Jordan Taylor was sitting at a breast cancer benefit dinner last week when she started thinking about the end of her college softball career.

Michigan fans approached the pitcher and asked about the team’s annual “pink game,” when the Wolverines wear pink jerseys in support of breast cancer awareness.

This year, that game is the regular season finale against Michigan State at 7 p.m. Friday at Alumni Field.

“They were talking about it and I was like, ‘That’s next week? When did that happen,’” Taylor said. “As soon as we got into the Big Ten season, it was like everything was a steamroller through your life.”

Taylor came to Michigan as one of its best pitching recruits ever. She’ll leave Michigan as one of its best pitchers in history.

So in that way, Taylor has met almost every expectation given to her when she arrived from Valencia, Calif., as someone who could throw with Nikki Nemitz and potentially replace Jennie Ritter — neither of whom arrived in Ann Arbor with the cachet Taylor did.

“That puts a lot of pressure on a kid,” Michigan pitching coach Jen Brundage said. “And she’s handled it really well her entire career. That’s been a little bit different for us to deal with because we haven’t had to deal with that big dog pitcher in a long time.”

The last one might have been Marissa Young, another in the elite class of pitchers Taylor will join when her career ends.

But is she the best ever at Michigan? Tough to say.

“Physically and athletically she has more talent than me,” said Ritter, a Dexter High School graduate widely considered the best Michigan pitcher in history. “What propelled me was my mental toughness and my will. We’re very, very different pitchers.

“…But when I see her, she is absolutely an elite pitcher.”

Ritter won the 2005 Women’s College World Series. Sara Griffin had winning streaks of 27 and 30 games and, at one point, held almost every Michigan pitching record.

Taylor will likely leave having taken most of them. She is already Michigan’s leader in appearances (156), starts (118), saves (17), no-hitters (7) and perfect games (2). She has 103 wins, three behind Griffin’s career mark of 106 and is tied with Griffin for the most complete games with 93.

Taylor is second in strikeouts with 1,162, trailing Ritter, who finished with 1,205.

She could also win four straight Big Ten titles -- Michigan (49-4, 16-2) leads Indiana (35-16, 15-3) by one game entering the final weekend of the regular season -- but has pitched in just one World Series.

So what's that the defining mark of the best? Depends how you look at it. And don’t look to longtime Michigan coach Carol Hutchins for an answer.

“I’ve had a ton of good ones,” Hutchins said. “She’s one of them. I don’t rank them.”

Taylor split time with Nemitz for three years before becoming the clear staff ace this season and has gone 27-3 for the No. 2-ranked Wolverines. She did so after revamping her pitching motion.

Last season, umpires began calling her for a crow hop, essentially a hop forward in the pitching motion deemed illegal by the NCAA. Pitching for the USA Futures National Team last summer, she was allowed to crow hop. She injured her ankle in the team’s finale, causing her to miss a month of workouts back in Ann Arbor.

When she returned, Brundage had to teach her to drag her foot. They placed Taylor in a pitching circle six times in October and had her throw between 400-500 pitches with the new delivery.

“I don’t know if people know how hard it is for her to change from crow hop to drag,” Brundage said. “It’s really hard. It’s like asking Tim Tebow to change how he throws and how hard it is for him.”

As her footwork changed, so did her personality ... for a different reason.

Taylor’s emotion sometimes overflowed on the field. She’d become angry. With an experienced team, like the ones she played on as a sophomore and junior, it wasn’t as noticeable.

This year, she knew she’d have to become more of an emotional baseline.

“I do play with a lot of emotions and when I’m (angry), you definitely know it,” Taylor said. “And, yeah, it’s been difficult. But I try to be as good of a role model as I can.”

That included becoming more positive. She’ll still let teammates know when they make mistakes, but she also rallied Michigan’s young lineup by telling them they were the best hitting lineup in the country.

The attitude change made a difference.

“It’s done a lot for team chemistry,” senior first baseman Dorian Shaw said. “Just her smiling on the field and making jokes, it has an impact on everyone on the team.”

It even changed Taylor. Hutchins said it has made Taylor a better pitcher and a better leader.

Michigan has flourished. Taylor is a main reason why.

Will she leave as the best ever? She’s close and has another month to make her case.

Michael Rothstein covers Michigan sports for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at (734) 623-2558, by email at michaelrothstein@annarbor.com or follow along on Twitter @mikerothstein.