The Michigan Daily - SportsMonday - October 9, 2000 - B .Wet and wild game ends n 1'M' favor, 2-1 DAVID DEN HERDER By David Roth Daily Sports Writer Sprinklers drenched the Michigan nch, and then part of the field. Balls smacked four players, one in the fore- head seriously injuring a defender. The first snow of winter fell. The No. 5 Michigan field hockey team, who had a 13-1 record, was being taken into over- time by Northwestern, who was 4-7. Was it a ghost? There was definitely something strange in Michigan's neighborhood. Saturday, assistant coach Tracey Fuchs ran around the field, battling a series of rinklers, trying to cover them with Trash cans and All Sport buckets before they finally got turned off. All the while, the Wolverines played on, shutting out Central Michigan, 8-0. Clearly, a weekend that was supposed to be tranquil became one that was less than settling. Luckily, Michigan was pre- pared for all different types of trouble that could have been lurking. "We practice with the football players aring music," said forward Powers, who notched her first career hat trick ver- sus Central Michigan. "We try to practice in adverse situations so when they come - like the sprinklers did - we still remember that we have a game to play." Unlike the Northwestern game, where the game-winning goal was decided after the 80th minute of play, Michigan came out early against the Chippewas, scoring its first goal less than two minutes into the match. Then, they scored two more in a five-minute span to give the 6-3 MAC team a reality check. "There is a big difference between the conferences," defender Jeanne Shin said. "The Big Ten is strong - two of our teams last year went to the final four. Every Big Ten match we go into, we tell ourselves, 'this is really important."' Friday, Kelli Gannon fended off a Northwestern (1-2 Big Ten, 4-8 overall) scare as they took the lead and went into overtime. She notched a goal in the extra session to beat the Wildcats 2-1 in Northwestern's fourth overtime appear- ance in its last five games. The game was so close because Northwestern's fifth-year senior goalie Jessica Yates was a brick wall. Yates kept coming up with tough saves and man- aged to only let in a single shot in 27 attempts before Gannon zipped a shot by A moment o f truth BRENDAN O'DONNELL/Daily Neither snow, spooks or errant sprinklers could stop the Michigan field hockey team. her less than five minutes into the extra Catherine Foreman could never seem to session. "She always plays well against us," Michigan coach Marcia Pankratz said. "But I give our team credit for staying patient and not panicking. Going into overtime we felt very confident because we have an outstanding overtime team because we're so deep and quick." Not all the credit for Northwestern's close pursuit should go to the Wildcats. The Wolverines kept flubbing penalty corners and Courtney Reid and make smooth connections. Reid's nor- mally sharp passes bounced all over the place and Foreman was unable to keep the ball down to set up the striker. "We struggled the whole time," Reid said. "I was struggling getting them out without a bounce and I started thinking about it too much. It starts with me and I had an off day with pushouts. It would have been nice to have the corners be on - the game probably wouldn't have gone into overtime." Blue harriers improve to second at invite ST LAFAYETTE - Looking out from the top of Ross-Ade Stadium's rust-and- white press box pretty much says it all. Nothing but Big Ten country for miles in every direction. The air up here - crisp, clear and cold - brings with it a certain lucidity. The treetops, extending to the horizon, are turning the same rustic colors that speckle the old brick campus. There's not much to get excited about in West Lafayette. On Fridays, of course, there are the local bars. Where Else? It takes a few minutes to realize that is the name of the most popular bar on campus. I'm partial to the Boiler Room - or Harry's Chocolate Shoppe, an ice-cream- parlor-turned-liquor-lounge (see: Prohibition). But understanding what you see under the north goalpost at the end of Saturday's game hinges on knowing what things are like the other 364.25 days of the year. These people understand signifi- cant digits. A full liberal arts school these days, Purdue got its start as an engineer- ing college. In fact, the "Boilermakers" were so named by football rivals at Notre Dame, who (even back then) were quite proud of their rah-ta-ta private education. "You guys are nothing but a bunch of boiler makers;' they would slander - or something to a similar effect. The name stuck. And even in the middle of their Autumn break (the best time of year