The Michigan Daily - Thursday, April 9, 1998 - 13A

Jiribernik obeys age-

old rule in victory
y Jacob Wheeler die."

V

Men's golf mixes up lineup in
attempt to recover from slump

Daily Sports Wter
It starts at the youngest level of
baseball. Little league coaches
*ross America tell their future
major league pitchers to get ahead of
the hitters. 'Just throw the ball over
the plate and the rest will take care
of itself,' they say. 'Let your infield
do the work.'
That also holds true at every other
level of play - college ball, the+
minor leagues and the big show. If
you throw the first pitch for a strike1
and get ahead in the count, you can
-set up the hitter the rest of the way+
With your out-pitch.
Michigan pitcher Mike Hribernik
has probably heard it hundreds of1
times. And yesterday, he proved how
easy it is to breeze through a game-
when ahead in the count.
Hribernik mowed through thei
Oakland lineup as if he were sleep-i
ing, en route to an 11-0 victory. With
the victory, the senior improved hist
cord to 3-3.1
He threw strikes early and often.t
The first five pitches Hribernik
threw were in the strike zone and he
struck out the first two Oakland bat-
ters to open the game. Hribernik
struck out at least one batter in eacht
inning and tallied a career-high nine1
strikeouts in all.
"Against the smaller schools,l
you've just got to go out and throw1
it," Hribernik said. "I wasn't trying
hit the corners so much - insteadr
was just throwing it down the mid-t

Hribernik got ahead in the count
on the first 10 batters he faced, and
he retired them all. Right fielder
Kyle Simmons - the I11th batter of
the game - broke up the possible
no-hitter with one out in the fourth
inning, squeaking a ground ball by
Michigan shortstop Kevin Quinn.
"We want the pitchers to be throw-
ing a lot of strikes," Michigan coach
Geoff Zahn said. "It's very important
to get the first pitch over. We've had
trouble with that all year."
So it looks like the Little League
coaches were right. Get ahead of the
hitter and control the at-bat - fall
behind him and the hitter's in con-
trol.
Oakland's only hit off Hribernik
-a single by Simmons - must have
motivated the righthander. He fin-
ished stronger than he started, strik-
ing out the last five hitters he faced.
"I just came out, slowed every-
thing down, and went back to the
basics," said Hribernik of his perfor-
mance following the hit.
Hribernik's success in nonconfer-
ence games is nothing new this sea-
son.
He pitched well against Ball State
two weeks ago and won his second
game of the season, 14-6.
Hribernik's. first victory came on
Michigan's spring trip, against Texas
A&M on March 3.
But Hribernik hasn't been as fortu-
nate in Big Ten matchups. He was
roughed up in an 11-8 loss at Illinois

By Rick Harpster
Daily Sports Writer
After a rough start to the spring
season, the Michigan men's golf
team heads for Huntington, W. Va. to
compete in this weekend's Marshall
Invitational.
The Wolverines will be looking to
rebound from consecutive poor out-
ings.
Michigan opened the spring sea-
son two weeks ago by placing 13th in
the 18-team Dr. Pepper
Intercollegiate in Pottsboro, Texas.
The team failed to show signifi-
cant improvement when it finished
12th among the 20 teams in last
weekend's Kentucky Invitational.
Michigan coach Jim Carras said he
looks at this weekend's event as a
chance for redemption.
"We were very disappointed in the
way we played last weekend." Carras
said. "We need to go to Marshall
and perform well to show the other
teams we are not as bad as we have
been playing. It's going to be a
shootout."
The 20-team, 54-hole event in
Huntington this weekend will feature
one of the strongest fields of the sea-
son, with eight Big Ten participants
and many top Mid-American
Conference teams competing.
Minnesota, Ohio State, Kent State,
Toledo and Miami (Ohio) are consid-
ered to be the tournament's favorites
in Huntington.
As he has all season, Mike Harris
will head the Wolverines' lineup this

