The Michigan Daily - SportsMonday - March 15, 1999 -

Men's tennis spanks Louisville, 7-0

JIM
ROSE

Freshmen lead Blue's blowout victory

By Raphael Goodstein
Daily Sports Writer
The Michigan tennis team is over-
achieving this year, and the biggest
reason is its freshmen.
The three freshmen tennis players
Henry Beam, Ben Cox and Danny
McCain are a combined 21-2 head-
ing into the Big Ten season.
Beam, who did not play Saturday
because of a slight groin pull, was
quick to deflect credit for Michigan's
hot streak.
"I think that the credit needs to go
to the coaches and upperclassmen,"
Beam said. "The older guys have
been such good role models for us,
and the coaches have been great
also. It's like we're one big family
here."
Brad McFarlane stepped in for
Beam and fought his way to a 7-5, 3-
6, 7-5 victory over Oliver Messerli.
Without Beam, the 7-1 Wolverines
did not miss a beat. The No. 43
Wolverines swept Louisville 7-0.
"They're really, really tough and
they play with a lot of confidence,"
Louisville coach Rex Ecarma said of
lthe Michigan freshmen. "They rip
the ball with a lot of authority and
vengeance. "
"I'm going to change the way that
I recruit, to match up against a team
like this," Ecarma said.
Cox stayed perfect, remaining
undefeated for his career in dual
matches by defeating Brent
McCombe 7-6 (7-4), 6-3.

"I've been really impressed with
the maturity of the freshmen,"
Michigan assistant coach Dan
Goldberg said. "I think that they
have brought a lot of consistancy and
have played at a high level day in and
day out."
An example of that maturity was
McCain's play. McCain came away
with a 6-3, 6-2 victory over Oliver
Cantrell.
Though Cantrell tried to rattle
McCain by various gamesmanship
tactics - hooking him on lines and
faking an injury to buy time and
throw McCain off his game.
"I don't think the guy was sick,"
McCain said. "I think he was just
trying to throw me off. I just kept to
myself."
The Wolverines will now take a
week off before playing Iowa and
Wisconsin to open the Big Ten sea-
son with back-to-back meets.
The Wolverines have exceeded
their preseason expectations this
year. A big reason for this is the
overall maturity of the team. The
team has been faced with adversity
since the start of the season.
"We set our goals at the beginning
of the year to be one of the top four
teams in the region," Goldberg said.
"But now I don't see a team in our
region that we can't beat."
After losing a big class to gradua-
tion last year, this Michigan team
was not supposed compete for a Big
Ten title.

[Rose Beef
With nmnastics team,
meGdtouch
Gode ha

Neither Louisville's groundstrokes nor its gamemanship could stop the Michigan
men's tennis team. The Wolverines took a 7-0 shutout at home.

But with the freshmen playing so
well, the team is now considered a
contender.
Michigan coach Brian Eisner
announced that he would retire at the
end of the season. But the upper-
classmen stepped up their roles as
leaders, and again the team managed
to avoid falling apart at the sight of
adversity.

"I think that it just adds motiva-
tion for our team," Goldberg said.
"To win the tournament title on our
home court would be a nice way to
send Brian and the seniors out."
Some things in sports that are not
planned. And those teams that han-
dle adversity well and make the most
of those unplanned breaks, they are
the squads that over-achieve.

M' qualifies Trexer,
Wilmot for NCAAs

e last time the Michigan men's
Tgymnastics team won a Big Ten
championship, Kurt Golder was a
member of the team. That was in 1975.
Now he's the coach. And now, 24
years later, this year's group of
Wolverines has a legitimate chance to
finally win the program's next confer-
ence title. And beyond that, the
Wolverines have become serious play-
ers on the national level - their No. 4
ranking suggests they'll be more than
spectators at April's NCAA
Championship meet.
But what's most impressive about
Michigan's emergence on the national
scene is that just three short years ago,
the Wolverines were far from the
power they are now. They were far
from any kind of power, actually, after
a 1996 season that resulted in II losses
and zero - yes, zero - victories.
There were rumblings throughout cam-
pus that the floundering program
would be an easy cutting target for an
athletic department looking to comply
with Title IX.
But those were just rumors. Instead
of cutting the program, they found it a
new coach. Kurt Golder.
Golder graduated from Michigan in
1977 and spent the intervening years
building up some impressive creden-
tials coaching gymnastics. He coached
all over the world - in Romania,
Bulgaria, Hungary, Israel, Spain,
Mexico, Puerto Rico - even
Michigan State, for a short while
(since forgiven).
He took over the reigns at Michigan
after the 1996 disaster, which culmi-
nated in the resignation of 13-year
head coach Bob Darden. Almost
immediately, the change seemed to
give the program an infusion of life. In
the months before school started,
Golder talked LaLo Haro, the five-
time all-around champion of Mexico,
into joining him at Michigan.
And just like that, the ball started
rolling.
The improvement came in small
steps. In 1997, Michigan finished in
last place (again) at the season-ending
Big Ten meet. But instead of finishing
20 points behind the winner, as they
had in 1996, the Wolverines wound up
8.6 back. And their score was the best
team score they'd posted all season. To
outsiders, the change would have
appeared less than drastic. But people
in the gymnastics world were already
talking at that point. Michigan was on-
the rise.
The next season, the Wolverines
made bigger strides. Building on the
enthusiasm of Golder's new program
and adding a few new (talented) faces
to the mix, the Wolverines advanced to
the NCAA Regional meet. The last
time that had happened? You betcha:
24 years ago, when Golder himself
was on the team.
And now, this season, the

