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Michigan softball's seniors helps it roll into postseason

The meeting took place either last year or the year before. Carol Hutchins wasn't sure. Still, the longtime Michigan softball coach remembers what was said. It was the middle of the season, only a couple of weeks into conference play. Hutchins was talking to her team, and brought up the postseason. She asked her players what made the postseason fun. "Tera Blanco raises her hand, she goes, ‘Everybody’s selfless. We only care about we. We’re not caught up in our own stuff,' " Hutchins recalled Wednesday afternoon. "I said, ‘Yeah. That’s exactly right.’ So why would we wait for the postseason? Just be it now." Hutchins paused briefly. "That’s what this team has been." Last weekend, U-M (40-11, 22-1 Big Ten) won its 11th conference regular-season title in 12 years. Michigan, the top seed in the Big Ten tournament, will play either Illinois at 1 p.m. Friday. Then next week, likely an NCAA tournament bid. But the Wolverines "haven't achieved anything yet," according to Hutchins. Still, this year's team has been different. She believes it has embraced a postseason mentality all season long. The Wolverines don't have any true superstars this year. What they have is a team that has gelled better than any other team in recent years. It started in August, when Hutchins met with the senior class upon their return to campus. Hutchins could sense that her most experienced players "seemed to genuinely want the right things." "They wanted this team culture to be better than it had been," Hutchins said. "And it wasn’t that we had a poor culture. It wasn’t good enough. It was a little bit clique-y and the things that teams can be. And they genuinely wanted it to be inclusive. All year long, I felt that they lived up to that." Still, Hutchins knew the true character of the team wouldn't reveal itself until the team faced adversity. That came quickly once the season began. U-M started 6-8, but something changed in the 14th game, a 2-0 loss to then-No. 9 LSU. And it started with the same seniors who had said they wanted this team to be different. Infielder Faith Canfield (.406 batting average, eight home runs, 37 RBIs) gave the team a boost. And then Alex Sobczak, a part-time starter her first three seasons, got a chance at first base. She's hitting .356 with nine home runs and 40 RBIs. "I was so impressed with (Sobczak's) presence," Hutchins said. "She hit OK. She drew a bunch of walks. And she still to this day leads us in on-base percentage (.494). "... And at that point, she won the position. But her presence on the field, her presence with her teammates, it was really noticeable.” After the loss to LSU, U-M beat then-No. 2 UCLA, followed by then-No. 5 Washington. The Wolverines have won 28 of the past 29 games, thanks in large part to the senior class, including Canfield and Sobczak. Outfielder Natalie Peters is fourth on the team with a .349 batting average and catcher Katie Alexander, meanwhile, leads the team with 10 homers. Regardless of what happens in the postseason, Hutchins believes this team has already left its mark. “I told them, what we will ultimately judge this senior class on is whether they have done what they said they were going to do and create a great team," Hutchins said. "And honestly, we’ve been a great team. We’ve had a lot of come-from-behind wins and walk-off wins. Great teams do that. Average teams don’t do that. So in my mind, that is their biggest achievement regardless of what happens.” Contact Orion Sang at osang@freepress.com . Follow him on Twitter @orion_sang . Read more on the Michigan Wolverines and sign up for our Wolverines newsletter .