6B - The Michigan Daily - SportsMonday - March 27, 2000
Minnesota southpaws
thwart 'M' sluggers
By Dan Williams
Daily Sports Writer
After this weekend's series against
Minnesota, the Big Ten scouting report
on the Michigan baseball team will
undoubtedly reflect the Wolverines'
apparent trouble with left-handed pitch-
ers.
Minnesota southpaws Ben Birk and
Kelly Werner each pitched complete
game shutouts in the Golden Gophers'
four-game sweep. The two hurlers com-
bined to allow just four hits in 16 innings.
"They're both
Minnesota coach
John Anderson
said. "M![ichigan has
a lot of young play-
ers, and experience
was the difference
oldei players,"
BASEBALL
Notebook
for us. Birk and
Werner did a good job of mixing in the
ot peedi pitches:'
In victory, Birk - whose career has
been hampered by injuries --pitched his
first complete game since 1998. In his
previous appearance against Creighton,
Birk pitched four innings and surren-
dered one earned run before being
removed.
Blirk said his performance against
Michigan was one of his best outings in
a long time.
"In prior games I lost control of my
pitching," Birk said. "I wasn't getting my
offspeed pitches over. Saturday, I got the
hitters off-balance."
Werner and Birk were both able to
have successful outings by preventing
the Wolverines from getting good pitch-
es to hit early in the count. The result was
a large number of routine flyouts and
groundouts by Michigan hitters.
"They're a real agressive team," said
Werner, who pitched his first nine-inning
complete game of the season. "They like
to swing at first-pitch fastballs. Getting
ahead in the count helped."
PARRISH SOLVES GOPHER RIDDLE: All
weekend the Minnesota pitchers befud-
dled Michigan's batting lineup - except
for junior David Parrish.
Parrish got five of Michigan's 15 hits
in the weekend series. He also broke up
Birk's no-hitter in the fourth inning of the
first game on Saturday.
"I really haven't been chasing too
many pitches," Parrish said. "I've been
waiting for them to give me a pitch to hit.
They don't neccesarily give me some-
thing to hit every at-bat. I am just really
seeing the ball well right now."
In all, Parrish went 5 for 15 for the
series, bringing his season batting aver-
age up to .290. He also netted his fifth
home run of the year on Friday to tie Rob
Bobeda for the team lead.
CAN'T STOP KENNEDY: Minnesota
leadoff hitter Jason Kennedy was a thorn
in the side of the Michigan pitching staff
throughout the series.
Via walks, hits and Michigan defen-
sive errors, Kennedy was able to reach
base over 50 percent of the time.
"I just try to do anything I can to get on
base," Kennedy said. "If the pitches
aren't there, I take them."
Kennedy did more than just take pitch-
es. He went 4 for 14 over the four-game
span with four runs batted in. He also hit
a two-run homerun on Friday off of
Michigan's Vince Pistilli and stole two
bases off of left-hander Bryan Cranson
on Saturday.
Kennedy said he felt that the Golden
Gophers' sweep of Michigan was the
perfect start to Minnesota's conference
season, but he doesn't think his personal
success or his team's results are a reflec-
tion of an inept Michigan squad.
"If you look at their numbers coming
in, they're pretty impressive," Kennedy
said. "We just came focused and ready to
play each day."
Frustrated and
disappointed
with the University?
Need help making
sense of your
U of M experience?
Check out
http://universitysecrets.com
Team W LPct.
1. Minnesota 4 0 .1000
2. Penn State 3 1 .750
3. Illinois 3 1 .750
4. Purdue 3 1 .750
5. Ohio State - - .000
6. Northwestern - - .000
7. Michigan State 1 3 .250
8. Indiana 1 3 .250
9. Iowa 1 3 .250
10. Michigan 0 4 .000
Yesterday's Big Ten results
Minnesota 7, MICHIGN AN
PENN Tw 5, 5.Indiana 4
PtN STATE 7, Indiana 6
Iowa 5, ILUiNoIs 4
160
13-7-0
13-741
15-6.0
13-6-0
5-15-0
17-10-0
6-15-.
