SportsMonday, January 24, 2000 - The Michigan Daily - 3B 'M' women rebound at Red Simmons Invite By James Mercier For the Daily The Michigan women's track and field team entered Saturday's Red Simmons Invitational with a sense of purpose. One week earlier, the team suffered a disappointing defeat to Indiana. A trip to Michigan State was only a week away. The team responded with an improved per- formance, and now looks prepared to take on the Spartans. "Last week we didn't compete as well as we could have," Michigan coach James Henry said. "We were a little timid, a little tense." The invitational at the Indoor Track Building provided the team with a chance to regain its confidence. The meet was a non-scoring event, but was important from a developmental stand- point. Several Wolverines responded with strong performances - Michigan athletes finished either first or second in all but five events. Henry felt that competing at home made the team more comfortable. "They were more relaxed today, and it showed," Henry said. "But we still need to get used to running away from home. "Next week in East Lansing we'll try to get better." The Wolverines ran well in the sprints. Senior Maria Brown won the 200-meter dash with a time of 24.85 seconds and finished sec- and in the 60-meter dash in 7.50 seconds. Freshman Carly Knazze finished second to Brown in the 200-meter, then won the 400- meter in 56.47. Middle-distance competition featured junior Lisa Ouellet in the 600-meter run and senior Erica Murdock in the 800-meter. Both finished second, losing out to professional runners competing for Nike and Adidas. Ouellet, a cross-country standout, managed to shift gears and post a personal record time - despite not being 100 percent healthy. "I felt a little uncomfortable running the 600 meters," Ouellet said. "I've been a little under the weather, but being sick doesn't hit you in this event as hard as it does in cross-country. I'm extremely happy with the race." In the mile run, junior Katie Clifford had the best collegiate time. She finished second in 4:54.06, fewer than five seconds behind a Nike competitor. Senior Brandi Bentley took the long jump easily, outleaping the competition by seven inches. Freshman April Phillips won the shot put with a point total of 14.44. Former Michigan standout Katie McGregor, who now competes for Adidas, provided one of the day's highlights. In the 3,000 meters, she outclassed her competitors, lapping the field. With the crowd behind her, McGregor near- ly set a building record, finishing nine seconds off the mark with a time of 9:18.57. BERKA I Teeing Off J_________ T-shirt toss, aliong with national tide, makes men's gymnastics team must see The Michigan women's track team played host and domina- 4 tor at this past weekend's Red Simmons invitational. b runners take nine events in Red Simmons Invitational By Ron Garber Daily Sporis Writer The Michigan men's track and field team tuned up for the Big Ten Championship meet with an impressive showing this past Saturday at the Red Simmons Invitational. The Wolverines won nine out of the fifteen events. The non-scoring meet featured several area uni- versity teams as well as club runners from the Ann Arbor Track and Nike Club teams. Five Wolverines won their events and several others posted impressive performances. As usual, the distance runners were the headliners. Junior Mike Wisniewski and senior Jay Cantin finished third and fourth respectively in the 3000- meter race. Their posted times of 8:18:09 and 8:18:39 met NCAA provisional standards, meaning both run- ners will likely represent Michigan at the National Championship meet in May. In addition, sophomore Jeremy Schneider won the 800-meter and junior Dan Snyder turned in an impressive performance in the 600-meter. "Our distance guys are machines," senior sprint- er Stephen Molnar said. "Their points are almost automatic and they never even miss a race." Although paced by the distance group, the Wolverines got big showings in the sprints and field events. John Sellers dominated all sprinters winning the 400-meter race with a time of 49:48. Sophomore Ike Okenwa took second place in his race, however it was the 200-meter, not his usual 60-meter. "We didn't want to work Ike too hard," Molnar said. "He doesn't really need much more work in the 60, so he got some rest." Molnar and senior Steve Jenkins filled in for Okenwa quite nicely, finishing fifth and sixth place respectively, and sophomore Derek Applewhite won the hurdles. Michigan was seemingly without weakness, also posting two victories in the field events. Senior Patrick Johansson won the weight throw and junior Charles DeWildt was victorious in the pole vault, clearing a height of 17-1. The versatility displayed this weekend bodes well for a Michigan team that can seemingly score points anywhere as they prepare to tangle with their conference foes in the Big Ten Championships. There is a well-kept secret lurking in the shadows of the University of Michigan campus. This group of Wolverines does its job better than anyone in the nation, yet doesn't get much credit for it. Don't expect that anonymity to last much longer, though. The Michigan