9/4 Michigan Sports Weekend

Submitted by formerlyanonymous on

Things got busy with the jihad and my real life getting in the way. Let's take a quick look at what happened the last few days and what is on tap this weekend.

Oh yeah, there's a home football game this weekend. Not much else is going on around campus as almost every sport is on the road on Friday or Saturday. Only X-Country has a home meet, which isn't anywhere near campus.

Men's Soccer

goofynd

#22 Men's soccer opened their season with a loss at #15 Notre Dame on Tuesday. The final score was 0-5, an obvious disappointment for the team. To make up for it, look at the ridiculous-looking Domer on the right (picture from MGoBlue). They will look to get their first official W of the season tonight at Drake (8p ET). They will visit Valparasio on Sunday at 4p ET.

Women's Soccer

The ladies won their first game of the season last night (Thursday) against Central Michigan by the score of 4-3. Four different Wolverines scored on the night, including Jackie Carron who also notched an assist. The offensive explosion is described by Coach Ryan as the product of moving Megan Bowery back to forward instead of a back:

We have worked on those set plays non-stop since preseason and the biggest difference today was having Amanda Bowery up front instead of at the back. When we have her in the back and she has to come up, when they get the ball she has to run all the way back again. We don't want to make her do that all day or she is going to be dead. She didn't get a goal tonight, but she is the kind of player that teams can't deal with. They can't deal with the ball to her, so the next ball comes to someone else. We got a lot of second-chance goals today and I think Amanda's presence on free kicks is tremendous.
Good to hear. Highlights from the game via MGoBlue found here. Michigan will host Eastern Michigan on Sunday at 2pm.

Field Hockey

The #19 field hockey team struggled last weekend in the ACC/BigTen tournament, which wasn't a huge surprise. Michigan was facing two of the top 5 teams in the country while being in a bit of a rebuilding phase. They will attempt to get their first win of the season tonight at 6pm ET in College Park, MD as they take on Temple. Temple is 1-1 coming into this match, and Michigan is the favorite in this game. The team will then take on #1 Maryland on Maryland's home field Sunday at 1pm ET. I'm personally hoping to keep it respectable (bulletin board material, anyone?).

Volleyball

Following up the greatest win in Michigan volleyball history, Michigan took down #22 Kansas State on Sunday. Michigan came out looking a little sluggish, and they had a flashback of Michigan 2008 in the second set, but they held on to win 3-1. The second set was full of small errors that kept K-State in the game, ultimately allowing the Wildcats to take the set. Juliana Paz was ridiculous though, registering 19 kills and 6 aces. Michigan ended up setting a record for aces in the AVCA/Runza Tournament with 13. Sloane Donhoff was also an unsung hero with a new career high of 19 digs.
The team will be headed to Xavier this weekend to take on Tennessee (being played now), Xavier (Saturday at 5:30p), and Notre Dame (Sunday at noon).

The above link will take you to Friday's CiL hosted by former Wolverine player Erin Moore. She had a great story earlier about beating Tennesse:
As Rich mentioned earlier...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 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.
Cross Country

Both Men and Women's cross country started the season today (Friday). Woo! Go! Run fast! If I find out more about them, I'll let you know. They just published their schedule this week, and how much about cross country can there really be to investigate? We'll find out, I guess.

UPDATE I (Friday 5:50p): Volleyball wins 3-1. Team effort lead by Paz again. Zimmerman lead the team in digs with 17, but also got in her 42 assists.

UPDATE II (Friday 9p): 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.

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.

UPDATE III (Friday10:30p): 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.

Men's cross country wrapped up their 6k Michigan Open tonight 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.

UPDATE IV (Sunday 10am):

Other than the football game, only one sport was in action on Saturday - the volleyball team against Xavier. 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.

Michigan faces Notre Dame at noon ET today for the tournament championship.

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