12- The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, February 26, 1997
No spring break trip
for men's track team
By'Chad Kujala
Daily Sports Writer
With spring break approaching, many
students will be leaving behind skid
marks on their way out of town. While
basking in the glorious sun on the sandy
beaches of Florida, don't expect to bump
into anyone from the Michigan men's
track team.
That's because the Wolverines will be
in Ann Arbor, hosting the Silverston
Invitational on Saturday. The following
weekend, some Wolverines will compete
in Indianapolis at the NCAA champi-
onship on March 7-8.
The indoor season started with a goal
- finishing high at the Big Ten champi-
onship. The result: a middle-of-the-pack
fifth-place finish.
"Everyone ran well, we just didn't
have enough depth," Michigan coach
Jack Harvey said. "We left 30 points
home with (Kevin) Sullivan and (John)
Mortimer."
Sullivan sat out the entire indoor
season, while Mortimer was red-shirt-
ed halfway through the season due to
pneumonia.
With the 1997 Big Ten championship
already history, the concentration for the
remainder of the indoor season clearly
lies on the NCAAs.
This weekend's invitational is the last
chance for individuals to qualify for
nationals.
The likes of Notre Dame, Illinois and
Eastern Michigan will also be bringing
their best efforts to try to qualify for
NCAAs. There will also be some small-
er schools desperately attempting to
achieve the same goal.
"This weekend serves as a 'last-
chance meet' for guys to try and qualify
for nationals," Harvey said.
As for the Wolverines, they will be
doing their best to qualify the distance
medley team. The team of Jeff Beuche,
Jeff Wood, Jay Cantin and Don
McLaughlin finished second last week-
end at Big Tens. They still need to shave
a couple of seconds to receive a provi-
sional qualifying spot for nationals.
"We're going to go after distance
medley this weekend," Harvey said. "If
we run fast enough, I expect we'll have
them at nationals."
But nothing is automatic yet. Neil
Gardner has received a provisional spot
in the 55-meter hurdles along with
McLaughlin and Scott MacDonald in
the mile. The distance medley team has
not qualified, but it is close to doing so.
Although Gardner, McLaughlin and
MacDonald have only received provi-
sional spots, Harvey expects that they
will make the trip to Indianapolis.
"Nobody's in for sure, but probably
Gardner will make it in the hurdles and
McLaughlin and MacDonald in the
mile' Harvey said. "If we run fast
enough, I think the medley team will be
in too:'
lason MacDonald
and the Michigan
men's gymnastic
team travel to
Califomia on
Saturday to face a
piethora of oppo-
nents at the Gold
Challenge
MARGARET MYERS/Daily
M men tumblers aim for Gold
N ETTERS
Continued from Page 10
are expecting strong performances
from is junior Brook Blain. Having
gotten off to the best start on the team
(3-0), Blain won his 50th career match
in Michigan's last outing against
Middle Tennessee State and will try to
add to his win total.
Co-captain David Paradzik, the
Wolverines' No. 1 singles player, will
enter the weekend with a 2-1 record,
and his 14 wins on the year land him
one shy of 60 for his career. He, along
with sophomore William Farah, is also
part of the only doubles team to have
won a match at the O'Charley's tourna-
ment.
Farah has been getting it done on
his own as well. The sophomore is
currently third on the team with his
12-8 record, and has an amazing 36
wins in only two seasons with the
Wolverines.
The top-ranked singles player on the
team is currently junior Arvid Swan.
He is tenth in the region and he teamed
up with Blain to receive the ninth rank-
ing in doubles. Other ranked
Wolverines in the region are Paradzik
(No. 15) and freshman Matt Wright
(No. 21).
After they finish up with Virginia,
the Wolverines get pretty lucky -
depending on how you look at it.A
Rather than staying on the frozen tun-
dra of Michigan, they get to spend
some of their spring break in Arizona.
On the down side, one of their oppo-
nents - Arizona - is ranked No. 17.
The Wolverines start off by facing
Arizona State on Wednesday, then go
on to face the Wildcats on Friday.
