By Terry Mosher
Editor, Sports Paper
Part II of four parts
It was in 2002 Grace Hughes, a senior at Buena High School in Sierra Vista, Arizona changed her mind about what college she wanted to attend, and switched from Mississippi State to Michigan. She had made an official visit to Michigan and despite being a good softball player did not realize how good the Wolverines were in the sport.
Michigan, of course, is known as a football school, and this month nearly added an NCAA D-1 basketball title to its collection of glittering hardware, losing in the championship game to Louisville.
“I always say it was meant to be says, “Hughes, a Silverdale resident who is rapidly climbing up the rankings on the Ladies Pro Racquetball Tour (she is currently 9th but is within just a few season points of moving up to 7th).
“When I knew they were interested I looked them up,” Hughes continued. “Michigan is a good academic school and I knew they were good in football and basketball, but they also played softball. And they were pretty awesome in the (Women’s College) World Series (Michigan took third in 1982 and under coach Carol Hutchins were first five times and second four times in the regionals in the previous 10 years before Hughes arrived).”
Hughes made her visit, was offered a scholarship but encouraged to go home and think about it before signing. She waited a few days and then signed with the Wolverines.
“”I remember being interviewed and being asked why I choose Michigan,” Hughes said. “I still remember to this day saying, ‘I want to be the first to win a championship. I want to be a part of this. Who doesn’t want to be a part of a dynasty?’ “
Her freshman year, the Wolverines got knocked out at regionals. But they did give the eventual runner-up at the World Series, California, a scare before falling, 1-0. When she and her teammates looked at it later, they knew they belonged and were on the right track.
“”We just played the (second-place team) of the World Series, and knew we could have won the game,” says Hughes. “We lost, 1-0 so next year it’s going to happen. We were sure we would make the World Series. I was really excited.”
Sure enough, the Wolverines made the World Series in 2004, but it was a heartbreaking series. They went, as Hughes says, “Two and barbeque.”
What happen is in the their first World Series game, Hughes belted her sixth home run of the season, a two-run blast in the 12th inning to give the Wolverines a 2-0 lead over LSU. Michigan had two outs in the bottom of the 12th and two costly mistakes – a fielding error and a passed ball – scored two unearned LSU runs to tie the game.
Then in the bottom of the 13th two errors led to another unearned run and LSU won 3-2.
.“It was like it was meant not to happen,” says Hughes. “Everything that could go wrong went wrong. We were really broken-hearted.”
Then they lost the next game to be knocked out. They were indeed barbequed.
A talented group of freshman showed up in the fall of 2004, joining a bunch of broken-hearted players who developed a chip on their shoulder. They played that season (spring of 2005) with a chip on their shoulder, and were determined not to be broken hearted again.
Behind the pitching of all-American Jennie Ritter and with cold-steel determination, the Wolverines blew through the Pac-10, regionals and super regionals (this was the first year of super regionals) and flew into the World Series. There they opened with a 3-0 victory over DePaul and then stunned NCAA Player of the Year, Pitcher Cat Osterman, and the Texas Longhorns, 4-0.
They then got beat by Tennessee 2-0 in 11 innings.
“During that time of the year (in Oklahoma City, where the World Series is staged each year), there are always weather delays due to tornadoes and such, and so we finished that game well into the night,” says Hughes, “but had to turn around and play them again that next morning. It was win or be done (barbequed).
“We stuck together and won! (3-2). Our next game was that very evening against a tough UCLA. Up until the sixth inning we were neck and neck at 0-0. But in the sixth they scored five runs, and we lost 5-0.”
This was the first year that the NCAA changed the format to a best-of-three championship series, so Michigan still had a chance. But the Wolverines would have to win the next two to get the title. Meanwhile, UCLA was just one win away from a three-peat.
But the Wolverines were down, but not out.
“I always remember just how much we lifted each other up,” Hughes said. “That entire season we believed in each other and never doubted our capabilities.”
That belief carried Hughes and her teammates to a 4-2 win in the second game that evened the series at one game each. In the third and deciding game, the two teams battled to a 1-1 draw through nine innings.
Then in the 10, the Wolverines struck for three runs to win it.
Champions at last.
Hughes says one of the keys to that championship season, during which the Wolverines went an amazing 65-7, was pitcher Jennie Ritter. She played on a summer team before the start of the 2004-05 season and developed a drop ball to go with her rise ball and screwball, and that made her almost invincible.
But the Wolverines also had a very good No. 2 pitcher in Nicole Motycka, who like Ritter, made All-American.
The next year, Hughes senior season, the Wolverines would be knocked out in the super regionals, finishing the year with a 44-15 record. During Hughes’ four years at Michigan the Wolverines went 207-51 with two World Series appearances and three first places and one second at regionals.
Hughes was team captain her senior year, all-Big Ten third baseman in 2004 and 05 and all-academic Big Ten in 2005 and 06. At one time she was among the top 10 in home runs at Michigan with 30 in her career.
Along the way at Michigan, Hughes acquired the nickname, “Big Mean Samoan.”
“I believe my teammate, second baseman Tiffany Haas, gave me that name,” says Hughes, “because off the field I am very far from being mean, and often times people didn’t know I was Samoan until they sat down and ate a meal with me. I think it was her way of kidding with me.”
The Big Mean Samoan worked the summer of 2005 for Nike in Beaverton, Ore. Nike hired 180 out of 10,000 who applied. She enjoyed the experience, which she felt was a necessity because her softball career was rapidly coming to a close and she knew she had to move on.
She came back to school in the fall off 2006 for one last semester to obtain her degree in sports management communications with the intent of entering the corporate world. But the softball world was not ready for her to quit. She got a message through My Space that a team in the European Softball League needed a shortstop and wondered if she would be interested.
“I thought I was done playing,” said Hughes, who asked where it would be. When she was informed it was Italy, she said, “Oh my gosh, I would love to play softball in Italy.”
The man said he would have to get back to her once he found a team. When he did, Hughes learned the team, which was just outside of Venice, had never played in the Italian A League (the top division in the Euro League) before.
Although Hughes had no idea of what to expect of the team, she decided to play. She had always liked the idea of traveling, and this certainly would fit that. So she went.
“I had never been in Europe and who wouldn’t want to go to Rome and Venice?” Hughes said, laughing at the thought. “I know I just loved the idea of going there.”
Next Week – Part III: Off to lovely Italy to find the love of her life.