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 wt S.1 NZ+NEE+ iNC.G Q .x.FS'pr vIdir S1 " nter 'di ~y2.,+tbCipiin ry sk i needed ~ LA f s - 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. U-- --r1 A- n'tr, JA I- i 4%-- r .