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SportsMonday
September 26, 2016 — 3B
Dominant second half powers ‘M’ Wolverines stymie Michigan State in final 45 minutes for third straight victory BETELHEM ASHAME Daily Sports Writer
The last time the Michigan women’s soccer team faced Michigan State, it suffered a bruising 3-0 loss MICH. STATE 0 MICHIGAN 1 in East Lansing — its first loss to its in-state rival since 2011. But the Wolverines returned to their winning ways Saturday night, defeating the Spartans, 1-0. Behind an electrifying second-half performance that Michigan coach Greg Ryan called “our best half of soccer of the year”, the Wolverines (3-0 Big Ten, 7-1-1 overall) completely overpowered Michigan State (1-2, 4-5-1), which simply had no answer for them. “They terrorized Michigan State in the second half,” Ryan said. “I mean, they just couldn’t catch their breath.” While the two teams were locked in a physical, gritty battle in the first half — both finished with double-digit fouls — Michigan came alive and imposed its will on the match before the second whistle sounded. Adopting an aggressive approach, the Wolverines went after the Spartans, winning tackles all over the pitch and making it nearly impossible for Michigan State to complete a pass. Every time a Spartan so much as touched the ball, a blue shirt raced to rapidly recover possession. It was a tactic redshirt junior forward Ani Sarkisian described as “(blowing) up their rhythm.” The persistent pressure made life easy for Michigan goalkeeper Sarah Jackson, who needed to make only one save during the entire game. The same cannot be said of Spartan goalkeeper Savanna Wojtanowski. Wojtanowski had her work
LANEY BYLER
SINDU KILARU/Daily
The Michigan women’s soccer team avenged last season’s loss to Michigan State with a 1-0 home victory Saturday.
cut out for her from the outset, as the Wolverines bombarded her early and often, totaling 20 shots on goal. In the second half, it was more of the same. Whether it was Sarkisian, senior forward Nicky Waldeck or sophomore midfielder Abby Kastroll — who each had five of those shots — Wojtanowski was under constant fire. A 15-minute span in the second half proved especially challenging for Wojtanowski, whose team simply couldn’t hold onto the ball long enough to relieve the strain. Sophomore forward Reilly Martin sprung Waldeck into space with a cross in behind the defense, and even with a heavy first touch, Waldeck came close to beating the keeper to the ball and pulling off a chip shot. Sarkisian followed with a cross over the top of the defense toward an open Waldeck, and Wojtanowski had to make a
Michigan opens fall season at Virginia Najarian, Hall and Lommer only ‘M’ players to compete; Najarian goes 3-1 Daily Sports Writer
The Michigan women’s tennis team kicked off its 2016 fall season this weekend with just three players competing at the UVA Fall Invitational in Charlottesville, Va. The Wolverines started the tournament with a sweep Friday, as sophomores Kara Hall and Alex Najarian and freshman Chiara Lommer all won their matches in two sets. Najarian gave up only one game each set. But Michigan was unable to carry its success into the doubles matches. Lommer and Najarian were defeated by two pairs of players from Marshall and Utah by an eight-game proset score of 8-6 in each match. Even though the Wolverines donned the maize and blue at the Invitational, they competed as individuals and didn’t accumulate team points. “We have a certain number of dates that we have,” said Michigan coach Ronni Bernstein, “and if we bring less than four (players) it doesn’t count as a team date. Everybody will basically play four events this fall, so we just had these three go this weekend.” Saturday was another day of mixed results for the Wolverines. Najarian swept players from Old Dominion and Virginia to advance to her flight’s finals, while Hall was defeated by competitors from Virginia and Virginia Tech. The tournament concluded
Michigan splits first conference weekend Daily Sports Writer
WOMEN’S TENNIS
MATTHEW KENNEDY
VOLLEYBALL
Sunday, with Najarian taking on Old Dominion’s Borislava Botusharova in the flight’s finals. Botusharova proved too strong of an opponent for Najarian, and she fell 6-1, 6-1. Hall and Lommer also competed Sunday in eight-game pro-set consolation matches. Lommer defeated Utah’s Jenna Chang, 8-1. Hall also participated in an 8-1 match, but Hall was defeated, 8-1, by Utah’s Alexia Petrovic. Hall and Najarian were also defeated by a duo from Virginia, 7-6 (2), in their flight’s consolation match. “I think with Alex, even though she lost today, she played really well for the most part,” Bernstein said. “I think the biggest thing we really need to work on is our doubles. That was probably the area we could have done a lot better.” Fall season losses aren’t all that bad for a team, though. Rankings and conference standings are based on results from the winter season — when dual matches occur — and the fall season is often used as a time for players to get back into the groove of things after a summer of inactivity. The fall season also allows for teams to figure out shortcomings before the winter season. “The fall is great,” Bernstein said. “It doesn’t have the same pressure as it does team against team, so you just hope they can relax a little bit and work on some things. It gives us a good opportunity to work with the kids and get matches under their belt before we start in January.”