down here), all these Boilermakers came to watch their team play Michigan. Through all the days of staring at sci- entific calculators, all the days of walking two miles to a "friend's" party, all the days of wearing five layers of clothes just to go to class, Saturday was - without a doubt - the biggest day of the year in West Lafayette. As Drew Brees drives Purdue down the field for its first attempt at a game- winning field goal, the student section begins to buzz. With each complete pass, every heart beats faster, and the police commander begins to put his officers in place, awaiting the rush. Looking at a field-goal formation from the endzone is awkward. The holder and kicker are invisible behind the mas- sive line. You just stand, waiting for the ball to appear. When it does, your head cocks back - your eyes follow the ball to the uprights, almost directly above you. It's easy to see that first kick sail to the outside. Wide right to you, wide left to everybody else. And that is, as you figure it, the end of the game. The Boilermakers on the field had their chance, and the Boilermakers in the stands knew it. A random bandsman has a very real frown on his face. Dejection. He has been there before. And everything that happens from that point on seems like it shouldn't. But Michigan gives up the ball on three downs, and next thing you know, you're standing under the same goalpost, staring at the same awkward formation. The clock reads :08. This is it, for real. The ball appears again, and it has a similar flight path. But it's higher this time, and you watch it sail over the post. It was too high for the neon green post (to your right, every one else's left). But it flies, it seems to you, directly above that post. Since you really didn't expect Travis Dorsch to miss two in a row, your head flips back down to look at the official., He puts up his arms. Tie goes to the runner. It's good. Michigan players are running toward you and the officials, frantically crossing their arms. The whole thing takes a mat- ter of seconds, and desperate pleas from Wolverines fall on deaf ears. As you spin around, the band has already descended from the stands. They saw the whole thing. Do they know? But they are simply too elated to care. The twirlers are jumping on each other, screaming, their eyes glowing, tears streaming across their wind-burned cheeks. You wonder if you have ever seen so much pure joy in your whole life. After a squib kickoff, the game is over. You bolt onto the field and the student section follows. Brees finds Drew Henson, still wearing his helmet. A sportsman, Henson offers congrats. The college football rulebook defines a field goal as good if it is "between the uprights."You suppose that is open for interpretation. What exactly is "between?" Does "over" count? Mostly to the inside? You know that some one - maybe the field worker that was to your right, maybe the drum major,maybe the offi- cial that made the call -- some one will have the same thoughts you have in the back of your head. And every time a friend brings up Purdue's great victory over Michigan back in October of 2000, that thought will still be there. But you watch total strangers embrac- ing each other, and watch these boiler makers climb with frenzied glee over the goalpost you stared up at in the moment of truth. You realize then that the truth will never matter. And that's probably for the best. - David Den Herder can be reached at dden@umich.edu. By Shawn Kemp Daily Sports Vriter The volleyball team's Rock the House promotion helped it beat Indiana on Friday. Volleyball rocks the jiouse, but only once By Nathan Linsley For the Daily Perhaps the Michigan Volleyball team should have moved its annual Rock the House Night from Friday to Saturday. ' On Friday at Cliff Keen Arena, the team struggled early against Indiana oore rallying for a 3-2 win. The excess fans thanks to the promo- tion seemed to almost create a tense, must-win atmosphere. But on Saturday they opened up a seemingly insur- mountable two-game lead against defending national champion Penn State only to watch the No. 12 Nittany Lions fight back for a 3-2 victory. Michigan was unable to feed off the crowd, which was missing many of the young, energetic fans from the previous k the House night. It was a dramatically different scene against perennial powerhouse Penn State, where the Wolverines won the first two games, 17-15 and 15-12. Once again, Michigan went into intermission with all the momentum, but without the crowd support, helplessly watched Penn State convert an impressive 53.1% of their attacks for kills in the d game, a 15-3 Nittany Lions' victo- ry Michigan led 13-8 in the fourth game before a