Men knock off Iowa, denied by Minnesota The Michigan Daily - SPORTSMonday - Monday, April 4, 1994 - 3 KEN SUGIURA Close But No Sugiura By JENNIFER DUBERSTEIN DAILY SPORTS WRITER The Michigan men's tennis team missed seeing the Diag crowd on Hash Bash, and it didn't go home to its families for Easter Sunday. Instead, the Wolverines opened their Big Ten season this weekend against Minnesota and Iowa at the Liberty Sports Complex in Ann Ar- bor, coming away with varied suc- cess. They dropped a 5-2 decision to the No.26 Golden Gophers Saturday. The match was close with the outcome com- ing down to the final two singles matches. Yesterday, Michigan came back to beat the Hawkeyes, 4-3. Despite losing to Minnesota, the two-time defending Big Ten champs, Michigan still believes that it can beat the Gophers at the conference champi- onships, which will be played in Min- neapolis. "We have a really good shot of taking them out," Michigan's fresh- man Andy Yani said. "They are beatable. We proved to other teams and ourselves that we are a strong con- ANASTASIA BANICKI/Daily Michigan's No. 1 singles player, Dan Brakus, who is ranked 28th nationally, knocked off Minnesota's top player, Paul Pridmore, Saturday. tender for the Big Ten champion- ship." The Gophers extended their streak to 31 straight Big Ten dual meet vic- tories. Although senior Dan Brakus felt ill, he still beat Paul Pridmore, Minnesota's No. I singles player. As of last week, Brakus is ranked 28th in the nation, while Pridmore is 51st. "I played pretty well in the big points," Brakus said. "I played very solid. I played a lot better as the match went on." The Wolverines spent yesterday preying on the Hawkeyes. The Iowa victory helped provide Michigan with some confidence. "It's starting to come together," sophomore John Costanzo said. "Physi- cally, we're the most talented team in the Big Ten. Against Minnesota, we didn't win mentally." The Wolverines have had plenty of time to prepare for their conference dual meet season. Michigan had a three- week break between its match against Eastern Michigan and its Big Ten opener. "(The layoff) was tough on the team," Yani said. "It was tough on us to go' out and play (the No. 1 team in the Big Ten)." Individually, the players thought that the hiatus helped them. "I needed it," Brakus said. "I needed to work on some things like my serve." "I think (the break) helped me, be- cause our team has been playing very well," added Costanzo, who had been injured earlier this year. "It gave me a chance to get my form back and not really worry about losing." Costanzo also said that the break made the team focus on April as the most important part of the season. "April is when it all happens," Costanzo said. If the Wolverines can keep playing well, they have an opportunity to make things happen. The team hosts two more Big Ten matches this week, against Michigan State and Penn State. Lake State takes title over BU, 9-1 ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - This time, Lake Superior State didn't need overtime. The Lakers won their second NCAA hockey title in three seasons, scoring during three straight second- period power plays to break open a close game Saturday and rout Boston University, 9-1. LakeSuperior(31-10-4), which also won the 1992 championship, had gone into overtime 13 times this season, in- cluding its first three tournament games. But the Lakers made sure they *wouldn't need overtime this time. They scored five second-period goals and recorded the most lopsided cham- pionship victory since Denver beat St. Lawrence, 12-2, in 1961. "We haven't had many games like that, especially in the playoffs," said Blaine Lacher, who made 24 saves and finished the season with a nation- leading 1.98 goals-against average. "We've been in a lot of tight games," Lacher said. "So I was say- ing all along, 'I keep losing my hair in these overtime games, I keep finding it in my helmet. A 4-1, 5-1 game would just be great for my nerves."' And a 9-1 game was all the better. "It was disappointing when we lost last year," said Sean Tallaire, who scored twice and was named tournament MVP. "It's a good feel- ing that we won because now I feel like I'm not a loser any more." The margin of victory still wasn't enough to calm Lakers coach Jeff Jackson. "I'm chewing on Tums," he said as he sat down for the postgame news conference. "As people might notice, I don't show much emotion on the exterior. But my interior is a mess." He said that before the game, he told a Lake Superior State adminis- trator: "I love these kids. There's only one thing I want - championship or no championship, I don't want to see those kids in the locker room crying." He got his wish. All the tears were shed by the Terriers (32-8-1), who are still seeking their fourth title and had their 12-game winning streak snapped. Rob Valicevic also scored twice and Gerald Tallaire added four assists for Lake Superior, which finished the season with a 14-1-2 run to win the third title in school history. Target has changed, but Pelinka's aim still true The sun, painfully shy the past few months, was making an appearance in Ann Arbor Friday of last week, and it was receiving a welcome normally reserved for astronauts and heads of state. The Diag overflowed with students bathing gratefully in its warmth, catching up on the past with this old friend. Seated on a bench a few steps away, first-year law school student Rob Pelinka was looking back, too. The brilliant light he reflected on was not the sun, but his days as a Michigan basketball player. His memory wandered back to the final basketball game he played for Michigan, in particular the game's climactic play, when his teammate Chris Webber dribbled into a corner and, well, you probably know the rest. "I was standing on the spot where Michael Jordan had hit a jump shot on the baseline of the Superdome, where Keith Smart had hit his," he says, referring to the corner of the floor where both players had hit championship-winning shots. "And I was standing on that spot that they'd been showing on ESPN and CBS, saying, 'This is the spot, something's gonna happen this year again for the third time in a row.' I was thinking I was gonna get the ball." More than reliving games, though, Pelinka, as befits a law student, says he has been thinking deeply about the game and the time he