men's gymnastics team is too good to lurk in the shadows much longer. The fact that the men's gymnas- tics team isn't a bigger player on this campus is semi-shocking to me, especially since they won a national title last April. You would think that being the best at any sport -- from football to curling to tiddlywinks - should get you props from some of the peeps on this campus. But fame didn't hit the Michigan men's gymnastics program after their national championship. It looked as if gymnastics would go the way of Major League Soccer and the World League of American Football. That's not going to happen, though. The Michigan men's gym- nastics team will thrive because of one simple, but very clutch, gift. T-shirts. Don't get me wrong, the T-shirts aren't the only thing that the Michigan men's gymnastics pro- gram has going for it. Michigan has the 1999 Coach of the Year in Kurt Golder, who has taken the program from the verge of cancellation to a national championship in three years. The Wolverines also boast Olympic talent with sophomores Scott Vetere and Brad Kenna and juniors Justin Toman and Kevin Roulston. Toman made history last year, becoming the first gymnast and first non-senior to be named Michigan Male Athlete of the Year. In other words, Michigan is stacked. This fact is slowly getting the attention of the campus, as Cliff Keen Arena is selling a few more hot dogs then they used to at gym- nastics meets. So the sport is catch- ing on. But for men's gymnastics to become a major sport at Michigan - or cool enough to get the team members free admission with no waiting at Rick's - the giving away of the free T-shirts needs to be played up. The gymnastics team has got one of the greatest scams going at this University in quite a while. Whenever a Michigan gymnast scores a 9.7 or better on any appara- tus, that gymnast proceeds to throw a yellow T-shirt into the crowd. This is a practice that may not be unprecedented, but it is cool as hell. Imagine if other sports did stuff like this. Imagine if Brian Ellerbe threw out T-shirts every time the Wolverines made a three-pointer. Imagine if Red Berenson hand- delivered T-shirts to fans at Yost Ice Arena after every Michigan goal. If I'm feeling really creative, I can imagine Eric Rosel and Victor Hobson handing out T-shirts after every Todd Howard interception., OK, the last situation was a little much. Everyone knows that Howard will never get an interception. But despite that, one fact remains - free T-shirts are cool. They were especially cool on Saturday night, partially because it was unexpected. As I was walking to Cliff Keen Arena, I told myself that I would go to the meet for the sake of being political - one of my roommates is on the team - stay for an event, then leave to start my night of drunken stupidity. But once I arrived at Cliff Keen Arena and saw Roulston throw a bright yellow shirt into the crowd after scoring a 9.825 on the floor exercise, I was hooked. My goal in life quickly changed. Instead of getting with a supermod- el, all I wanted to accomplish in life was to grab a hold of those T-shirts. Because of this irrational desire for T-shirts, I revised my original plan. I stayed for three events, hop- ing against hope to get a T-shirt. Because I was watching the top- ranked defending champion Wolverines, I thought that it was entirely feasible to get some win- nings. There were certainly opportuni- ties for a T-shirt, as six Michigan gymnasts registered a 9.7 or better. But the gymnasts kept forsaking the student section, throwing the shirts to the non-students instead. Although they haven't learned to spread the T-shirt lovin' yet, the men's gymnastics team has hit a potential gold mine as far as fan support is concerned. The concept of free T-shirts is enough to pack Keen Arena. I, along with many other college stu- dents, hate doing laundry and are looking for any reason not to do it. Therefore, people will come out'to avoid heading to Mr. Stadium. It also has tangible benefits to the gymnasts as the fans will be more vocal. Along with cheering for the gymnasts because they attend Michigan, the fans will also have the prospect of a T-shirt to get excit- ed about. There are two more meets left at Keen Arena, so there should be plenty of shirts there for the taking. I'm sure this venture will be more successful than my failed attempt at a Maize Rage shirt. - TJ.Berka would beg for a t-shirt, but he has ethics and personal pride. He can be reached at berkat@umich.edu. The Michigan men's track team won nine of 15 events this past weekend in a tune-up meet for the Big Ten Championship. Blue swimmers roll over Boilermakers, 138-103 By Benjamin Singer Daily Sports WriterZ After an upset victory over Stanford last week, nothing seems very difficult for the Michigan men's swimming team. A trip to No. 23 Purdue, even with four Wolverines unable to swim due to illness, certainly was not a challenge. Michigan (2-0 Big Ten, 2 overall) defeated the Boilermakers (2-2, 4-2), 138-103, for the 48th time last Saturday. The Wolverines were missing sopho- more Tim Siciliano and freshmen Garrett Mangieri, Tony Kurth and Justin Drake because of the flu. But even