(The £rbigin ailg . PORTS S ' 3. i: 5 JUL, AY 1 Fomer icer Van Ryn moves on By Chris Grandstaff Daily Sports Writer PLYMOUTH - Things should be pretty interesting this season. for would-be Michigan junior Mike Van Ryn if Saturday's exhibition game against the Windsor Spitfires is any indication of things to come. ;The former Wolverine and his Sarnia Sting teammates had Saturday's game delayed one hour by a fire in the press box. The fire appeared to have been started intentionally by a cou- of local delinquents, a representative of the host Plymouth Whalers said. Van Ryn brought a little bit of his own fire to the ice on Saturday in his hockey return to the state of Michigan, assist- ing on the Sting's game-tying goal with under a minute to play in the third period. His play this weekend should be a sign of good things to come for the Sting, who have already named him one of their assistant captains and expect him one of the team's leaders "Mike is a high-caliber player." Sarnia General Manager and head coach Mark Hunter said. "He's still just getting used t he. guys, he's only been here three days, it's going to take a little time to get used to the way we want him to play. He's a winner, he's been a winner everywhere he's gone. He was a winner at Michigan, he was a winner at the under 18 level, and at the National Junior level. I also expect him to be a leader to some of the younger players, and he's going to play a lot of minutes for us. We're excited that he's here and we know that he's going to make us a better hockey club." Van Ryn's status had been a hot topic in Ann Arbor and the rest of the college hockey world all summer. Van Ryn's deci- sion to play for the Sting of the Ontario Hockey League was made official until last Thursday, Hunter said. Prior to that, n' Ryn was expected to play for the Canadian National Team. "I didn't decide to come to Sarnia until a couple days ago when I was at the Canadian National Camp," Van Ryn said. See VAN RYN, Page 9B Volleyball downgradesL F oes By Jon Zemke Daily Sports Writer Not even Hurricane Floyd could stop the Michigan volley- team from winning the Carolina Classic this weekend. The !lverines overcame host South Carolina, Virginia and the ominous Floyd, which prevented Connecticut from playing, to win their second tournament championship in three tries this season. "None us of actually thought we were going to make the tournament:' said middle hitter Annie Maxwell. "We pretty much thought we were going to be stuck in Atlanta for a cou- ple of hours and sent home. "When we got to South Carolina there wasn't a cloud in the sky and we thought, 'OK, so much for the hurricane.'' Floyd was the least of Michigan's worries early in the tour- Sent as the Wolverines dropped the first two games of the st match to host South Carolina, 15-11 and 15-10. Michigan trailed early in the first game, 7-1, and the Wolverines could- n't compose themselves to make a comeback. And even though they were able to keep the second game close, they couldn't pull it out. Ahead 12-10, the Gamecocks rattled off the next three points to take a commanding two game to nothing lead. Surrounded by an unfriendly crowd, two games down and on the verge of elimination, the Wolverines blocked everything else out and looked to themselves. Wt was our first game in a hostile environment," Michigan volleyball coach Mark Rosen said. "It was really tight. The bleachers were eight feet from the sideline. They had guys with megaphones on the sidelines just screaming at you." See CAROLINA, Page 9B Tec nical knockout }I Defense holds for third win DDyk And ack SYRACUSE. N.Y. -The crowd in the Carrier Dome didn't shut up all game. Even when Syracuse needed them to, No. 5 Michigan battled the raucous crowd and a stingy Syracuse defese Saturday night escaping with a 18 0 win over the Orangemen. Aod although the noisy fans made thmgs~ difficult for the Wolverines all gan they ended up making things pretty hard on the home team as well. On a crucial third-and-eight, with Syracuse threatening to take the lead with just over two minutes remaining the Orangemen motioned for the crowd to be quiet so they could hear quarterback Madei Williams' signal. But the crowd cheered on. Before the snap, left tackle Mark BaniewicZ moved early. The penalty moved Syracuse back to third-and- 13, and -: their next play netted nine yards Rather than having a first-and-goal, the Orangemen were faced with * fourth-and-four at the nine. The failed to convert, ending their chances' of beating Michigan for the second" straight year.l As much as penalties hurt the x Orangemen - they committed 12 for 94 yards - it was a flag not thrown that had them upset as much as any- thing. On Syracuse's final play of the game - the fourth-and-four that never should have been - quarterback Madei Williams threw a pass intended for receiver Pat Woodcock in the left corner of the end zone. The pass was overthrown, but there was contact between Woodcock and Michigan cor- nerback James Whitley as the ball sailed by. No penalty was called, and the Orangemen were out of chances. "1 thought there should have been a flag at the end," Williams said. " I thought the ref would throw the flag Even without the penalties, it was a sloppy game marked by offensive inef- ficiency on both sides. Michigan (3- 0). after gaining 232 yards in the first half, managed just 64 yards of offense in the game's final two quarters. For the third straight game, Michigan coach Lloyd Carr played senior Tomn Brady for the first quarter and sophomore Drew Henson in the second. But, unlike Michigan's first two games, Henson 