6- The Michigan Daily - SPOR T VOLLEYBALL TSMonday - Monday, October 25, 1993 Continued from page 1 themalot,"junior setter Julie Scherer said. "We served pretty tough most of the time. We got them out of their 'offense sometimes and were able to capitalize on that." Friday'smatch with Ohio State was not a pretty one for either team. "A lotofpoinfs were scored on the other team's errors,"Ohio State coach Jim Stone said. The Buckeye's serving over- whehmedMichigan.SophomoreJenny Jackson accounted for six of Ohio State's 15 aces. "Ithought(Jenny's serving) turned the game around," Stone said. "A lotof the time you get in the situation where a given server scores points. t . "But this also allows other servers to score points. Because passers start to hesitate a little bit, it zaps their confidence so it makes points directly and indirectly. I thought it was really a key factor tonight." After dropping the first game 15- 5 and falling behind 10-5 in the sec- ond, Michigan battled back to win 15- 12. "Game two, I mean that's really how we're playing,"Giovanazzi said. "We're steadier than we were acouple of weeks ago." Sophomore middle blocker Suzy O'Donnelland setterJulie Scherer have VOLLEYBALL NOTEBOOK: Wolverines lose, but Luze still improves, EliZABETH UIPPMAN/Day Michele Horrigan tries to save a point for the Michigan volleyball team against Ohio State Friday at Cliff Keen Arena. The Wolverines fell to the Buckeyes in four games. been key contributors during the thus- far injury-riddled season. "I was really pleased with Suzy's frontrow play and herlevelof aggres- siveness," Giovanazzi said. "I felt pretty good about tonight," O'Donnell said. "I think mostly be- cause Julie and the people that are stepping in to do the setting. The balls were really nice. There were some really good balls up there. I think that I was really on tonight." Giovanazzi said that he also likes the Los Altos, Calif., native's im- proved setting. "I think Julie is playing the best ball of the season," he said. "Probably the best that I've seen her .av. (she's) doing a good job leading the team.,, O'Donnell led the team on Friday with 10 kills against the Buckeyes. Saturday's top killer for either team was senior Fiona Davidson, with 14. By CHAR LIE BREITROSE and BRETT JOHNSON DAILY SPORTS WRITERS There are always growing pains in the life of a first-year athlete. For outside hitter Shareen Luze, thejump serve is a big part of her game. She is finally starting to feel better about using it in the game situation. "I think I'm getting a little more comfortable using it in games," Luze said. "There's a little less pressure." Her coach, Greg Giovanazzi, has been pleased with the progress she is making. "That's a pretty tough skill," Giovanazzi said. "She had three aces, five errors tonight. That's a good ra- tio. If that were the case every night, we'd have no problem at all. That's a sacrifice we're willing to give up." Luze has also gained confidence in her hitting game as was displayed against Indiana and Purdue two week- ends ago. She tallied24killsinthetwogames including a career-high 14 against the Boilermakers. ACTION JACKSON: One of Michigan's major problems Friday night was Ohio State's Jenny Jack- son. Jackson, last year's Big Ten Freshman of the Year, had a career- best serving night when she recorded six service aces. "Last year, I used a spin serve a lot more," Jackson said. "This year I was trying to work on my floater serve a little bit. I figured I'd go back to my spin serve because the floater wasn't being as successful as I wanted it. Sometimes it's on and sometimes it's not, but tonight I was really pleased with it. "I saw from the first serve that if I served tough they would have to fall for it. I really didn't try to go for any particular person or any particular spot." There wasn't much to say on the Michigan side. The team could do nothing but tip its collective hat to the sophomore. 1 think I'm getting a little more comfortable using it in games. There's a little less pressure.' - Shareen Luze Michigan outside hitter "It was a nice serve," Horrigan said. M*A*S*H UmT: Although the. Wolverines have gotten senior out- side hitter Michelle Horrigan back into the lineup, they still are a little banged up. Senior outside hitter JoAnna Collias is still recovering from an ankle sprain she suffered at Indiana. She should return this com- ing weekend. Junioroutsidehitter Aimee Smith is listed as day-to-day with her linger- ing shoulder injury. She saw back row action only this past weekend. Finally, sophomore middle blocker Shannon Brownlee looks to be al- most fully recovered from a slight ankle sprain. "Shannon's ankle seems to be pretty good," Giovanazzi said. "She has to limit her movement a little bit. A huge part of the injury is the psy- chological effect that ithas on whether. you can really trust it or not." A PAIR OF ACES: Senior middle blocker Fiona Davidson added five serving aces this weekend to bring her career total to 122. This puts Davidson only 11 aces from vaulting