CELEBRATIONS: Michigan softball KOs Purdue in Big Ten Tournament semis for shot at back-to-back titles.
Michigan softball continued its unlikely run through the 2025 Big Ten Tournament with another victory May 9 in West Lafayette, Indiana, beating Purdue, 4-2, to advance to the final.
U-M will face second-seeded UCLA, which held off Nebraska in the day’s first semi, in the title game at 4 p.m. May 10 (Big Ten Network) with an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament on the line. The Wolverines, the defending Big Ten tournament champs, will be looking for their first repeat tourney title since 2005-06. But the Bruins will be a tough foe; UCLA swept U-M in a three-game set in Ann Arbor in late April, outscoring the Wolverines, 21-14.
The eighth-seeded Wolverines knocked out the other Cinderella squad — the 12-seeded host Boilermakers were looking for their third straight win in the tournament after just five wins in 15 previous Big Ten tourney games — with a three-run home run by Lilly Vallimont in the third inning. The blast to left, Vallimont’s seventh of the season, made it 4-0 to give starter Lauren Derkowski — making her third straight start in the tourney — some breathing room.The Boilermakers got two runs back in the fourth inning and threatened again with no outs in the fifth. But U-M coach Bonnie Tholl turned to Erin Hoehn in relief of Derkowski, and the sophomore righty kept the Wolverines ahead with a pair of strikeouts sandwiched around a flyout to left