weekend. Harris, who won two tour-
naments during the fall season, has
posted an average score of 72.68 in
his 22 competitive rounds since
September.
More recently, Harris is fresh off a
fourth-place finish in Kentucky last
weekend, where he carded rounds of
70-76-72.
Keith Hinton will also be joining
Harris in Huntington.
Hinton, who is the only Wolverine
other than Harris to compete in all
eight tournaments this year, is also
coming off a strong performance last
weekend.
His scores of 77-71-73 earned him
a 10th-place finish at the Kentucky
Invitational, the best scores of his
career.
After missing last week's event,
Kevin Vernick returns to the lineup
this weekend. Vernick's absence
from Michigan's lineup was notice-
able in Kentucky.
In seven tournaments this year,
Vernick has posted an average score
of 75.32 in 19 competitive rounds.
While Harris, Hinton and Vernick
combine to give Michigan a solid top
part of the lineup, Carras has strug-
gled in his efforts to find consisten-
cy in the final two spots.
Taking advantage of the good Ann
Arbor weather, Carras held a qualifi-
er on Monday and Tuesday - allow-
ing the entire team battle for the
final two seats on the plane to West
Virginia this weekend.
Ironically, the winners were two

players who have yet to play this
spring.
Scott Hayes, who played in four
tournaments last fall, earned the
right to play this weekend.
Despite brief flashes of brilliance
in the fall, for the most part Hayes
struggled. In his 13 competitive
rounds this year, he has posted an
average score of 78.
Mike Emanuel also emerged from
the qualifier to win a spot in the line-
up this weekend.
Emanuel will be playing in his
first competitive tournament this
year.
But Carras hopes the pressure of
this week's qualifier prepared
Emanuel and Hayes for the challenge
of the Marshall Invitational.
"The qualifiers are as stressful as
tournament play, because every shot
counts," Carras said.
Michigan heads into the Marshall
Invitational in need of a solid perfor-
mance to build confidence and
momentum before the Big Ten
Championship, which will be held
May 8-10.

JOHN KRAFT/Daily
The Michigan baseball team blanked
Oakland 11-0 yesterday.
on March 9, and lasted less than
three innings in a 6-4 loss at Ohio
State last Friday.
"It's a lot more intense against the
conference teams," Hribernik said.
"Maybe I just haven't handled the
intensity very well."
Zahn looks for Hribernik to turn
another performance like yesterday's
the next time he takes the mound in a
Big Ten game.
"If he would have pitched at Ohio
State like he did today, we'd have
another 'W'," Zahn said.

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Crew looks to keep momentum
against Hawkeyes this weekend

By David Alfred
For the Daily
Tomorrow, the Michigan women's
rowing team will continue its over-
achieving season when it hosts Big
Ten rival Iowa. The Wolverines hope
that they will be able to duplicate the
feat at Belleville Lake, like their win
two weekends ago against No. 3
Virginia.
*The Wolverines are coming off a
very impressive showing against top-
ranked Washington last weekend in
San Diego.
They finished just over three sec-
onds behind the defending national
champ.
In doing so, the Wolverines
became the first team in the last two
years to finish within 10 seconds of
the Huskies.
W'We're on the rise and still feel
very strong," junior rower Michelle
Wolbert said.
"We didn't race our best race. If
anything, the loss to Washington has

built our confidence. We now know
that they are beatable."
In the varsity-eight race against
Washington, the Wolverines got off
to a poor start.
Washington got ahead early and
had a fairly convincing lead at the
1,000-meter mark.
Despite all of this, the Wolverines
had a great spurt at the end of the
regatta, coming just a few lengths
short of another upset.
In Iowa, the Wolverines are com-
peting against a team that is riding
the momentum of its first-ever row-
ing sweep.
Last weekend, the Hawkeyes won
every race in their quad meet as they
triumphed over Drake, Kansas and
Kansas State.
This will be the second straight
season that the Wolverines face the
Hawkeyes.
Last season's meeting in Iowa City
yielded good results for the
Wolverines, as the competition

turned into a mismatch.
The Wolverines took advantage of
an inexperienced Iowa squad to com-
pile blowout victories in both the
varsity and junior varsity boats.
Although this year's regatta again
has Michigan as a heavy favorite, a
loss to the Hawkeyes would be detri-
mental to Michigan's status for
Nationals.
"The later into the season we get,
the more important the races
become," said Wolbert.
The Wolverines are still in pursuit
of the same goal they started the sea-
son with - getting to Nationals, she
said.
In addition, the Wolverines would
like to compete at Nationals as a
team, not just as individual boats.

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LOUIS BROWN/Daily
The Michigan women's rowing team, which faired well against top-ranked San
Diego last weekend, hosts conference rival Iowa, Saturday.


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