The Wisconsin softball team (10-5 Big Ten, 33-9 overall) resumed Big Ten action with a bang this weekend at home against Ohio State (6-9, 27-17). The Badgers display of resiliency and teamwork lead to a series sweep of the Buckeyes at Goodman Diamond.
Due to weather concerns, Friday’s series-opener was moved to Saturday to make for a doubleheader.
The first of two games Saturday was an exciting one. UW jumped on the Buckeyes early on to earn a 3-0 lead. Despite the hot start, Ohio State battled back in the fourth inning, scoring five runs off of four hits.
This included a base-clearing grand slam by Buckeye’s senior third baseman Megan Coletta. Entering the seventh and final inning, the Badgers trailed by three with a score of 6-3. They would battle back to level ground with OSU at 6-6 thanks to a combination of walks, errors and clutch hitting.
After two and a half extra innings of no score, Wisconsin’s junior outfielder Marry Massei took the game into her own hands and hit a walk-off home run, to push the Badgers to a 7-6 victory.
“Always having a walk off hit is always pretty exciting, but having it be a home run is amazing,” Massei said. “I was just trying to take a hack at a good pitch, and it seemed to work.”
After a short intermission, game two of the doubleheader got underway. Pitching for the Badgers was senior Meghan McIntosh. Again, UW started off hot, scoring two runs in the first inning.
The second inning would be the only time the Buckeyes would do any scoring, as they scored one run. Wisconsin negated this effort in the bottom of the inning when they put up one run as well.
With a 3-1 lead, the Badgers defense did the rest of the work. McIntosh led Wisconsin to five straight scoreless innings for the Buckeyes, and a UW victory to mark a 2-0 record for the doubleheader.
“[McIntosh] battled and held them down to not too many hits and really just threw a great game coming off the first win,” head coach Yvette Healy said. “To have two quality pitching outings like that in one day is exciting.”
Wisconsin headed into game three of the series with both momentum and confidence. Following her solid previous performance, McIntosh again took the mound.
The game was scoreless until the bottom of the third when Massei cranked her second ball of the series out of the park for a solo home run.
Ohio State refused to give up. Just when it seemed like they were out of steam, the Buckeyes rallied to tie the game in the top of the sixth.
With two on in the bottom of the sixth, senior catcher Whitney Massey hit the second home run of the game, and the Badgers took the 4-1 lead. OSU’s one run in the seventh would not be enough to comeback and prevent the Badgers from earning a 4-2 victory and the sweep.
“It’s very good for us,” McIntosh said. “Ohio State is a good program, so to come out and win three big games against them is really good.”
This series marks UW’s second conference series sweep of the season.
“It’s huge,” Healy said. “We won our first two series and lost our next two, so to come out and win is exciting. We needed a little momentum and that was a huge boost.”
Wisconsin’s next series is another doubleheader at the Goodman Diamond Wednesday against Northwestern.
