The Michigan Daily - SportsMonday - September 27, 1999 - 98
lue harriers watch
vide-eyed as No. 3
Arkansas mops up
Iichigan finishes fourth in 21-team field
First practices bring
new faces to Yost
for 'M' hockey team
Arun Gopal
fly Sports Writer
he Michigan women's cross-
untry team stood up to its toughest
mpetition to date this season at the
m Bell Invitational in
oomington, on Saturday.
Handicapped by two absences due
uries, including junior Katy
c wich, the Wolverines still
naged a respectable fourth-place
ish out of 21 teams. Arkansas,
ked third in the country, claimed
top spot.
Michigan was paced by junior
ndout Lisa Ouellet. Battling a
ere cold, Ouellet crossed the fin-
line in sixth place - finishing
t behind the Razorbacks' top run-
rr
s was a real eye-opener for
" Ouellet said. "Arkansas was just
azing; they finished 1, 2, 3, 4. We
ow what we have to work on after
lay's meet."
uellet said that she was not sur-
sed by the Indiana University
urse, unlike many of her team-
tes who had never run at that
nue before.
"I pretty much knew what to
p before going there," Ouellet
d.
"The course had more hills than I
teinbered, and it was a hot day
re, which made it tougher. (But),
crall, I'd say that it was compara-
to most of the courses that we
low that the Wolverines have this
e under their belts, they have
, idea of what to expect when
CAA Championships, which
I1 be held in Bloomington, roll
>und.
3uellet said Michigan will be pre-
red to have a strong showing at the
ional championships.
'I know that we are going to be
re, and I know we can do well,"
ellet said.
"The course will be different, but
outcome for us will be different,
pie good thing this weekend
seat we were able to see where
hills were, so we can train
ordingly for them."
ioin up against a powerful team
"We don't get
intimidated. We've
been there with
the best."
- Lisa Ouellet
on the competition Saturday
like Arkansas could have been intim-
idating for many teams. Also, given
Michigan's youthful roster, there was
a chance that some of the
Wolverines' younger runners might
have had some pre-race jitters. But
Oucllet said Michigan didn't have a
problem.
"We don't get intimidated, she
said. "We've been in there with the
best. Elizabeth Kampfe has been an
all-American, and I've run in the
NCAA Championships each of the
last two years. I was right with the
Arkansas girls almost the entire
race.
For the average college student,
completing a cross-country race
would be hard enough in the best of
health.
Ouellet had to run yesterday while
battling what she termed "a really
bad cold" that she developed last
week.
"I was feeling really sick yester-
day," Ouellet said. "I thought that I
might've held off this cold, because I
was running pretty well, but it really
felt tough running that last mile."
With only two more meets to go
until the Big Ten Championships,
Ouellet admitted that the team,
which has made steady progress
since the start of the season, still has
not reached its full potential.
"We've got a ways to go yet,"
Ouellet said. "It's kind of hard to
judge cross-country, especially
women's runners, because even a
few little injuries can kill your
team's chances.
"The important thing for us is to
go out and make sure that everyone
trains hard. Once we get down to it
and push ourselves, I have no doubt
that we can fulfill our potential."
By Stephanie Offen
Daily Sports Writer
Eagerly anticipating the Michigan
hockey season, fans returned to Yost
ice arena Saturday for the Wolverines
first practice.
The Michigan hockey team took
the ice Thursday for the inaugural
practice of the season.
While the small senior class had to
readjust to familiar territory, a rather
large freshman class was being intro-
duced to new ground.
Stressing game-like drills, the
freshmen quickly found their place
among the older members.
"They are really starting to fit in,"
senior captain Sean Peach said. "At
first they really didn't know their
places, but now they are starting to
get comfortable. They've done a real-
ly good job making themselves part
of the team."
And with only a week to go before
the puck drops on the season, it is
critical for the Michigan program to
work out the many obstacles it has
faced this off-season.
With the unexpected loss of three
key defensemen, the Michigan
coaches are using these practices not
only to prepare the team, but also to
take a look at prospective walk-on
players.
There were new faces at both
Thursday and Friday's practices, and
nany team hopefuls were on hand at
Saturday's scrimmage.
Even though there is no official
walk-on tryout, the practices give the
coaches a chance to look at the new
talent. The prospective varsity players
will have to show in these practices
that they will be able to contribute to
the team during the CCHA seasot
"It's hard to have a so-called tryout
for walk-ons when we are tryingto
get our team into some kind of
rhythm," Michigan coach Red
Berenson said.
For the practices and the scrim-
mage, the prospective walk-ons wre
put on tentative lines with varsity
players.
Since these are only the first prac-
tices of the season, the coaches are
almost certain that these lines will
change many times before the begin-
ning of conference play.
"Right now we are looking at lins
we put together without any idea of
who's going to end up there,"
Bereson said. "Give us two or three
days and we will probably change
them again."
The Wolverines will face their first
competition on Saturday, but the lines
are expected to continue to change
after that.
But Berenson and the rest of the
team are looking to get everythihg
else settled by Friday's Blue-White
intersquad scrimmage.
"We have a lot of things to work.on
in a short period of time," Berenson
said. "We need to reacclimate every-
one and introduce all of the systems
to the freshman. We just need to have
everything ready by the Blue-White
game."
AP PHOTO
The birdie putt by Hal Sutton helped the Americans capture one of the closest
Ryder Cup victories in history - no team match ended before the 17th hole.
Crenshaw'spassion
gde Yanks to Cup
BROOKLINE, Mass. (AP) -
Believe it!
Those were fitting words from U.S.
Ryder Cup captain Ben Crenshaw, who
won the 1995 Masters after the death of
his longtime teacher Harvey Penick. At
the time, he said he felt it was Penick's
spirit guiding him along.
In much the same way, Crenshaw
willed his team to victory at The
Country Club, which has a long history
of American victories in golf.
"I never stopped believing,"
Crenshaw said, choking back tears.
The Americans overwhelmed Europe
in the first six matches, closing all of
them out before the 17th hole. Even
David Duval, who referred disdainfully
to the Ryder Cup, showed how much it
meant by repeatedly shaking his fists
and cupping his hand to his ear.
The cup was clinched on No. 17 when
Leonard's 45-foot birdie putt banged
into the back of the cup and dropped.
It was the seventh consecutive Ryder
Cup that was decided by no more than
two points, dating to the 1985 matches
that signaled the switch over to
European dominance.
So close was this Ryder Cup that no
team match ended before the 17th hole,
the first time that has happened since
1969.
The Americans have won the singles
matches all but five times in Ryder Cup
history, and all but twice since 1957.
The atmosphere was electric. The
gallery was a dozen deep around tees
and green, not an inch of space along
any fairway.
All of a sudden, the Americans looked
like they had nothing to lose. Muscles
tightened on every European face, the
players celebrating with charged-up
emotion instead of the child-likejoy they
exuded the first two days.
Duval, Sutton, Lehman, Davis Love
III, Woods and Phil Mickelson led a
ferocious charge that made Crenshaw's
lineup look like a brilliant move. He sent
out his best players in the first six match-
es, hopeful they all would get out of the
blocks quickly and set up that chain
reaction of momentum he had been des-
perately searching for all week.
"It's all because of Ben Crenshaw,"
Love said. "He fired us up, made us
believe we could do it."
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