From 1982-2004, the first twenty-three years of the NCAA Women’s College World Series, no team from east of the Mississippi River even played for the national title, but in 2005, the dam finally broke. The Michigan Wolverines – participants in seven previous Women’s College World Series tournaments up to that point – and their victory over the UCLA Bruins in the championship round made program, conference, and geographical history.
Head coach Carol Hutchins first led the Wolverines to the World Series in 1995, a berth that began a streak of four consecutive appearances in Oklahoma City from 1995-98. The program returned to the tournament in 2001, 2002, and 2004, firmly establishing themselves as perennial postseason contenders. In each of those times, though, Hutchins and Co. never got past the tournament quarterfinals, finishing as high as fifth only twice.
Then came 2005. The winners of 55 games during the regular season, the Wolverines earned the #1-overall seed in the NCAA tournament. The squad coasted through their hosted regional with a 3-0 record, allowing just one run in the course of three games, though in the Super Regional against Washington, the series came down to a winner-take-all game 3. The Wolverines won that game in run-rule fashion and headed back to OKC.
After winning their first two games at the World Series, Michigan took a hard-fought 2-0 loss to Tennessee in eleven innings in the tournament semifinals. Lady Vols ace Monica Abbott outdueled Wolverines ace Jennie Ritter – both pitched complete games – and the two hurlers combined 22 strikeouts between them. After finishing the game in the wee hours of the morning, the two teams turned around and played again that afternoon with a trip to the championship series on the line. Another hard-fought game went the Wolverines’ way and the team from Ann Arbor would play in the championship series.
Outside of Michigan’s appearance, the WCWS championship series had some history-making of its own in 2005. Since the dawn of the initial Women’s College World Series, the championship had always been won via a single game. This was the first year, though, that a team would have to win a best-of-three series to take home the title, and the Wolverines would have to battle 11-time national champions UCLA for the championship trophy.
Game 1 of the championship series took place just hours after the Wolverines’ final victory over Tennessee, also the same day that the first semifinal game had been completed, and ended in a 5-0 UCLA victory. A day later, now fully rested, Michigan evened the series with a game 2 win. The Wolverines’ victory set up the first-ever winner-take-all game 3 in championship finals history.
The third and last game of the championship series also marked the third consecutive game that Michigan’s Jennie Ritter and UCLA’s Anjelica Selden had matched wits in the pitching circle, and the game became an instant classic. After each team scored one run during the early innings, the game went to extras in a 1-1 tie. Both pitchers threw complete games, facing more than eighty batters between them across ten innings of work.
In the top of the 10th inning, a fielding error and a single put two runners on base for Michigan, and slugging first baseman Samantha Findlay made the Bruins pay, knocking a 3-run home run that would prove to be the decisive blow that gave the Wolverines their first-ever softball national title. Findlay was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player, while the Wolverines placed four players on the WCWS All-Tournament Team.
Since that inaugural championship, Michigan has returned to the Women’s College World Series four times, most recently in 2016. The Wolverines played in the championship series in 2015, forcing a winner-take-all game 3 once-again before ultimately losing to Florida.
