The Michigan Daily - SPORTSMonday - November 11, 1996 - 9B ady Lions oust Blue stickers from tourney By Richard Shin In the net, Michigan goalkeeper Amy Daily Sports Writer Helber stopped seven shots, while At the Big Ten field hockey touma- Jamie Smith stopped 10 shots for Penn p ment in Evanston on Friday, the State. '::Michigan field hockey team attempted Penn State has been nearly unstop- cool off a Penn State team that is on pable in the past three weeks, winning ire. its three matches entering the tourna- Instead, the sixth-seeded Wolverines ment. Two Lions captured Big Ten got burned. Player of the Week honors for the week In front of 106 fans, the third-seeded ending Nov. 3. Lady Lions struck for four first-half On offense, McGuire captured the goals, defeating the Wolverines, 4-1, to honor, while on defense, Smith won on oust them and advance to the second the strength of back-to-back shutouts round in the conference tourney. against Pennsylvania and second-seed- Penn State attacker and Big Ten ed Ohio State and a 210-minute score- Offensive Player of the Year Tara less streak. eGuire lit the fuse for the Lions, net- In the game against Michigan, Smith 1Vig the first goal of the game with 20 recorded a.909 save percentage but had minutes left in the first half. Michigan her scoreless streak broken against quickly answered with a goal 34 sec- Michigan in the first half when onds later by Michigan senior attacker Smulders scored. Michelle Smulders. "The team that peaks during tourna- The Lions then exploded for three ment time has the best chance to win unanswered goals in just over 10 min- the tournament," Flachs said. "Penn utes to take a lead they would not relin- State is definitely peaking." quish. The Wolverines lost to the Lions for Smulders scored her team-leading the third time this season and the fifth 7th goal of the season against Penn time in the last two years. In the nine tate. Smulders' goal was assisted by matches between the schools, Penn junior midfielder Julie Flachs, who is State has won eight. second on the Wolverines in scoring. In The Wolverines suffered from a lack the past four matches, Smulders has of consistency on offense against the accounted for four of Michigan's six Lions which has plagued them all sea- ;goals and has scored in 11 of the son and could not take advantage of the Wolverines' last 12 games. scoring opportunities in the first half. In The Wolverines were outshot by the the second half, much of the game was Lions, 14-11, but held the edge on played near midfield, Flachs said. penalty corners. Although the "That's been a problem," Flachs said. Wolverines led by a 9-4 margin, they "We usually outstat the other team, but Wre unable to capitalize, we just can't score.' "We played very well, and at times, The loss drops the Wolverines out of we dominated (Penn State)," Flachs the Big Ten tournament, while Penn said. "We had the same opportunities as State advances to the second round to them, but we couldn't score." face Ohio State. Michigan was unable to score in the Overall, the Wolverines finished the second half and could only muster three season in sixth place in the BigTen at 2- shots in the entire period. Penn State 9 and finished 7-11 overall. Penn State could not match its first half output, improves to 7-4 in the conference and coming up empty on four attempts. 12-8 overall. JONATHAN SUMMER/Daily The Michigan women's swimming team overcame No.10 Tennessee in what turned out to be the closest dual meet for Michigan this season. Michigan's Wendy Gendler, competing in the 200 butterfly, helped the third-ranked Wolverines come away with a victory. Fatigued women taker's inch past Vols By Nancy Bter Daily Sports Writer If the Michigan women's swimming team felt any sort of exhaustion after one of its hardest and most intense weeks of practice this year, the Wolverines did an excellent job of concealing it against Tennessee last weekend. Running on almost empty, No. 3 Michigan (3-0 overall, 2-0 Big Ten) won 11 of the 13 swimming events as it motored its way to a 160-140 victory over No. 10 Tennessee (2-2). "We knew that we would be right on edge, and that is what you try to do this time of year," Michigan coach Jim Richardson said. "You try to swim as close to your fatigue edge as you can without crashing. In most cases we got at least two good races out of people before they really cashed it in." Junior Talor Bendel appeared to have a made a pit-stop prior to the meet to refuel her engine as the All-American swam two of the most impressive perfor- mances of the meet. Bendel held off freshman teammate Shannon Shakespeare in the 200-yard freestyle as she touched the wall in 1:49.64, just over three hundredths of a second ahead of Shakespeare. Bendel won her second event in a race that she rarely swims, the 