The Michigan Daily - Friday, September 27, 1996 -13 Newcomers give iM' harriers a kick 4: Blue women's golf looking for some consistency By ChrisFarah - Daily Sports Writer 0 The Michigan women's cross- country team faces the toughest challenge to its relatively inexperi- enced front-line tomorrow at the 4Miami (Ohio) Fall Classic Invitational. The Wolverines are the favorites entering the meet but will have to deal with Mid-American Conference powerhouse Bowling Green, which qualified for the 1995 NCAA Enational championships. The Wolverines will also race against the host team, Miami, which has made major strides since last year. The Invitational will provide a glimpse of what the Wolverines can expect from the Big Ten confer- TOmo ence race. Indiana and Who: The Ohio State will also run women's this weekend. try team Michigan head coach Where: Th Mike McGuire remains (Ohio) Fall confident in his team. But lnvitationa he realizes that facing Ohio better opponents will require more focus and effort from the Wolverines, who have virtually breezed through their competition in their first two meets. "With 12 schools in there, there's always top individuals from respec- tive teams that'll impact the front of the race," McGuire said. "And so we're focused on the fact that there will be potentially more people there to split us up. We want to work on racing hard together, run- ning hard and realizing that there's going to be a half-dozen to 10 ath- letes that are going to impact the front of the race outside of our team. k Whereas last week, there were only two or three athletes that did that." Senior Jennifer Barber and sopho- rr M c rc e aC more Katie McGregor have provided leadership for the Wolverines thus far. However, they rely heavily on four newcomers - two true freshmen, Elizabeth Kampfe and Nell Shieldsand, and two redshirt fresh- men, Allison Noe and Marcy Akard. "Our freshmen and redshirt fresh- men make up an integral part of the team," McGuire said. "But Barber has been through the wars here for four years, and so she adds a wealth of experience and leadership into the fray." The Wolverines gained extra expe- rience in victories at the Michigan State dual meet and the Kansas Jayhawk Invitational. McGuire is certain that the younger runners OW on the team are ready to ichigan prove once again that )ss-coun- they possess a maturity beyond their years. Miami "I don't see any prob- lassic lem at all," McGuire Oxford, said. "Our redshirt freshmen have been exposed to competition, and the two true freshmen that we're running are still making a bit of an adjustment. "In high school they ran two miles (instead of three at the college level), but they're handling themselves pretty well." McGuire is looking for improve- ment this weekend from Shields and McGregor in particular, who have both had impressive practices recently. "Obviously, I think everyone would like to be the No.i runner," McGuire said. "They're all talented runners, and they're doing well because they have other good people that they're work- ing with, so there's some competi- Teichert said. "We are going to try to be consistent and improve on our averages:' Consistency is a must in golf, as the young Wolverines found out at East Lansing. The Wolverines were doomed last weekend Tomorr Who: The M women's go Where: TheI Badger mnvit Madison By J.J. Serapiglia For the Daily The Michigan women's golf team travels to Madison this weekend to com- pete in the Lady Badger Invitational. After erratic play and a disappoint- ing ninth-place finish in the Lady Northern Invitational in East Lansing last weekend, the Wolverines look to redeem themselves and better their scores. "We are going in (to the tournament) with the attitude of trying to play a lot better golf," Michigan coach Kathy The Lady Badger Invitational will be the third tournament the Wolverines have competed in this year. They fin- ished in fifth place in their first tourna- ment and ninth in last weekend's invita- tional. "There is a lot of parity in the Big Ten," Teichert said after last weekend's tournament. "It is a lot closer than you think. If you start playing well and get the ball rolling quicker, then things will start to happen." This weekend's tournament will fea- ture some familiar foes for the Wolverines. Eastern Michigan, Michigan rOW State, Illinois, Minnesota, ichigan Iowa, Iowa State, If team Northern Illinois, Purdue Lady and Wisconsin will all ational, compete in the par-72, invitational. The schedule for the tournament features practices today, 36 holes of golf tomorrow and 18 holes Sunday. The Lady Badger Invitational is dif- ferent from other tournaments in that only five players from each school are allowed to compete. Only the four lowest scores count. In other tournaments, teams are allowed to bring six players, and count the five low- est scores. The Lady Badger will be a preview of future things to come. The University Ridge Golf Course will be the host for the NCAA women's golf championship in 1998. After this weekend, the Wolverines have only one more tournament left before the winter months. Things will pick up again in the springtime, when the Wolverines participate in seven more tournaments. FILE PHOTO/Daily A young Michigan women's cross-country team will be tested by tough competi- tion at the Miami (Ohio) Fall Classic Invitational tommorow. Two true freshman and two redshirt freshman are expected to be key members of the squad. The Wolverines will also get a look at conference rivals Ohio State and Indiana. because of their up-and-down play. On the first day of the tournament, the Wolverines shot an average score of 80. On the second day, that average improved to 77.75, and on the last day, Michigan's average fell to 82. "On the first day, Sharon (Park), Wendy (Westfall) and Ashley (Williams) played well," Teichert said. "On the sec- ond day, Ashley and Wendy did not play well and on the last day, Sarah (Lindholm) was the only player under 80." The Wolverines will only become competitive if each player plays a solid round each day. The Wolverines, because of their youth, are learning this, via their on-the-job training. "We had some players that were going to get more experience (this year)," Teichert said. "We wanted to become more competitive." tiveness there, but it's still a team sport." McGuire said he has been more than satisfied with his team's perfor- mance thus far. He expects the Wolverines' suc- cess to continue at the Miami meet, despite the added competition from both the MAC and the Big Ten. "They're tough kids and good competitors, ... (but) we're not expecting them to set the world on fire," McGuire said. "We're expecting them to con- tribute, to improve and to run tough, and they've done all those things." Swan stays home, will not play in Baltimore By Jordan Field For the Daily Amidst a busy fall season of team practice and individual tournaments, Michigan tennis coach Brian Eisner chose not to send junior Arvid Swan to Baltimore to compete in the National Clay Court Championship. The tournament, which begins today, is one of the season's four national tour- naments and is the only one played on a clay surface. It is the only clay-court competition the Wolverines would have played in this year. "The main objective of the fall sea- son is to prepare for the spring season,' Eisner said. "All of our regular season matches, as well as all of our team prac- tices, are held on hard-court surfaces. We made the decision for Arvid not to compete in the tournament because we didn't feel it would be a valuable expe- spend the week in Baltimore qualify- ing for the tournament before he could have begun rience for him." The tourna- ment is struc- tured so that the top two players in each region qualify automatically, Eisner said. All other com- petitors, aside from the top two in each region, had to begin qualify- ing earlier this week. 1I'm better off staying here.. and using this week for practice. ' - Arvid Swan Michigan tennis player tournament play today. Eisner did not want Swan to miss a week of class or subject him to a change in court surfaces. "It's always an honor to play in a national tourna- ment such as this one," Eisner said. didn't want to put him through some- thing like that." Swan agreed with Eisner's deci- sion. "I have projects due in my classes this week, and missing those would not be a good idea," Swan said. "I'm better off staying here, getting my work done and using this week for practice." Swan and the rest of the Wolverines will use this week to prepare for the Tar Heel Invitational, which begins Oct. 4. "Not going (to the clay tournament) was the best decision, especially with the fact that we have the Tar Heel Invitational on hard courts next week," Eisner said. "Had (Swan) gone, it just would have meant that he would have had to change gears again to get adjust- ed to hard courts." The Michigan hockey team won the national title. But that's in the past. What will happen now? Could it happen again? Read the first-ever Faceoff section to find out. Coming Oct 14 only in The Michigan Daily "Arvid certainly would have played if he had automatically placed in the main draw, but he didn't, and it isn't fair for him to miss that much class. I Swan is ranked third in Region IV, meaning that he would have had to I .Seminoles, Tar Heels face off TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - Florida State coach Bobby Bowden hasn't been in many low-scoring }ames. That might change tomorrow. The No. 2 Seminoles (2-0) meet No. I1 North Carolina in a game showcas- ing teams ranked 1-2 nationally in total 1 defense. North Carolina (3-0) also ranks first in scoring defense and turnover margin. "Right now our guys are playing with a lot of confidence, a solid, mature confidence," said Carl Torbish, defen- sive coordinator at North Carolina. And that's not music to the ears of Florida State's Thad Busby, who will be making the third and most important start of his career. North Carolina claims the ACC's best set of linebackers and top pair of cor- nerbacks in Dre' Bly and Robert Williams, who have already combined to break up nine passes. Bly, a redshirt freshman, has four interceptions - three in last week's 16- 0 victory over Georgia Tech, Linebackers Kivuusama Mays and Brian Simmons lead the team with 27 tackles apiece and hard-hitting junior safety Omar Brown has 20. "We're going to have our work cut out for us," said Florida State wide receiver Andre Cooper. "Their line- backers do everything (and) their defensive backs get to the ball and -make plays." The Tar Heels, riding a six-game '- -wnin treak- alreadv have two uations, we can make them play our game," said Florida State linebacker Henri Crockett, the team's third leading tackler with 16 stops in two games. North Carolina State coach Mike O'Cain watched the Seminoles do just that a week ago when they buried his team, 51-17. "Their scheme has changed," O'Cain said. "That scheme with their talent makes them very, very difficult to do anything against." In wins over Duke and O'Cain's Wolfpack, Florida State has allowed an average of only 143.5 yards a game, and just 42 yards rushing. POLO' RALPH LAUREN p 3 Yti Avw . j "ao9 IF I The University of Michigan School of Music Tuesday, October 1 University Symphony Orchestra Kenneth Kiesler, conductor . Beethoven: Overture to The Consecration of the House, op. 124 . Mahler: Symphony No. I Hill Auditorium, 8 p.m. Friday, October 4 Symphony Band & Concert Band 14 Ror~it Re Pvnol-,irKevin Scdtic' TTrnothv McAllitr. da ii A. d I