Labor Day Weekend Olympic Sports Recap

Editor's note: we're still trying to figure out how much real estate to give non-revenue sports during football season. We're leaning towards front-paging the stuff with a quick jump, as you see below.

Michigan had a pretty successful weekend in places other than football. Team sports went 6-1, with a potential win coming up with the men's soccer team still in progress. For a full recap of the weekend, take the jump.

Cross Country

Friday, the women's cross country faced off with Eastern Michigan in a non-scoring meet. Michigan placed 8 in the top ten finishers including Danielle Tauro finishing the 5k in 18 minutes and one half second. Coach Mike McGuire:

Danielle [Tauro] ran pretty controlled, and she's going to be our leader this year. We had one fall off the group a little bit, but for the first week I thought it was pretty solid. We've established the benchmark, and we've just got to get better from here.

He would also mention that 4 of the top 8 were freshmen, who are going to need to show up big for Michigan this year.

The men's team wrapped up their 6k Michigan Open Friday as well. It appears all of the competitors were UM athletes, but some ran as "unattached," including the race winner Lex Williams (18 minutes, 55.3 seconds). Coach Ron Warhurst:

We had a great camp. The kids ran 90 miles a week, so they're tired. But we had to put a uniform on them today. It's really just to get them started. I was really impressed with their going out in 5:24 first mile and then running 5:00, especially up the long hill. [...] Lex [Williams] pushed it. The good thing is they went with it. I was pleased with the freshmen. They ran together. It was a great start, and I'm happy with what I saw.

Soccer

Men's soccer won 2-1 over Drake. Michigan was outshot 15-7 but came out ahead in the stat that matters - goals. Justin Meram and Chase Tennnant (winner in the 87th minute) both scored for Michigan. Coach Steve Burns on the players of the game:

Both Kofi Opare and Latif Alashe played like warriors in controlling the central midfield. They really showed their range and displayed a maturity beyond their years. The Chase Tennant of old is back and he scored a great game-winning goal that will surely be one our Top 10 goals of the season. Our Man of the Match was Mauro Fuzetti, who was splendid up front.

Sunday, the men defeated Valparasio at Valpo by a score of 2-1. Down a goal in the 70th minute, Mauro Fuzetti knocked a 12 yarder into the left corner of the net. The game winner came from Justin Merman in the 72 minute with a shot to the upper left from 15 yards.

The women's team defeated Eastern Michigan today by a score of 4-1. Megan Bowery, back at center, opened the game with a goal. Freshman Holly Hein had the game winning goal, with Jackie Carron and Alex Jendrusch also adding a goal a piece. Carron also registered 2 assists. Kristen Keane had 4 saves in the complete game. Michigan's 16 shots is a new season high. Jendrusch said this about the confidence the team has gained over the last week:

It was really good to have a winning weekend. It boosted our confidence. We played our game a lot more than we have the past couple of games. We are mostly a possession team. We did not play down and put four goals in.

Field Hockey

Field Hockey beats temple 5-1. A second half explosion saw the Wolverines take 14 shots, netting all 5 goals in that period. Three of the goals came off penalty corner plays. This was the team's first win of the season.

In their second game of the weekend, Michigan held tough with #1 Maryland, but fell 1-4. Bryn Bain had the lone goal for Michigan coming off the bench, but the real story of the game was the 5 minute stretch from the 48th to 53rd minute when our defense fell apart. All 4 Maryland goals came in this stretch. While there's no shame in holding tough with the #1 team in the nation, Coach Pankrantz is probably giving a speech about playing the full 70 minutes in practice at least once this week.

Volleyball 

Friday night's volleyball win over Tennessee came by a 3-1 score. The win was a team effort, but the team was lead by Juliana Paz and her XX kills. Zimmerman lead the team in digs with 17, but also got in her 42 assists and 17 digs for a triple-double.

While the game wasn't shown by video or radio, a CiL was hosted on MGoBlue by former Wolverine player Erin Moore. She had a great story earlier about beating Tennessee during her undergrad, which might have been the highlight of the coverage.

One of my all time favorite Michigan moments took place at Tennessee one preseason. We were down 0-2 and getting the third set handed to us when Nicole Poquette ran a two and landed directly on the crease in the floor. It [was] one of those jig saw like wooden floors that pieces together.  The floor breaks. We can't play on it. Tenn. has to retape a court on the other side of the floor and we end up winning the match 3-2.

As for Saturday, the team started slow falling behind 1-5 to open the first set, but were able to tie it back up. Unfortunately, they lost the lead again, and lost their first "first set" of the season by a score of 24-26. The second set also started with a run from Xavier, but this time just 0-3. Michigan would respond though, eventually taking a 5 point lead in the set, ultimately winning 25-23. The third, anchored by a 9-0 run, and fourth sets were much more dominate for Michigan, winning 25-21 and 25-13 respectively.

• Juliana Paz had 19 kills and a .302 hitting percentage
• Alex Hunt had 12 kills and a team high 3 service aces

Sunday was the de facto championship of the Xavier tournament against Notre Dame. Michigan hit .390(!) as a team, it's highest on the season by quite a bit. Paz had 20 kills and Alex Hunt posted 14 of her own with a .458 hitting percentage, which is pretty ridiculous.

This match was hardly in question, but the second set was intense. Down 5 points early, Michigan called a time out, regrouped, and eventually retook the lead. Michigan would eventually win the set 31-29. The final score was a sweep by scores 25-19, 31-29, and 25-20.

For more on the Notre Dame game, El Jeffe has an excellent diary post that you should read immediately after this.

Lexi Zimmerman was named BigTen Offensive Player of the Week. She "averaged 12 assists per set, while also contributing 2.1 kills and 3.4 digs on a .417 hitting percentage." This is her first POTW honor in her career, which is actually amazing to me.

Midweek Games

Only one match in any of the Olympic sports happens this midweek as the volleyball team takes on Eastern Michigan in Ypsilanti on Wednesday at 7pm.