“I think the biggest thing we need to work on is our doubles.”
kick save recovery to keep the ball out. Kastroll joined the fray soon thereafter, weaving her way through the defense on a run down the right flank and firing a shot from inside the box. Wojtanowski made the initial save again, but the rebound went straight back to Kastroll, whose second attempt was cleared off the line by a Michigan State defender. “I thought their goalie made some really good plays on the day,” Ryan said. “When you’re hitting the post, and you’re making the goalie make saves, you’re doing everything right. You just gotta keep taking your chances. They’ll start to fall.” It was only a matter of time until Michigan would find the back of the net. Sarkisian provided the breakthrough in the 76th minute, as she burst into the box unmarked and put her head on
the end of Martin’s cross from distance. The ball sailed through the air and nestled softly into the bottom left corner of the goal in picture-perfect fashion. This time, Wojtanowski had no chance. “You don’t see them like that very often,” Ryan said. “Great way to win the game.” While avenging the sting from last season’s loss admittedly felt good, the Wolverines know it is a small victory in a long journey ahead. “Our goal is Big Ten champs, and yeah they’re a big rivalry team and it’s important that we win this game, but it’s just as important to win any other game,” Sarkisian said. “We want to go undefeated in the Big Ten. That’s our goal, so every team is a good team, and every team in the Big Ten is very (competitive). Hopefully we’ll continue on like this the rest of the season.”
Friday night, the Michigan women’s volleyball team found itself in an uncharacteristic position. The team went into conference play against No. 1 Nebraska on Friday with an impressive 11-1 regular-season record — and went out with an 0-1 record for the Big Ten. Not exactly the way they had hoped the start of their conference play would go, the Wolverines had less then 24 hours to turn things around before hosting Iowa on Saturday. And while there were still some consistency issues against the Hawkeyes, Michigan managed to switch gears for a four-set win to end the weekend 1-1. In the first match of the weekend, the 22nd-ranked Wolverines (1-1 Big Ten, 12-2 overall) dropped the first three sets against the Cornhuskers, 22-25, 25-20 and 25-18 to record their first Big Ten loss — and second loss overall — of the season. Nebraska tallied five more kills than Michigan and had seven fewer errors, which resulted in a .234 attack percentage, almost double the Wolverines’ .118. Fifth-year senior outside hitter Kelly Murphy led the offense with 10 kills, followed closely by senior middle blocker Abby Cole, who had nine. Sophomore libero Jenna Lerg contributed 10 of the 47 total digs, with Murphy adding nine to top the Cornhuskers in digs, 47-43. “Nebraska gave us a great barometer of where we’re going and where we want to be,” said Michigan coach Mark Rosen. “I thought that, physically, we played with them for 85 percent of the match — we were right
there, toe to toe with them. There wasn’t a situation where I thought, ‘Man, we just can’t stop this player’ or ‘We’re overmatched here.’ “Where we were different was the other 15 percent, and that’s being able to execute on a consistent basis. That’s where Nebraska is ahead of us, they’re just more consistent. But that gives us a great gauge to where we’re going.” Michigan turned around on Saturday to face Iowa, where the Wolverines pushed their conference record to 1-1 with a four-set win, 25-21, 25-19, 25-27 and 25-17. The Wolverine offense dominated the match, with three athletes recording double-digit kills. Murphy and junior outside hitter Adeja Lambert recorded 12 kills apiece, while Cole added 11 for the combined team total of 53 and a team attack average of .279. “I thought Adeja did a great job this weekend,” Rosen said. “She’s been battling in practice to get in the lineup and I thought she did a great job. Especially tonight, she came out at the very beginning and kind of set the tone with two big kills right off the bat and a block at right that kind of got things going.” Lambert had the secondhighest amount of digs on the team, falling two short of Lerg, who led with eight. Redshirt freshman middle blocker Cori Crocker also had a great match, tallying a careerhigh eight blocks on defense and five kills on offense. She finished the night with a .714 attack average. “It’s really exciting to be able to come out and play in the best conference every single night,” Crocker said. “It’s great to know that everyone you’re playing is the best competition in the country.”