6-12
Player
Trzos
Koman
Parrish
Bobeda
Tousa
Quinn
Dombos
Dines
Lollio
Cantalamessa
Rutkowski
LaRosa
Sokol
French
Coleman
Ghannam
Lenick
Avg.
.400
.342
.290
.286
'286
.250
.250
.244
.226
.207
179
.167
.125
.115
.111
.100
.000
AB
5
73
69
70
63
40
16
45
53
58
39
42
16
26
9
10
2
R
0
10
14
18
15
2
2
4
4
9
4
5
2
1
0
1
0
H
2
25
20
20
18
10
4
11
12
12
7
7
2
3
1
1
0
HR
0
0
5
5
2
1
0
0
1
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
PETER CORNUE/Daily
Senior outfielder Rob Bobeda - and the rest of the Michigan Nine - were a few steps too slow this weekend as Minnesota
swept the four-game series. The Wolverines lost all four game by four runs or more.
RBI
0
13
18
11
8
7
2
1
8
4
11
5
0
0
0
0
0
78'
117
es
0
5
3
4
2
4
1g
'2
2
61
_ 97;
Michigan tatting statistics
(rough yesterday's game)
Continued from Page 1B
"Age doesn't matter," senior tri-captain
Rob Bobeda said. "It's just a matter that
you can go through times like this once in
a while. The key to a good team is how
we get through it. We just need to take
this, learn from it, put it behind us and
move on."
Said Koman: "I think we're all in this
together. It doesn't really matter who's
older and who's younger. I don't think it's
part of being a young team, I just don't
think we have our heads in the game. We
need to get more focused and just relax."
Since this past Wednesday's game
against Eastern Michigan was cancelled
because of a muddy infield, Michigan
hadn't played a game at "The Fish" this
season. The foul play might be connected
to home-opening jitters.
"I hope not," Parrish said. "I really
don't think that a lot of the plays that
weren't made were due to nervousness. I
just think it's really, really bad luck or,
well, I don't know what it is. Everybody
seems like they're being aggressive, it's
just that the ball is getting through the
guy's legs, coming up too early, making
bad throws and it's very frustrating."
Bobeda suggested a little more loosen-
Fishing for fans
A pp y now at
the Law Library
anon-Law
Students
*Law Students
iSI. Students
Apply in person: Room S-180
in the Law Library's under-
ground addition, 8-noon and
1-5 Monday through Friday.
AAIEOE
Opening weekend at Fisher Stadium didn't
equate to a packed crowd for the Michigan baseball
team. With the aid of some unseasonably warm
weather, the Wolverines were able to bring in an
average of 817 fans a day for three days of baseball.
In many warmer-climate schools, baseball is con-
sidered the revenue sport in the spring like football
in the fall or basketball in the winter. Baseball pub-
licist Sanya Gragg hopes that the 'great American
pasttime' can eventually draw much more of the
Michigan faithful. With promotions such as player
autograph day and Brownie day, Gragg hopes to.
take attendance at Fisher to new heights.
For the first four games against Minnesota, flier
advertisements helped Michigan attract 121 more-
fans per game than last year's opening Big Ten
series. But rain did hinder attendance at last year's
April 2-4 series against Illinois.
"we think there is a huge potential to increase
attendance this year," Gragg said. "We want to con-
tinue to emphasize youth groups as well as the
importance of students supporting their baseball
team."
ing up might help the Wolverines.
"We seem a little bit tight," Bobeda
said. "We need to try to have a little more
fun when we're out there and kind of let
loose a little bit. We're too focused on not
losing than actually winning."
Something has to happen, whether it's
taking the aggression of this weekend's
mess out on the next victim or simply
getting used to the home field by feilding
thousands of grounders during practice.
"We shouldn't be putting up with (the
errors)," Parrish said. "I don't know
what's going on but we definitely need to
shape up or we're not going to win a
game for the rest of the season"
1(il of t e tes
Erroneous start
Forty percent of Michigan's 45 errors
on these ason occured in their four
weekend contests against Minnesota.
