Let’s say you’ve just won the Big 10 regular season title for the first time in 12 years and are getting ready to take a swing at the program’s first time ever winning both that and the conference tournament in the same season. It’s probably not a bad omen if you kick that tournament off by taking down the tw0-time defending champs, am I right?
In 2025, three teams and one person joined the Big 10 and the conference jumped from the 5th or so best softball conference to probably the second. UCLA, Oregon,
Washington and Jordy Bahl/Frahm (No, 2.2 innings plus a torn ACL does not a true debut make) jumped into the Big 10 ring and a conference which struggled to have anyone in the Top 25 suddenly had two WCWS participants – Oregon and UCLA – along with a Nebraska team which missed the field by a 1-0 Game 3 loss to Tennessee in the Super Regional.
In 2026, the Big 10 Conference finished the regular season with three Top Ten teams in RPI and 4-5 more with NCAA berths in reach. The Big Ten Softball tournament by extension is a much different animal these days. With 17 member schools now fielding teams, they left the size of the field at 12 – five teams now found their seasons likely already over when the tourney commenced Wednesday night.
Before the competition level stepped up, Michigan mostly ruled over the conference winning 22 regular season and 12 tournament titles. And the history is not exactly ancient when you consider the Wolverines won the last two tourney titles in ‘24 and ‘25
So, therefore, it seemed only fitting that if the consensus #2 Nebraska Cornhuskers want to try and grab both in 2026, the road to that goal should lead through Michigan. And after the 9th-seeded Wolverines made 9-0 work of their ancient rivals, the Ohio State Buckeyes, it did.
If Michigan was intimidated by (list three years of national accolades here) Jordy Frahm, they didn’t show it at the game’s start. A bunt single, a walk and an RBI double gave them a 1-0 lead and runners on second and third with no outs. Huskers Associate Head Coach Lori Sippel, herself holder of Husker pitching records Frahm will never approach, came out, put her hands on Jordy’s shoulders and had a little chat.
Strikeout. Pop-up to catcher Jesse Farrell. Strikeout. Still 1-0. 13 consecutive batters faced before allowing a hit.
Message received, coach.
But if we’re fair, the Big Ten Tournament probably doesn’t faze someone who’s played big games on the biggest college softball stages. The error bug bit the Huskers with two boots and a dropped pop-up in the 4th and 5th innings. An unearned run was surrendered in the 4th, but with two outs and bags full, Frahm got a whiff to limit the damage to that run.
In the 5th, the Wolverines again put runners on second and third with no out thanks to a scorched Ella Stephenson double and an error. Frahm engineered a popup to short then another of her 9 strikeouts. With two down Kiley Carr ripped an absolute laser at Frahm…which she calmly snagged and flipped to first for the 3rd out.
In between these two innings, Emmerson Cope came to the plate. She had been DP’ing again to give freshman sensation Alexis Jensen a little more rest as she reaches the deep end of her first season. On Tuesday, Coach Revelle had said that the ball just leaves her bat different. She has struggled some at the plate, hitting .243, but her sharp eye had her on-base% at .406.
She led off the bottom of the 4th by blasting the first pitch over the left wall, over the the high netting behind it and finally across the street as it two-hopped and landed on the roof of a van in a parking lot. It would be the final run of the 4-2 game which officially ended Michigan’s two year and two game run in the Big 10 Softball Tourney.
Frahm went the distance allowing only one more runner, a walk, in the final two innings. As she seems to do at a startling clip, she struck out the last batter of the game. She allowed only 4 hits in the seven innings and 1 earned run. She was also, 1-for-2 at the plate while drawing a pair of walks.
Funny story, before her single, she had apparently roped a double down the left field line, but the third base ump overruled it and called it foul. Was it? Probably. But after Jordy’s single, some Husker fans rode the ump a little (Hey, blue! Was that one fair?? Hahahaha!!). It was pretty lighthearted by heckling standards, but apparently feelings were hurt. He spun and tried a toughy-boy staredown up into the crowd at whomever the offenders were.
The result? Some more derision and guffaws. With the intimidation factor in the negative, he finally turned away. Fans 1 B1G Official 0.
After Cope added a rifle single to the center field fence to her stats, she and Samantha Bland finished as the only Huskers with multiple hits. Sammie also matched and exceeded the Husker defensive miscues with a stack of stellar plays from third base. She almost got Indiana Langford in the 1st making a play closer than it should have been. She twice handled tough plays on the base and threw all the way across for the outs. Another time, she came charging from deep in the infield to grab a short pop-up not quite halfway down the line.
And finally, she did charge to at last gun the speedy Langford.
So the Huskers did outlast a game Wolverines squad who, which I said yesterday, thinks of winning Big 10 titles as their birthright. And as Coach Revelle said postgame when asked how surprised she was at their effort, “Absolutely zero. I mean, they are a made for postseason team. They always have been. They always step up. I mean, last year, they came in here as the eight seed and won the darn thing and knocked off Oregon and UCLA in the process. And you know they’re so well coached.”
The upcoming game against the Hoosiers might not look too threatening, but Indiana is also a well-coached team who just keeps coming at you and is always fast and aggressive on the bases. Washington couldn’t handle it and they earned a trip home before the Huskers played Thursday.
Tomorrow’s game is scheduled to begin at 4pm CST and will be aired on the Big 10 Network. You may also listen to Nate Rohr on the Huskers Radio Network and I can tell you with full confidence after sitting next to him today, it is very entertaining.
