Nebraska downs Michigan in extra innings for 1st Big Ten softball tournament title

EAST LANSING – Amid the raucous on-field postgame celebration, lost in a sea of her teammates, coaches and fans, Cam Ybarra found a moment to herself. Her older sisters — two of them; she has four — had called to congratulate their baby sister. They wanted her undivided attention.

It fit. Ybarra had taken center stage all day as it was.

Ybarra played a starring role Saturday in Nebraska's 3-1, extra-inning win over Michigan in the championship game of the Big Ten softball tournament at Michigan State's Secchia Stadium.

She put Nebraska (40-18) on top early, belting a solo home run over the right field wall in the top of the first inning. Then Ybarra helped the Cornhuskers clinch it late, as she doubled home the go-ahead run in the top of the eighth.

The first-inning homer came on Ybarra's favorite pitch to hit.

"Anything up. Storako does a good job of throwing different speeds, different heights," said Ybarra, referring to the Wolverines' starting pitcher, Alex Storako. "I just saw it up inside and I hammered it."

Storako didn't make that same mistake in the eighth frame. But Ybarra made Michigan (36-16) pay, anyway.

"That (pitch) was a little more middle out, and I pulled it," Ybarra said. "But she was definitely mixing up pitches just so I would be kept on my toes."

Both starting hurlers — Storako and Nebraska's Olivia Ferrell — largely had their way. After Ybarra's first-inning slam, only one more run went across the plate in the next six innings. That's what made the homer so important.

"We said that we were going to try to come out and win it," said Ybarra, who was named the tournament's most valuable player and also landed on the all-tournament team. "We hadn't been visitors the whole tournament. So we were just really focusing on scoring first. I just got a pitch up and did the rest."

The Wolverines leveled the score in the bottom of the fifth, when right fielder Audrey LeClair doubled to bring home Annabelle Widra. But Michigan couldn't further capitalize in the inning, as Nebraska got out of a bases-loaded jam.

The Wolverines had their best opportunity to edge ahead in the bottom of the seventh, when it appeared they would have runners on second and third and only one out.

It wasn't to be.

The second-base umpire ruled Ybarra not only threw out the runner at first, but also tagged Michigan's Kristina Burkhardt, who was trying to advance to second on the ground ball.

Double play.

The call was reviewed and upheld. One batter later, Michigan popped up to end the inning with the game-winning run 60 feet away.

Michigan coach Carol Hutchins couldn't hide her frustration afterward.

"I didn't think she was tagged, but they have to have indisputable evidence, and I don't think they have the full set of cameras out here, because we wouldn't want to spend all that money," she said. "Burkhardt didn't think she got tagged either, but we have to have indisputable evidence."

That set the stage for Ybarra's heroics in the next inning.

The Cornhuskers didn't let the opportunity go to waste on a banner day for the program. Saturday was their first Big Ten tournament title ever.

"It means a lot," Nebraska coach Rhonda Revelle said. " We've got young players. We've got a few older ones. But the way they came together and played all year has just been remarkable. The way they practice, the way they've gone about their business off the field, the way they've handled their studies in the classroom, they've just been a complete team on and off the field."

It's also a squad that reveled in the challenge of playing what amounted to a road game at a neutral site, what with Ann Arbor barely an hour away.

"They had a big crowd, but we said, 'We've done this before at their home field that first Big Ten weekend," said Ybarra, referencing the pair of wins the Cornhuskers recorded on the road versus the Wolverines in March. "We said, 'We can do this again.' "

And they did.

The loss denied the Wolverines their 11th conference tournament crown — the 10 they already own are the most in the league's annals, doubling up the next-closest school. (Minnesota has five.) It also prevented Hutchins from winning on her alma mater's home field.

In the earliest days of the Michigan State program, Hutchins was a star. She was a key piece of the Spartans' Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) national championship in 1976. Lettering honoring that team's achievement occupies a prominent space on the outfield wall, just to the left of the third-base line.

As she looked toward that wall following Saturday's loss, nostalgia was the furthest thing from her mind.

"I don't place emphasis on anything. I've had a great time being in East Lansing, being on this field, looking at that sign that I helped win," said Hutchins, who is the winningest softball coach in NCAA history and a member of the Michigan Sports, Michigan State Athletics and Greater Lansing Athletic halls of fame.

"But today I just wanted to win the game."

While no fuzzy feelings remained for Hutchins, Nebraska wanted the day to last forever.

"I hope," Revelle said, "that there were future Huskers out there watching today thinking, 'You know what? That could be a pretty good place to play.'"

Contact Ryan Black at rblack@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @RyanABlack.

This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Big Ten softball tournament: Nebraska tops Michigan for title