Michigan baseball defeats Rutgers, 10-4, to win Big Ten championship, qualify for NCAAs
Jimmy Obertop hit a three-run home run and the Wolverines continued to pound away on offense as Michigan baseball beat Rutgers, 10-4, in the Big Ten tournament final on Sunday in Omaha, Nebraska.
It's the 10th conference tournament title for Michigan, the first since 2015, as U-M earns an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. The national tournament field will be unveiled at noon Monday.
It was the second win on the day for U-M, which crushed Iowa, 13-1, in a 10-run-rule game that went just seven innings.
Entering the tournament as the fifth seed, the Wolverines (32-26) went 4-1 this weekend in Omaha, defeating each of the top four seeds in the process.
Clark Elliott, named the Big Ten tournament's Most Outstanding Player, opened the game with a single, followed by a Joe Stewart double, pushing Elliott to third. Then a Matt Frey sacrifice fly sent home Elliott to give U-M the lead just three batters in.
Then with two outs, Tito Flores singled to right, scoring Stewart.
Rutgers tied the game with a Josh Kuroda-Grauer homer in the second and a Tony Santa Maria RBI triple in the third.
But Michigan scored single runs in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings to reclaim the lead. In the fourth, Ted Burton walked, stole second and reached third on a groundout. Then, Jake Marti's suicide squeeze bunt scored Burton.
In the fifth, Stewart hit a leadoff double and got to third on a wild pitch. He then scored on Frey's RBI single. A Riley Bertram leadoff singled was followed by a Burton doubled in the sixth. And though Marti struck out next, the third strike was a wild pitch on which Bertram scored.
Rutgers got a run back in the seventh, but Michigan blew it open in the eighth. Marti doubled, then got to third with one out on a wild pitch. With two away, Frey was hit by a pitch, setting the stage for Obertop, who homered to left-center to make it 8-3.
U-M scored two more in the ninth on another suicide squeeze, this time on a Jack Van Remortel bunt with runners on second and third; the second run scored on the throw to first base.
Walker Cleveland got the start on the mound for Michigan, pitching 1⅔ innings and allowing a run on two hits and two walks. Jacob Denner earned the win with 4⅓ innings of work, allowing a run on three hits and two walks while striking out seven. Brandon Lawrence game up two runs (one earned) on two hits and Chase Allen allowed just one walk in the ninth.
Michigan made a surprising run to the College World Series final in 2019, falling in the third and decisive game to Vanderbilt. Last year, U-M and Central Michigan were in the South Bend regional. Both teams could be in the same regional again; CMU beat Ball State for the MAC title on Sunday.
Contact Kirkland Crawford: kcrawford@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @HiKirkHere.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan baseball defeats Rutgers, 10-4, to win Big Ten title