Wolverines top Ohio State, fall to Penn State Michigan gives up two early goals in 3-1 loss to fourth-ranked Nittany Lions MAGGIE KOLCON Daily Sports Writer
With former players in town for alumni weekend, the current No. 8 Michigan field hockey team faced two strong conference opponents for the first time this weekend. The Wolverines defeated Ohio State (0-2 Big Ten, 3-6 overall) 1-0 on Friday night, but fell to No. 4 Penn State (2-1 Big Ten, 9-1 overall) 3-1 on Sunday afternoon. Despite its win Friday evening, Michigan had a hard time capitalizing on offensive opportunities throughout both games. The Wolverines had 15 shots on net, but just a few were legitimate goalscoring opportunities. Still, freshman forward Fay Keijer scored the game-winning goal during the first half of Friday’s game against the Buckeyes, which was a deflection into the upper netting after freshman midfielder Meg Dowthwaite’s initial penalty-corner shot. “We did it as a team,” Keijer said. “We worked so hard and fought until the end because this was a very close game. I don’t really think it was just my goal.” Sophomore forward Emma Way finished a chance off a corner, but Ohio State challenged the call and it was disallowed by the referees for being too high. After halftime, the game turned into a defensive battle, culminating in a high shot from the Buckeyes that junior goaltender Sam Swenson batted away with three minutes remaining. That attempt was Ohio State’s only on-net shot of the game. Though the Buckeyes did not generate many traceable offensive opportunities, they kept the ball in Michigan’s defensive zone for much of the second half. The Wolverines were forced to defend five penalty corners, but they held strong and sealed the 1-0 victory. “We were having trouble
MAZIE HYAMS/Daily
Sophomore forward Emma Way scored a late goal Sunday, but it wasn’t enough to overcome No. 4 Penn State.
breaking the ball out of the defense today,” said Michigan coach Marcia Pankratz on Friday. “We were a little unsteady there.” The Wolverines made adjustments in practice Saturday to correct that, but their miscues came back to bite them, as they were caught sleeping at the start of Sunday’s game. The Nittany Lions burst past Michigan and tipped in their first goal just 38 seconds into the game. Six minutes later they racked up another goal during the second effort on a penalty corner. “We tried to get back to the game plan” Pankratz said. “We just unfortunately didn’t play the whole 70 minutes. We were 10 minutes late.
“By then we were really scrambling to come back and it’s tough to do that against a great team like Penn State. But I was proud of how we turned it around … and I thought it was an even game the second half.” Despite the tough first half, Michigan seemed encouraged by the alumni who were honored on the field at halftime and began leading the fans in chants during the second half. But that wasn’t enough to help the Wolverines, as the scoreboard reflected the even-matched play the rest of the game. Way finally earned a spot for Michigan on the board with less than 10 minutes left in the game, with an assist from junior midfielder Katie Trombetta. Once again,
“We just unfortunately didn’t play the whole 70 minutes.”
the goal came from a penalty corner. The Nittany Lions tallied one more late goal with just 3:42 left in the game to solidify their win. “We just need to finish more on our corners,” Way said. “We had a lot of opportunities and they’re the number one scoring part of the game.” Added Trombetta: “I think each game we’re getting better, we’re building more, getting more confident. I think today we kind of let the hectic-ness get to us. We started to dribble a lot more, so we have to go to our basic of passing.” Michigan is entering a crucial point of its season — gearing up to face conference opponents for the next three weekends in a row. Unlike its 10-0 cakewalk against Central Michigan last week, the stakes are higher as conference play begins. The Wolverines will have to tweak their offense — or at least their penalty corners — in order to be successful.