8B - The Michigan Daily - SportsMonday - February 8, 1999
FILE PHOTO
Even without its trio of top swimmers, the Michigan men's swimming team cruised to an easy victory over the Spartans,
159-84 at East Lansing.
'M' swimmers cook, dine on
Spartans in final dual meet
0
By Jon Zemke
Daily Sports Writer
EAST LANSING - If you can't
take the heat, get out of the kitchen.
On Friday evening, the Michigan
men's swimming and diving team did
all the cooking, breezing by Michigan
State in a sweltering McCaffree pool,
159-84.
"Michigan State was not really a
challenge," Michigan swim coach Jon
Urbanchek said.
Because he never felt threatened by
the Spartans, Urbanchek decided to
give a trio of his best swimmers a
break. The Michigan coach allowed
senior co-captains Tom Malchow and
Andy Potts, as well as freshman Tim
Siciliano to swim only one race apiece,
so they could finish recovering from
the blue plague of sickness that has
infected the team as of late.
Malchow and senior Jon Reich
"both looked surprisingly good,"
Urbanchek said. "It looks like they're
over their illness and ready to roll."
The Wolverines showed no signs of
illness while sweeping the Spartans in
the 50-yard and 500-yard freestyles,
400 individual medley and 100 breast-
stroke events.
The sweep of the 50 free was unusu-
al for Michigan, which is known for its
distance swimmers.
This stereotype didn't stop junior
Scott Meyer from prevailing in the
sprinting event with freshman Tim
Raines and senior David Stephens fill-
ing out the second and third places,
respectively.
Michigan State did start out well
taking first place in the 400 IM relay.
The Spartans' best swimmer, John
Munley, led the relay team for an early
Michigan State lead. Munley also took
another first place in the 100 free to
provide two of the Spartan's three first
place finishes.
But after the 400 IM relay, Michigan
turned on the burners and started boil-
ing, winning the next seven events. Its
commanding 111-58 lead at that point
pretty much sealed the victory for the
Wolverines as they went on to win
three of the last five events.
Michigan freshman Jeff Hopwood
was one of two multi-event winners for
the Wolverines. Hopwood led
Michigan's sweeps in the 400 IM and
the 100 breaststroke. The 400 IM win
was odd for Hopwood because he nor-
mally doesn't compete in the event.
"I'm just glad to contribute to the
win," Hopwood said. "We're just start-
ing to taper. I feel like I'm ready to go
and start tapering for Big Tens."
The diving half of the Michigan
squad also contributed to the victory.
Michigan's divers took 28 of the possi-
ble 38 points including consecutive 1-
2 finishes by junior Josh Trexler and
senior Brett Wilmot in the one and
three-meter springboard diving events
respectively.
Trexler's victories were both NCA
diving zone meet qualifiers. Alon
with Wilmot, Michigan now has two
divers to compete at NCAAs.
The victory marked the end of
Michigan's dual meet season and the
beginning of the Wolverines' prepara-
tion for the Big Ten swimming and
diving Championship meets in
Bloomington two weeks from now.
The Wolverines hope to overtake
their biggest rival, Minnesota, for the
Big Ten title. Michigan has alread*
faced Minnesota once this season at
the Dallas Morning News Classic
where the Golden Gophers took third
place while the blue plague depleted
Wolverines finished fifth.
Minnesota "is in the driver's seat
right now," Urbanchek said. "It's going
to be an upstream battle for us."
Urbanchek and his team remain
confident going into Big Tens, whic
also serves to qualify swimmers foi
the NCAAs.
"It's been a good solid five months
of training and we're ready to go,"
Hopwood said. "You have to be ready
to go. It's like (Urbanchek) says, 'if
you don't think you've put in the work
you better go to church and pray."
Women's track
misfires at
Cannon Classic
By David Mosse
Daily Sports Writer
INDIANAPOLIS - The Michigan women's track and
field team tuned up for the Big Ten Championships by
competing in the Cannon Classic here this past weekend.
The two-day event was of little significance to the
team, other than another chance to judge themselves
before they compete for the conference title.
Michigan opted to hold out several key performers,
feeling a week of rest would serve them better.
These absences were apparent in the results, as
Michigan struggled mightily to produce any team scor-
ing.
Nevertheless, distance coach Mike McGuire refused to
make excuses or to hide his disappointment.
"We just didn't run well at all tonight," McGuire said.
"We are capable of so much more than we showed
tonight."
McGuire also took a peek at the upcoming schedule
and the consequences of his team's lackluster perfor-
mance.
"We need to get much better," McGuire said.
"Hopefully a performance like this can motivate us to
work harder."
One of the only bright spots for the Wolverines came
in the 60-meter dash, where junior Maria Brown scored
for Michigan with a time of 7.58 seconds.
Brown entered the race hoping to qualify for the
NCAA provisional standard.
But her time left her considerably short of the mark she
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DANA LINNANE/Daily
Michigan's Angle Stanifer takes the baton from Heather
Burcar during the 4x400-meter relay at the Meyo Invitational
on Saturday. Michigan sent half of its squad to indianapolis
for the Cannon Classic and the other half to Notre Dame.
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