's second-quarter per- formance impressed Carr enough to earn him the start in the second half. As brilliantly as Henson played in the second quarter - completing nine-of- 14 passes for 1 17 yards and a touchdown - the Michigan offense sputtered for most of the second See ORANGEMEN, Page 45 LOUIS BRUWN/ Ual Michigan cornerback Todd Howard lunges at Troy Nunes during Michigan's 1813 victory. The Wolverines won despite just 66 yards of total offense in the second half, largely because of a defense that stopped the Orangemen and produced a third-quarter safety. Poor strategies doom Orangemen YRACUSE. N.Y. - Usually when a coach makes a decision, he is given the benefit of the doubt. Theoretically, the head coach should have more knowledge of his T.J. team and the game sit- Berka uations that it encoun- ters than anyone else. Theoretically. I really don't think Syracuse coach Paul Pasqualoni had any clue what was going on at any point of Michigan's 18-13 vic- T G tory over the OFF Orangemen Saturday night at the Carrier Dome. Maybe Pasqualoni was bothered by the noise caused by the 49,249 fans that packed the Carrier Dome. Maybe he was distracted by the Syracuse cheerleaders and dance team that were prancing around the perime- ter of the field. And maybe he was just perturbed by his own mascot, the Syracuse 'orange'. In trying to figure out what the heck it was. Pasqualoni might have just taxed his brain to the point at which he didn't really care what was going on with his football team. Keep in mind, these are all theories and will be difficult to prove. And of course, Pasqualoni won't squeal and tell us what he was thinking Saturday night in the Carrier Dome. But I think the public should get a chance to find out what the heck that Pasqualoni was thinking. First of all, why did Pasqualoni feel the need to keep inserting quarterback Troy Nunes in the game? The redshirt freshman platooned with sophomore Madei Williams throughout the game, and his performance can be best described as awful. And I'm being nice. In the first half. Nunes completed as many passes - two - to Michigan defen- sive backs as he did to Syracuse wide receivers. Nunes continued his masterful play in the second half, running 30 yards backwards into the end zone and throwing the ball out of bounds to draw an intentional grounding penalty. Michigan got a safety on the play, which turned out to provide the game-win- ning points. And when Nunes did do something well, like lead Syracuse 80 yards downfield for the game-tying touchdown on the first drive in the third quarter. Pasqualoni responded by pulling him on the next drive for Williams. But don't worry, Pasqualoni was an equal- opportunity offender. When Williams led Syracuse on a scoring drive to put the Orangemen up, 7-6, in the second quarter, Pasqualoni rewarded him by putting him on the bench in favor of Nunes. The Syracuse team didn't quite have a clue as to when to call timeouts either. The Orangemen called all three of their first half timeouts with 7:48 to go in the second quar- ter. And on the fateful game-ending drive in which the Orangemen threw the ball incom- plete in the end zone? Syracuse didn't have the option to kick a field goal and stop Michigan because they had used two of their three second half timeouts prior to the drive. See BERKA, Page 48 Sosa writing history.again: 61 CHICAGO (AP)- Sammy Sosa has used his home-run hop 61 times so far, bouncing out of the batter's box, following the flight of another ball as it sails over a fence and then stutter-stepping his way around the bases. The style is all his. And now he has a record all to himself as well - the first man to reach 60 homers twice. f "I'm sure he's not done for the year," Milwaukee pitcher Jason Bere said Saturday after surrendering No. 60. And Bere was prophetic. Sosa came back Sunday and hit a prodigious homer in his first at-bat for No. 61 off Hideo Nomo. With a 16 mile-per-hour wind blowing toward the fences, Sosa's homer went way out of Wrigley Field, bounced, hit the wind- shield of a parked car and then rolled halfway down a side street as frenzied sou- four in baseball's epic home run derby, Sosa hasn't let up. "We knew he'd strike out a lot, but he had such potential," said Jim Lefebvre, who was Sosa's first Cubs manager in 1992 and is now managing the Brewers the rest of the season. "He's one of the real treasures we have in the game now. People ask me if I saw great- ness in Sammy. I saw a five-tool guy with three outstanding traits - a great body type, he is absolutely fearless and he want- ed to be great. He worked hard at it. "But to think he'd hit 60 - and twice - I couldn't have predicted that." . Who could have? When Sosa reached 60, he ended a seven-game homerless streak in which he was obviously pressing to make history. And now with 13 games left after yester- 58. "Basically, the name of the game now is home runs," Sosa said. "All the people come to the park to see us hit them. That was one of the reasons why Mark and I brought baseball back last year." Beginning today, Sosa and McGwire will go head-to-head in the first of six meetings between the Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals in the season's final two weeks. "Nobody was thinking Mark and I had the opportunity to do it again. You just never know in this game," Sosa said. "Everything is possible. I have faith in my ability and my talent and all the work I put into it. That has made me come back and have another great year." Cubs manager Jim Riggleman said his team will pitch to McGwire and expects that the Cardinals will do the same with ,, ,.