Wolverines have spent the better part
of the year ranked in the nation's top
five. The Big Ten meet is in two
weeks. NCAAs are the following
week.
So in three short seasons,
Michigan's program has gone from
bottom almost to the top - coincid-
ing, of course, with the arrival of
Golder. It's reminiscent of another
Michigan program, also resuscitated
recent years by a prominent alum -
the hockey team. Red Berenson took
few more years to get his program int
the national limelight, but what's hap-
pened since is well-documented. The
skating Wolverines have been the win
ningest team of the decade. What
Golder has done for the men's gymna
tics program is in the same vein.
What does it take, I wonder, to acts
ally build a winning program from
scratch? Every time a new coach is
hired, the much-discussed "rebuilding
process begins. But if you're the coac'
how do you go about doing such a
thing? It's one thing to say, "Yeah,
we're gonna build a winner here." But
think about it. How would you actuall
do it?
One thing working in Golder's favo
certainly, is his international experi-
ence. The man has coached in more
countries than most people visit in a
lifetime. He's seen and worked with h:
share of talented gymnasts. Another
critical aspect: He's a Michigan alum.
And he's played the sport himself-
any athlete knows it's easier to take
criticism when it's coming from some2
one who actually knows what it's like
to be out on the field/mat/rings/pom-
mel horse. Still, these are pretty basic.
The tough part is the one that can't be
defined - that mysterious, intangible
leap that somehow vaults a program
from also-ran to contender.
At any rate, Golder seems to know
the secret. Somehow, he did manage tc
get Michigan's program to make that
jump; he did stock the program with
promising young talent; he did take thc
first, critical steps in making it a win-
ner.
It may still be early in the cycle -
that is, the Wolverines still have
improving to do - but the grueling
part is over. The years of finishing
dead last in Big Ten meets are, in all
likelihood, a thing of the past. But the
next step is a big one. Now that
they've arrived on the national scene,
it's time for the Wolverines to make a
name for themselves. They haven't
won a Big Ten championship, remem-
ber, since 1975.
But there's someone in the program
who remembers what that champi-
onship was like. And you can bet he'll
be telling his team about it in coming
days - they have less than two weeks
to get ready, after all.
- Jim Rose can be reached via e-mail
atjwrose@umich.edu.

By Jason Emeott
Daily Sports Writer
"If you want it, come and get it'
At the NCAA Diving Zone
Championships this past weekend,
Michigan divers Brett Wilmot and Josh
Trexler followed that advice of DMX,
and went and got it.
Both Wilmot and Trexler advanced to
the NCAA National Championships
with strong performances - only the
top six men in the region advanced to
NCAAs.
Now, Wilmot and Trexler will join the
country's top 35 divers at the national
title meet.
No member of Michigan's women's
diving team advanced to the NCAAs
from the zone meet.
Even though Michigan's women's
team of Jill Unikel, Hanna Shin and
Amanda Crews dove well, they were not
selected as top five regional representa-
tives.
Michigan diving coach Dick Kimball
said that the NCAA diving zone meet is
very intense, since its sole purpose is to
qualify six male divers and five female
divers for NCAAs.
"You can win the Big Tens, but not
qualify for the NCAAs at the zone meet
just because you had a bad day," Kimball
said.
Even though none of Kimball's
women made it to NCAAs, he was still
happy with their performances.

"None of them qualified, but they
each dove very well," Kimball said.
"They dove much better than at Big
Tens. All in all they dove well and did a
real good job."
Despite the lack of tangible results,
Kimball was able to draw a positive from
the meet for next year. Kimball said that
the meet was a valuable learning experi-
ence in terms of next season.
"It will help them in the future for
sure. It was good to get their confidence
back at zones because they didn't dive
all that well at Big Tens," Kimball said.
The two men who qualified are com-
ing off a very encouraging performance.
"Trexler and Wilmot dove very, very
well," said Kimball. "I am very pleased."
Both divers were virtually a lock to
qualify for the NCAAs after the first day
of the two-day meet.
Trexler and Wilmot finished third and
fourth, respectively, in the men's one-
meter springboard with scores of 496.90
and 477.85.
Then, they locked up their invites with
their performances in the first event of
day two - the three-meter springboard.
Wilmot won the event in convincing
fashion with a score of 577.65, and
Trexler finished fifth at 539.80.
After diving the one- and three-
meters, Wilmot and Trexler essentially
had to participate in the meet's last event,
the platform, to wrap up their tickets to
See DIVING, Page 78

DAVID RCNKIND/ aily
Hanna Shin and Jill Unikel, the two Michigan women's divers at the NCAA Zone
meet in Bloomington this weekend didn't make it to the NCAA Championships.

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