAA regional final"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Another day, another tournament victory for the Michigan baseball team.<\/p>\n

And this one moves it a game closer to returning to super regionals.<\/p>\n

The Wolverines jumped on ace pitcher Jared Poland, scoring three runs in the third inning and two more in the fourth on Saturday, to down host Louisville, 7-3, at Jim Patterson Stadium.<\/p>\n

The win was the second in as many days for Michigan (34-26), which continues to ride high after winning the Big Ten tournament last weekend to earn an NCAA berth.<\/p>\n

Erik Bakich’s team now advances to the regional final, where it will play the Louisville-Oregon winner in a rematch at 4 pm ET on Sunday. Michigan beat Oregon, 8-6, in an opening-round game of the double-elimination tournament on Friday.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, much like Friday, the Wolverines got it done at the plate in a variety of ways. Clark Elliott hit a two-run homer in the third that gave Michigan the lead, blasting an 0-1 pitch over the wall in right field.<\/p>\n

Poland, who entered the game with a 5-4 record and 2.92 ERA, had thrown 2 2\/3 innings of perfect baseball before giving up a two-out single to junior Jake Marti. Then, one batter after Elliott went deep, Joe Stewart (3-for-5, two runs) followed by hitting his own home run, taking a 2-0 pitch over the wall in center.<\/p>\n

It put Michigan up 3-1, a lead it never would relinquish thanks its crafty offense and parade of pitchers. Poland exited in the fifth after giving up nine hits, six earned runs and striking out five.<\/p>\n

Blackberries:<\/b> Michigan baseball carries ‘Rocky Balboa’ mindset into NCAA Tournament<\/p>\n

Speaking of pitching, lefty Walker Cleveland got the start for the Wolverines but the hook after 1 1\/3 innings after Louisville got runners on and to the corners. Reliever Noah Rennard was able to limit the damage, working his way out of a bases-loaded jam in the second and pitch a clean fourth, paving the way for Jacob Denner. Louisville mustered just one run on Denner, who surrendered four hits in 2 1\/3 innings and allowed the Cardinals to score on a wild pitch.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Michigan got an RBI single from Joey Velazquez (1-for-4, RBI) and a sacrifice bunt by Marti (2-for-3, run) to score two in the fourth, and tacked on a run in the fifth on a sacrifice fly from Jimmy Obertop.<\/p>\n

Shortstop Riley Bertram was 2-for-4 with a run scored and an RBI.<\/p>\n

Louisville (39-19-1) threatened to add more runs in the seventh, getting runners on second and third with one out, but Michigan relief pitcher Chase Allen produced a line out and ground out to end the inning. The Cardinals added two more, two-out baserunners in the eighth, but junior reliever Cam Weston got No. 3 hitter Dalton Rushing to ground out.<\/p>\n

Louisville, which entered the NCAA tournament as the No. 12 seed nationally, ended the game just 2-of-11 with runners in scoring position.<\/p>\n

The win sets the stage for Sunday, with Michigan needing just more victory to claim its first regional championship since 2019. A loss to either Louisville or Oregon would trigger a second game, to be played at 6 pm ET on Monday in Louisville.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another day, another tournament victory for the Michigan baseball team. And this one moves it a game closer to returning to super regionals. The Wolverines jumped on ace pitcher Jared Poland, scoring three runs in the third inning and two more in the fourth on Saturday, to down host Louisville, 7-3, at Jim Patterson Stadium. …<\/p>\n

Michigan baseball pounds Louisville ace; advances to NCAA regional final<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.mlive.com\/resizer\/tWASKZ7XydbpCvdCdgszK8CEwUI=\/1280x0\/smart\/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com\/advancelocal\/F62R3BPCRJFAPHC5GY7LEYC6CY.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37309"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37309\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}