Friday - 3 errors
Saturday game 1 - 5 errors
Saturday game 2 - 6 errors
Sunday -4 errors
Total errors: 18
Total unearned runs: 17
pm ce
Tomorrow
WESTERN MICHIGAN, 3 p.m.
Wednesday, March 29
BOWLING GREEN, 3 p.m.
Friday, March 31
at Indiana, 3 p.m.
Saturday, April 1
at Indiana (DH), 1 p.m.
(Home games in CAPS)
Player
Bellows
Alexander
Leveque
McCloskey
Trzos
Lobert
Cranson
Pistilli
Taylor
Korecky
Wood
Hill
ERA
0.00
3.00
4.32
4.32
4.61
4.82
5.14
5.25
5.40
6.62
7.43
7.50
Totals 5.25
Opponents 3.31
Totals .244 636 91 155 15
Opponents .293 634 130 186 16
Yesterday's gm
MINNESOTA 7, MICHIGAN 0
MINNESOTA MICHIGAN
Player AS RN81 Player AS R HB1
Kennedyrf 3 000 Tousass/2b 4 0 10
Appert dh 3 0 12 Quinn 3b 2 00 0
Brosseau ss 4 1 2 1 LaRosa ph 1 000,.
Holthausib 4 2 1 0 Koman dh 300 0
Hannahan3b4 1 0 0 Parrish c 40 10
Howard If 4 0 11 Dines rf 40 10-
Welch 2b 4 0 02 Bobedacf 2 00 0
Arlt cf 4 210 Cant2b/3b 3000
Negen c 1 1 0 1 Frenchib 200 -0
LollioIf 3 0 0 0
Totals 3176 7 Totals 2803 0
E - Dines(3), Cantalamessa(S), French 2(4). DP -
Minnesota 2. LOB - Minnesota9, Michigan 5. 2B,
Dines(6). SB - Appert(1), Arlt(4), Bobeda(3). SH -
Kennedy(1). Negen 2(3). SF- Appert( 1), Negen(1).-,
(Through yesterday's game)
W. IP H ER Be Sd
0-0 2.2 2 0 2.1
0-012 114 2 l.,
1-216.2 17 8 6 1?
0-0 8.1 5 4 5 7
0.0 13.2 15 7 5 10
01 9.1 11 5 6 7
2-228 3316 19 12
1-3 24 29 14 17 16-
00 3.1 4 2 3 2 ,
1-1 17.2 28 13 7 5
-02 13.1 18 11 14 9
1-1 12 13 10 11 18
6-12 161 186 94 97 i1
12-6 163 155 60 61 152
Average attendance for
opening weekends in
the Big Ten:
Illinois -940
Michigan -817
Penn State - 798
Michigan State -- 374*
*Yesterday's attendance not included
Minnesota
Werner W, 2-3
Michigan
Wood L, 4-2
Trzos
Lobert
IP H R ER BB SO
9 3 0 0 4 2
3 2
4.2 4
1.1 0
4 3
3 1
0 0
4 0
2 2
0 1
Umpires -Jim Garman (Home), Lenny Brickens (1st
base), Mike Wallace (3rd base)
At Fisher Stadium.
Attendance: 750
Start: 1:00 p.m.
Time: 2:43
I
l /
r4-%%vw4k
tit'
Touchstone W|| G %W U0
Pictures 4Watomiclivtng
P-aan a
COMPLIMENTARY ADVANCE SCREENING
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN - ANN ARBOR @
Natural Sciences Auditorium
9:00 PM Tuesday, March 28
FREE ADMISSION* while passes last
INFO?: call 763-1107
*Pick up passes UAC Office, 4002 Michigan Union.
Passes required. Seating is limited and not guaranteed.
Please arrive early.
Presented in association with M-FLICKS.
' ( B t fem. a
$;#:se :' r 4' . a
' .'# va