spent playing it. "It's been something that I didn't expect," he says. "I just thought I would cut the strings to the past and be able to go on. I think it's something that every athlete faces, having to make that transition." As if to provide evidence of this struggle, Pelinka was wearing a Michigan Law School sweatshirt under his varsity letter jacket. "Last year's Final Four seems like it happened yesterday, especially because right now, it's March Madness," he says. It is interesting that he thinks the time has passed so quickly. It is interesting because in the 365 days that have passed since last year's championship, he has traveled a long and rich journey. One would figure that last year's championship would seem like decades ago to Pelinka, not days. "It was definitely the most fulfilling four months of my entire life," he says of his summer of 1993. Last summer was a good time to be Rob Pelinka. He had just completed a season as a valuable sixth man to the Fab Five, having played extensively in the tournament run. He had just earned his bachelor's degree in business education with a 3.92 GPA and had been awarded the Big Ten's Medal of Honor. He had been accepted to a host of top law schools, including Michigan. The Orlando Magic and the Los Angeles Lakers, among others, wanted to give him a shot at making their rosters, and right behind them were teams in Europe and even Japan. The possibilities of working on Wall Street looked promising as well, as did the chance to politic in Washington. Strike while the iron is hot? You needed SPF 15 if you wanted to get near this metal. About the only people who didn't want a piece of Pelinka were the student-athletes he had beaten out to receive the NCAA's $10,000 Walter Byers postgraduate scholarship. Come to think of it, those people probably did want a piece of Pelinka. "I knew that I needed to seize the moment and use the opportunity while it was still there," he says. Pelinka reared back, and struck as hard as he could. , He turned his back to the offers, and instead toured the state of Michigan and the entire country, speaking at basketball camps. In his words, he tried "being a positive role model and letting them know what See SUGIURA, Page a Crew teams cruise past Cincinnati to open season By TIM SMITH DAILY SPORTS WRITER Novice crew member Steve Fisher summed it up best when he described the Michigan crew team's perfor- mance Saturday: "We kicked some Cincinnati butt, baby!" The Wolverines opened up their spring season registering convincing wins in the men's and women's nov- ice and varsity races on East Fork Lake in Cincinnati, Ohio. The race gave Michigan the chance to compete on a lake that is noted for its quality. "It was fairly flat and the wind wasn't blowing us around a lot, so it gave us a decent sense of how accu- rate our times were," novice coach Charley Sullivan said. "It's a good course because it's the place where they hold the collegiate national cham- pionships in June." The men's team started out by racing its first and second varsity against the varsity team of Cincinnati in the 2000 K. The Wolverines domi- nated with times of 6:13 and 6:23, compared to Cincinnati's time of 6:28. "You're always a bit nervous about the first race," Sullivan said. "To see that the crews can race with a good deal of maturity this early in the sea- son is very promising." In the most exciting competition of the day, Michigan's third varsity edged the Bearcats' second varsity, 6:33 to 6:35. Michigan's comeback in the last 500 meters was the high- light of the race. The first novice team also came out with an easy victory, defeating Cincinnati's novice team 6:28 to 6:48. The women's varsity team knocked off Cincinnati's varsity, 7:03 to 7:13. The second varsity also competed in the race and narrowly missed beating the Bearcats, finishing with a time of 7:14. In addition Michigan's first nov- ice team gained a victory over the first novice teamof Cincinnati,7:25 to 7:53. "I was very impressed and I thought they did an excellent job," novice women's coach Amy Gragg said. "It was a beautiful day, so we were real excited to get out there and start the season." Because it was the Wolverines' first meet, the regatta was somewhat of a warm-up for the rest of the sea- son. Since most of the meets this year have many teams, the dual meet gave the Wolverines a chance to get out some of the kinks after a winter away from the water, as well as the opportu- nity to start building for the rest of the season. "We were real confident because winter training went really well," club president Ben Jeffers said. "Each race we hope to progress and get faster, because our whole season is geared toward peaking in May." I II3M AI- r Because you can't fit it all in your backpack.. L Iaa h1 Department of Recreational Sports INTRAMURAL SPORTS PROGRAM ATTENTION Saginaw Bay Midland Tuscola County Students This Fall, why don't you take something back to college besides your suit case? Earn extra academic credit this Spring/Summer at Delta College and transfer the credits back to your university this fall. CROSS COUNTRY RUN (3.0 Mile Course) Entry Deadline: Friday 4/8 4:30 p.m. IMSB Main Office Run Date: Saturday 4/9 Run Location: Mitchell/Gallup Starting Time: 9:00 a.m. For Additional Information Contact IMSB 763-3562 ANDVE-"Iu~ SImiii C YOUi LEAVEU 1 E IUniver8ity Tower8 Apartlment 536 S. Forest Ave. 761-268 Here's a sample of the courses we will be offering this Spring & Summer: 1 a Intensive French Courses in North America's French Capital * Small classes - All levels * Communicative approach * Integration into the French-speaking milieu * Exceptional sports facilities * Campus housing or accommodations with francophones * Age 18 or older Accounting Advertising Algebra (4 levels) American Government Analytic Geometry & Calculus Anatomy & Physiology Art History Astronomy Autocad Biology Business Communications Business Law Career Decision Making College Composition Cnmnnter Literacv Computers/Programming Criminal Justice Differential Equations Drafting Economics Geography Geology History Inorganic Chemistry Keyboarding Literature Management Marketing Master Student Medical Terminnonov Microbiology Music Organic Chemistry Philosophy Physical Education Physics Pre-Calculus Psychology Sales Sociology Spanish Speech Statistics Trigonometry i P. I I i