Michigan has pulled off two victo-
ries in three tries against Arizona State
in the brief series, but the Wolverines
haven't fared as well against Arizona.
The Wolverines are only 1-3 against the
Wildcats.
With only one tournament between
their trip to Arizona and the start of
their Big Ten schedule, the Wolverines
are hoping that the extensive lay-off
was enough to get them ready for the
tough stretch to come.
By Ginger L Zabel
For the Daily
The Michigan men's gymnastics
team will be traveling to California
over spring break in the hopes of stir-
ring up an earthquake - Michigan
style. The 16th-ranked Wolverines
plan to shake up some teams this
Saturday in Santa Barbara, where
they will meet California, UCLA, San
Jose State, Illinois, Oklahoma,
Stanford, Arizona State, and Santa
Barbara in the Gold Challenge
Invitational.
This past weekend's loss to Illinois-
Chicago by a slim 0.15 points will only
be an incentive for the Wolverines to
reach for bigger and better things in the
coming week.
In addition to improving their team
score and hit percentage to 80 percent,
the Wolverines hope to get past three or
four of the eight teams there.
"We should end up somewhere in the
middle of the pack," Michigan coach
Kurt Golder said.
But for the coach and individual ath-
letes, team improvement is more
important than wins and losses at this
point.
Freshman Jose "LaLo" Haro will be
entering this week's competition ranked
seventh nationally in the parallel bars
and 20th in the all-around, yet the team
takes priority when he considers the
upcoming competition.
"I have my personal goals, but the
team goals go first," Haro said. "We're
trying to improve our scores."
After Sunday's score of 221.2 against
Illinois-Chicago, the team has had to
raise those goals.
"We're shooting for 225 by the end of
the year, and we're on track to do that,"
Golder said.
Another athlete prepared to help
Michigan achieve its goal is junior Tim
DeGraw. He is currently the highest
ranked athlete on the team - at No.4
nationally - in the floor exercise with
a 9.80.
The Wolverines will be leaving
Friday to arrive in Santa Barbara on
Saturday for the Invitational. For the
first half of the following week the
team will train at Santa Barbara's facil-
ities, and then it will move on to
California to train for the second half of
the week. The Wolverines will compete
there on March 7.
m
NCAAs
Continued from Page 11
even reaching the finals. In the 1996 out-
door NCAAs, the streak of disappoint-
ment continued, as she again failed to
qualify for the finals in the high jump.
According to Forrester, this year is
going to be different.
"(My second-place finish) should
actually help" Forrester said. "I know
what to look for and what kind of bugs to
figure out. I've been around the first
time, so the second time should be much
easier.
"This whole season, I've been a lot dif-
ferent from last season -- I had a lot of
pressure to qualify for nationals, and I
wanted to prove myself. I didn't have that
this year - I'm a lot more confident."
The fates of other Wolverines are even
less certain than Forrester's.
Junior Tania Longe has provisional
spots in the long jump, the triple jump
and the 55-meter hurdles, but her perfor-
mances may not be good enough to beat
out others who have also qualified provi-
sionally.
Other Michigan athletes who share
Longe's unstable provisional status are
freshman Maria Brown in the 55 and 200
dashes, sophomore Marcy Akard in the
5,000 and sophomore Katie McGregor in
the mile.
Another distance runner, freshman
Lisa Ouellet, is also in limbo in the 800,
in which she has a season's best of
2:09.47. Ouellet was hoping to improve
her standings at Big Tens with a better
time, but sickness relegated her to sixth
place.
Ouellet definitely plans on making the
trip to Indianapolis, though - and not as
a spectator.
"I'm on the bubble of getting in,'
Ouellet said. "I'll try to get in a good time
(this) weekend. Hopefully I'll be feeling
ten times better than I feel now. I know
I'm ready for it, it's just a matter of doing
it. It wasn't meant to be (at Big Tens), so
hopefully it will happen (this) weekend."
Read
"
Sollenberger in
Paradise,
Or in lecture.
*
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