over Heather Olsen (1984-87) into third place on the Michigan career service ace list. Ironically enough, Fiona's sister Marie Ann Davidson (1985-88) leads the list with 239. DANDY DIGGER: Collias ranks third in the Big Ten in digs per game. Collias has played in 53 games over 16 matches and is averaging 3.23 digs per game. The digs category is the only one in which Michigan currently has a leader in. COLLIAS Continued from page 1 "But, in the two years that I have been here, she has been without a doubt our best defensive player. "It's a very significant statistic that she is about to become the best digger in Michigan history. That is the skill that tends to add momentum to a team. In the middle of the game when someone makes a great dig, it keeps everything alive. She obviously adds that to our team." Former coach and current associate athletic director Peggy Bradley-Doppes not only sees the record as a reflection on Collias' style of play but also as an indication of just how far the program has come over the past four years. "It shows her gutsy play," Bradley-Doppes said. "People usually remember the big hitters. She's the type of player who does both. She gets down, gets hammered and picks the ball back up. I think JoAnna breaking (the record) shows the improvement of the level of volleyball here over the last few years." Amazingly enough, if things had gone as Collias had planned, this record would have never been broken. During her senior year at Mother McAuley high school in Chicago, Collias was being recruited by numerous schools, including Iowa, Northwestern, Miami (Ohio), Hofstra and Pittsburgh. Michigan did not recruit her. She received first-team All-State honors in Illinois from the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times and the Champaign News-Gazette. In the end, she decided to come to Michigan despite not being recruited. "My recruiting went really bad," Collias said. "I was recruited by Fsome Big Ten schools that I wanted to go to, but they didn't offer me scholarships. I had some offers from other schools, but ... I wanted to go to a school that was good academically and athletically. By the end of the season, I was kind of fed up with the whole recruiting process, and I was just going to go here and go to school." By the time summer rolled around, Collias had enrolled at Michigan and was playing club volleyball at the Junior Olympics in Chicago. At the tournament, then- coach Bradley-Doppes talked with her about joining the team as a walk-on. "JoAnna was an outstanding high school athlete," Bradley- Doppes said. "When I came up here, she was being recruited by Miami and Hofstra. I had already brought in a class with me, and we had kind of closed the door. I thought she was going to Miami, and I saw her at an AAU event in Chicago. "I went up to talk to her in a casual conversation to ask her if she was going to Miami, and she said she was coming here for school. At the time we had nine walk-ons, and I told her I felt she could make the team and earn a scholarship." Collias says by that time, she wanted to play again and welcomed the opportunity to try out for the Wolverines. "Peggy came to see me play and said, 'We really want you to come out for the team,"' Collias said. "By that time, I enjoyed playing again. I had a really good tournament, and I really wanted to play again. So, I came out for the team. I'm so glad I did because it's been a great experience." Collias turned her walk-on status into a scholarship after two years of play for the Wolverines. And after a junior season and a tough spring training session, Collias has turned herself into a top-notch all-around player. "She's a great digger - a great defensive player," Giovanazzi said. "She's a very good attacker. For somebody 5-foot-9, she's very effective hitting outside. She's difficult to stop because she has the quickness to get to a lot of different sets. She's got an excellent serve, and she's a good blocker. There's no weakness in her game." Collias spent a lot of time this spring working on becoming a better, more consistent outside hitter. She credits Giovanazzi for showing her how to be a smarter hitter. "I've never had a coach like Greg," Collias said. "Most of my coaches have told me to put the ball away, be aggressive and just swing at anything you could hit. A lot of times you can't do that. Greg taught me that you need to be a smarter player rather than just a power player. I need to be more 'cagey,' as he puts it." Not only is Collias' physical game solid, but so is her mental game. Her teammates can count on her to make smart choices as well as to keep communication going on around the court. "She's really intense," teammate Erica Badran-Grycan said. "She definitely goes after it and gets key plays for us when we really need them. She's really improved her shots and how smart she plays even from last year. She's the best all- around player on the team." "She's great because she talks a lot," Scherer said. "She's a really good communicator. So as a