500 freestyle. Richardson occasionally puts Bendel, who is a sprint freestyle specialist, in the distance event to help in her conditioning for the 200. In one of the closest and most exciting races of the meet, Bendel upset Tennessee's Leslie Mix and Sarah Nichols, two of the top distance freestylers in the country. The competition in the 500 free was so tight and fast that just two seconds separated Bendel from the fourth-place finisher. "That was an exceptional 500 race, because your top five people were under five minutes, and the sixth person was five minutes and some change," Richardson said. "That was a great 500 race." The Volunteers won their first of three races on the night as Nichols won the 1650 freestyle in 16:32.94, more than seven seconds ahead of Hale. Hale fell behind the two Volunteers in the first 600 yards of the race as Nichols swam out to an early lead and distanced herself from the rest of the field. While Nichols continued to swim at a solid pace, Hale began to make her move at the 900-yard mark and took over second place from Mix. Hale continued to lengthen her lead as she finished in sec- ond by more than eight seconds over Mix. "It was a great swim,' Richardson said. "(Nichols) made the move in the first 600 and then the rest of the race was even. I was real pleased with Kern and Leslie Mix too. Leslie was an NCAA champion two years ago and had shot4- der surgery a year ago, and Leslie is coming back very nicely." Michigan took care of the rest of the freestyle events, with Shakespeare tak- ing the 100 and junior Kim Johnson sprinting to a first in the 50. Senior Jodi Navta dominated the 100 and 200 breaststrokes as she qualified for NCAAs in both events. In the backstroke, junior Linda Riker hung on for first in the 100 while senior Anne Kampfe easily won the 200 in 2:02.04. The events that Tennessee dominated weren't even in the swimming portion. The Volunteers swept both the one- and three-meter diving competitions to make it the closest dual meet Michigan has had this season. Led by Olympians, M' men drown Eastern Michigan for 20th consecutive time By B.J. Luria and Chad Kujala Daily Sports Writers Although it wasn't the Olympics, the Olympians on the Michigan men's swimming and diving team performed much like they did over the summer, helping the Wolverines defeat Eastern Michigan in their first meet Saturday. Michigan, which triumphed by a score of 125-87, has now won all 20 meetings between the two teams, in a series dating back to 1971. The Eagles are 2-1 on the season. The Wolverines were paced by Olympians Ryan Papa and Derya Buyukuncu, who won two events apiece. Papa won the 100-yard back- stroke (51.21) and the 50 freestyle (21.50) while Buyukuncu won the 100 butterfly (49.34) and the 100 free (45.83). Sophomore Tom Malchow, who brought home a silver medal from the Atlanta Games, won the 400 individual medley (4:00.76), finishing 10 seconds ahead of the second-place swimmer. Malchow also won the 200 fly (1:48.57). In the first meet of the season, the younger Wolverines were looking to gain experience. Freshman Mike McWha, who won the 200 (1:44.37), noted the importance of the Olympic swimmers. "All those Olympians on the team is something to look up to," McWha said. "They are soft spoken but lead by example. It inspires everyone to swim better." Several other freshmen had success- ful collegiate debuts to help the Wolverines. Diver Josh Trexler won the one-meter springboard event, post- ing a score of 281.03, just ahead of teammate Brett Wilmot, who scored 280.50. Other winners included freshmen Francisco Suriano Siu, who won the 100 (58.61), and Scott Meyer, who won the 200 breaststroke (2:11.47). The accomplishments of the younger swimmers may become even more important with the possible loss of junior All-American Jason Lancaster. Lancaster may be forced to undergo shoulder surgery to repair an injury that plagued him throughout the 1995- 96 collegiate season and the U.S. Olympic team trials. The opening meet of the year was a momentous occasion for all the first year swimmers. "It was different than any other event I have swam in before," Meyer said. "It's such a great university with a sto- ried tradition." McWha echoed his teammates senti- ments. "It was pretty cool,"he said. "I got to represent Michigan." Although Eastern Michigan is not a swimming power, Michigan's victory was important nonetheless. "It was a good measuring stick to see how to prepare for the next meet," Trexler said. The Wolverines will face tougher competition Nov. 22-23 when Texas comes to Ann Arbor. The Longhorns are the defending NCAA champions and should provide the Wolverines with some tough early season competition. You to would create like dr ps F A% rl Mo - . . . cr 1 -7 El E~f~ - - l fIV~~I VIIUJ~lU~~~~iIItItUl OUTS l IIf'1Tle VVU fVU