service error breathed life back into the Nittany Lions. Levy served four straight points to steal the momen- tum from the Wolverines, and Penn State went on to a 15-13 victory. The Lions took a 4-3 lead in the fifth game after a Levy kill and never looked back en route to a 15-10 victory to close the match. Without the energy of the "Rock the House Night" crowd, the Wolverines faded while Penn State's big-match experience showed. "We need to be a little better in pres- sure situations - that's where Penn State's experience came through," Rosen said. "That is why they are a team that has been to three Final Fours. It is a good experience for out team." Against Indiana, the Wolverines lost 16-14 in a tightly contested first game before tying the match with a 15-7 game before intermission. The team came out flat after the break and absorbed a 15-2 drubbing in which only middle hitter Joanna Fielder registered more kills (3) than hitting errors (2). On the brink of elimination, Michigan posted a determined 15-6 victory in the forth game. Junior Nicole Kacor led the Wolverines to a 15-9 win in the fifth game, when the team con- verted nine kills without a single error. "After the 15-2 game, I called every- one into the huddle and said, 'We're at home, and we're Michigan. We have to play with some pride,"' Kacor said. Coach Mark Rosen admitted that it was not the Wolverines' best game, but seemed pleased with the win. "I thought the players really compet- ed well (against Indiana)," Rosen said. The Michigan men's cross country team is back on track after last week- end's fourth-place finish at the Central Collegiate Championships. The Wolverines took second this weekend at the Murray Keatinge Invitational in Orono, Maine with 38 points, only seven points behind first- place Nebraska. Michigan was looking to capture its fourth-straight team title at the meet, but coach Ron Warhurst was still pleased with the overall results. "We ran a lot better and bounced back from last week," Warhurst said. Junior Mark Pilja, who didn't run at the Central Collegiate Championships, was the overall champion in 23:43. His time was only 0.7 of a second off of the meet record held by John Mortimer and Kevin Sullivan, two former Wolverine standouts. Warhurst said Pilja has taken hold of the No. 1 position for the team. "He's healthy, his training has been very consistent and controlled, and he's HOOSIERS Continued from Page 18 "We've got some guys who are capable of playing high level Division I, but we just don't have enough," Burns said. "You can't be someone that you want to be unless you work at for a long time." Michigan did come out of the lock- er room with more fire and was far more competitive in the second half. In the early going, forward Kevin Robinson fired a shot just wide of the running with a lot more confidence than he has before," Warhurst said. Freshmen John Hughes and Tom Greenless finished sixth and eighth for Michigan, with sophomore Dave Cook and freshmen Mason Ward and Dave Sage rounding out the top six finishers for the Wolverines. "The freshmen continue to improve, but we're still looking for our upper- classmen to step up," Warhurst said. Even though freshmen continue to run in four of the top six positions, Warhurst seems to think that they have room for improvement. "You can tell a lot of our guys are freshmen - they didn't have the strength in the last half mile to run with the Nebraska kids," Warhurst said. But the Wolverines are looking for- ward to next Sunday, as they host the Wolverine Interregional at the Michigan Golf Course, their only home meet. "We're ready to make a good show- ing at our home meet with our home course advantage," Warhurst said. "Then we can find out what these rook- ies are made of." net and Robert Turpin finished off a strong run with a left-footed that drift- ed over the goal of Indiana goalkeeper Colin Rogers. But it was Indiana who upped their lead 12 minutes into the half as Mack finally got on the board and minutes later reserve midfielder David Prall capped off a nightmarish afternoon for the Wolverines scoring the Hoosiers' last goal in the 7-0 victory. "They just have a different mentali- ty than we do right now," Burns said. "It's a culture of winning and we are trying not only to adopt it but learn it." ____________ U Men andWomen Children + Lose Weight *"Improve Grades -Release Stress Increase Self-Discipline -Learn Self-Defense + Develop Confidence F Get into Shape 'Build a Winning Attitude ' CALL TODAY for 1 WEEK FREE! Kim's Taekwondo U.S.A. 1958 S. Industrial Suite A & B (734)994-0400 WIDEORLDI't)1TSC ENTER,1 jC . FALL 2 SOCCER LEAGUE Frmr eal . 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