setter, it's neat because she tells me what types of things are going on with her. She's made some huge strides (since last year). She's become a real good role model for the team, especially the younger players." More importantly from her own standpoint, Collias has maintained a high level of play in every facet of her game. "I've become more consistent as a hitter and an all-around player," Collias said. "My defense has usually been pretty consistent. Offensively, this year I've become more of an outlet player. The team can count on me more to put the ball down." Scherer sees this as the one thing that has made Collias so difficult for opponents to defend. "JoAnna has been putting any ball I set up there for her down," Scherer said. "She's not just keeping it in the court but she's using effective kills. She has become so much more consistent passing. She's mixing up her shots a lot, which has been really tough for the other teams to play against her." All of this improvement has allowed Collias to take over a leadership role on the team. As a senior, she has shown the type of leadership expected out of an upperclass athlete. She has been a leader by example. "JoAnna has stepped into the leadership role," Giovanazzi said. "I think she is the most solid starter on our team right now. She's the one that is hitting a lot of bals, passing a lot of balls, digging all the balls.. I don't know if anybody else is contributing that much. "You tend to see the gh0'ses of the hope you had fcr a pa yr come through in their senior years. I'm seeing things in JoAnna on a consistent basis that I had hoped I would. Somehow, my vision of JoAnna has become her vision of JoAnna as a player. She's now a leader by example." Collias sees her leadership role as part of the natural maturation process within a colle ge team. However, her duties have been even more pronounced due to ky injuries to two outside hitters, senior Michelle Horrigan and junior Aimee Smith. "Being here for three years makes the senior class want it more as a whole than the freshmen coming in," Collias said. "You need to lead by example. It's been hard because we've had a lot of injuries, but I think it's helped me to come into my own. It made me realize that I needed to take more responsibility on my shoulders than I would have had they been healthy." Collias' role as a volleyball player will soon be over, However, the walk-on who came to Michigan for the education will graduate with a degree in English. After that, she doesn't know what she will pursue, but she knows the experiences she has had at Michigan will help her. "After I'm done with school, I'm not exactly sure what I want to go into, but I know it's going to have to do with people," Collias said. "I've really enjoyed meeting a lot of different people, and I've learned so much. The competition pushes you harder as a student. It's such a diverse place that it's really opened me up. I've really enjoyed learning from different people." There is no question that Collias is an outstanding volleyball player. Soon, she will write her name at the top of the school's record book as the all-time digs leader. So, the only real question left is if JoAnna will sing the "Star- Spangled Banner" on senior night. MEN'S CROSS COUNTRY* ariers name Big Ten championship runners By BARRY SOLLENBERGER DAILY SPORTS WRITER The team is finally set. Friday at Eastern Michigan, the No. 17 Michigan men's cross country team found a number nine runner to fill out its squad for the Big Ten Championships next Saturday in East Lansing. Each conference team is allowed to race nine runners at the Big Tens and the Wolverines had eight of their nine set before Friday. A redshirt freshman filled the void. Ryan Burt came to the forefront and ran really well and will be our ninth guy running in the Big Tens," Michigan coach Ron Warhurst said. Burt was Michigan's top finisher at the meet, finishing eighth overall in the eight- kilometer race with a time of 25:33. The race featured 120 amateur runners from around the state in an open format. No individual team scores were kept. Burt's finish was only three sec- onds slower than the time that won the Michigan Interregional a week ago, but Warhurst said Eastern Michigan's course was much easier to run on compared to the University Golf Course where the Interregional was held. "The course (at Eastern) wasn't as sloppy and as hilly as ours," Warhurst said. "Obviously, their course is a little different from ours. Our course is a really tough course." With the regular season behind them, the Wolverines can now look ahead to next week's Big Ten Cham- pionships. Michigan will need solid perfor- mances from all of its runners if it is to win the conference championshipnext Saturday. "We're probably going to be ranked third (in the conference, be- hind Wisconsin and Penn State) go- ing into the meet," Warhurst said. - I THE PRINCETON REVIEW- THE PRINCETON REVIEW THE PRINCETON REVIEW we Sco MorW We $core Mo We $co Mfoe 01 INTHE ARMY, NURSES AREN'T JUST IN DEMAND. ;. I