8/28 Michigan Sports Weekend

Submitted by formerlyanonymous on

Three sports are in action this weekend as the volleyball and field hockey teams join the women's soccer in the official season.

Soccer

Women's soccer will be starting things off with a Friday night visit to Wisconsin-Milwaukee. UW-M is hosting a "Milwaukee Cup" series where Michigan will face off with the home team tonight (Friday, 8p ET) and Marquette on Sunday (2p ET). Rain is in the forecast, but the teams will play through.

UW-M is currently 0-0-2 with two 0-0 ties with Northwestern and Wisconsin. Both of those BigTen teams are picked to finish better than Michigan in the coaches' preseason poll. The historic series between Michigan and UW-M has Michigan ahead with one outright win and a loss by penalty kicks in the 2006 NCAA tournament. UW-M will be tough to beat at home where they haven't lost since 2007, but if Michigan can play solid defense, they could pull the upset.

Marquette should be a more manageable game for the Wolverines as they are not a very high scoring team themselves. Marquette likes to spread the ball around, but none of last years starters managed more than 3 goals over the course of the season.

Field Hockey

The ACC/BigTen Challenge starts Saturday at Iowa City, IA as the Wolverines take on #4 North Carolina at 3p ET. The team will also play on Sunday against #2 Wake Forest. Michigan's going to have a heck of a time trying to upset either team. Unlike the basketball version of the challenge, teams aren't necessarily matched up by rank. In this case, Michigan will be lucky to squeak out a win.

For more on the field hockey team, check out the season preview.

Volleyball

pazvsnebraska

Juliana Paz says bring on Nebraska

Volleyball has the national spot light, or at least as national as CBS College Sports. The Wolverines take on Nebraska tonight at 9:30pm ET and Kansas State tomorrow at 7pm ET. This is a big moment for the women's volleyball team as they want to prove themselves out of the gate. MGoBlue's SID will have a CiL liveblog going for both games, and I encourage MGoBloggers with or without access to the game stop in and discuss.

See our Volleyball Season Preview here.

Also, anyone who may be able to get (a) torrent(s) of the game(s), I'd +1 you forever.

Update (Friday 7:50p): While watching the Minnesota/K-State match, I can already see that our game is going to be a VERY pro-Nebraska announcing. I've seen 5 clips of CornHuskers in the stands in the last 20 minutes. But one interesting nugget has also come out during those breaks, Nebraska has 8 players in their lineup that have no college experience. If Michigan can take advantage of that inexperience, it would be huge.

K-State is playing pretty sloppy. Their ball handling is very sporadic. I can't get a good read on Minnesota yet. Their MB is nailing the 0-sets really well, but she hasn't been blocking well at all. Half way through set two, I don't think Minnesota has registered a block. K-State is having trouble with the slide to the right. I don't know if Bower will be able to place as well as this Minnesota RS.

Minnesota just went up 2-0 on them 25-19, 25-16. I'm liking our chances for tomorrow already.

Update II (Friday 9:30p): KSU made me eat my words as the 3rd and 4th they played awesome and even forced a 5th. Their outside hitter really got into a groove at the net and at the serve. Perhaps the first two sets were just nervous energy. 

Due to the 5 set game, Michigan's starting time is now looking like 10p ET

Update III (Saturday 3:55p): Soccer was blown out in the 2nd half for a final 0-6 loss. Ouch. Field Hockey just started the 2nd half. It's 0-0 in the 45th minute (out of 70), but Michigan is being outshot 7-1.

Update IV (Saturday 5:25p): Field Hockey jumped ahead 1-0 but gave up 2 goals in the last 15 minutes to drop their first game of the season. Michigan took only 2 shots, both on goal, both by Meridith Way. By contrast, UNC took 21 shots, 12 were on goal, by 9 different TarHeels.

Comments

formerlyanonymous

August 28th, 2009 at 9:19 PM ^

I was just looking before internet went out. Everything is still dying on my end. It's about time to replace my wireless card.

Also, W Soccer is falling apart. Just gave up two goals in the first 8 minutes of the 2nd half to go down 2-0. Lots of shots on goal for UW-M.