with some experienced swimmers absent from the meet, the team easily had enough firepower for the win. Because Purdue's antiquated facility only has six lanes instead of eight, Michigan did not need to shuffle the lineup around despite missing some swimmers. Rather than finding replace- ments to fill the empty lanes, the swim- mers were simply dropped from the event, moving everyone else up a slot. "We didn't have to change the lineup a great deal," assistant coach Eric Namesnik said. "We were taking the whole team anyway, so there were no new additions." The usual ieaders for Michigan made the missing players a non-issue as the Wolverines got their points in the same events as usual. All-American junior Chris Thompson placed first in the 1000- and 500-yard freestyles. Senior tri-captain and diver Josh Trexler won his two events in both 1-meter dive events. Four other Wolverines had first-place finishes as well, and in four different events Michigan took first and second place. Purdue won the 400-yard medley relay and put Michigan in a hole to start the meet. This situation was nothing new to Michigan. "That usually happens," Thompson said. "We always catch up after the first relay" Thompson helped the team catch up by swimming a 9:16.78 in the 1000 free, followed by senior tri-captain Mike McWha's 9:20.06. Once the race was over, Thompson had to go right back to work. "I didn't go real hard in the 1000 so I could have something left for the 2Q0." Thompson said. While Thompson placed second in the 200-yard freestyle with a 1:40.54, sophomore Chuck Kennedy came in first with a 1:40.33. The change from Michigan's typical lineup gave Kennedy a chance at a new event as he swam the 200 free rather than his usual event of the 500 free. With senior ti-captain Scott Meyer and sophomore Matt Raines placing 1-2 in the 50-yard freestyle, the Wolverines put themselves in a position where they needed to make sure they did not make any mistakes and could cruise to victory. Beginning with freshman Ryan Earhart's time of 1:49.28 in the 200 backstroke for the eighth event, Michigan had three-straight first place finishes. Thompson had a 4:26.66 in the 500 free and sophomore Jeff Hopwood swam a 2:04.24 in the 200 breaststroke. 'M' tankers drown Rice, win one for seniors By David Roth Daily Sports Writer Canham Natatorium turned into a wok on Saturday as the Michigan women's swimming and diving teams fried Rice 153-119. It was senior day for the Wolverines, and despite another week of intensive practices and training for the upcom- ing Big Ten Championships, the Wolverines still had enough steam left to cook their opponents, winning all of the first 10 events. "It was all for the seniors," freshman 6 breaststroker Heather Dehainaut said. And before the meet even started, the underclassmen had already put in some extra effort to pay tribute to their seniors - Canadian native Shannon Shakespeare in particular. "It was Shannon's wish to have one meet have the Canadian National anthem playing, so we secretly planned that," Dehainaut said. "It was really special to her and really special + to us." With the maple leaf watching over her, Shakespeare notched first place in the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 1:11.20, a whopping 3.8 seconds ahead of the pack. Shakespeare, with the help of fellow senior Emily Cocks, junior Jennifer Crisman and sophomore Lindsay Carlberg captured first place in the meet's first event, the 200-medley relay with a time of 1:58.39. "I think we swam a good opening relay," Michigan coach Jim Richardson said. However, the coached seemed to have mixed feelings on the dual meet. "I think there were some spots where we were very good," Richardson said. "I think there were some spots where we were tired. I think overall it was a good meet." Michigan had two standout perfor- mances. Carlberg, along with winning the 100 backstroke, blew away the competition in the 200 backstroke, with an NCAA consideration time of 2:14.97. Depending on how other swimmers across the country perform, she could be invited to swim that event in the NCAA finals come March, if she doesn't get an automatic time first. Julie Kern also swam brilliantly, putting Rice in hot water. Flanked by two incredibly fast Rice swimmers on both sides, Kern upped her time and took second place as she swam the 800 in 8:52.74. "I think Julie Kern's 800 was an excellent, excellent swim," Richardson said. Kern herself was also pleased. "It was my best event," Kern said. "I did a nice job of that. I have been doinn quite a bit of distance training so it carried over and had an effect." "The meet overall wasa fine effort by U of M swimmers," said Kern. "We really pulled together. There was a lot of unity, team effort, and camaraderie." In diving competition, Michigan swept both the one and three meter diving events. Junior Amanda Crews set the pace in the one-meter diving (275.63) and senior Hanna Shin, last week's Big Ten Diver of the Week, flipped her way to victory on the three-meter board (280.05). . The two Wolverines turned in NCAA zone diving qualifying marks in both the competitions. 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