88 - The Michigan Daily - SportsMonday - March 26, 204 ) Baseball braves cold for win By Steve Jackson Daily Sports Writer Baseball in the Big Ten faces con- stant battles with Mother Nature for playing time early in the spring. This past weekend, Michigan (1-0 Big Ten, 8-8 overall) moved its series against Iowa (0-1, 8-6) to DeKalb, Ill. because the Hawkeyes' field was deemed unplayable. But that didn't stop the teams from canceling three of their four games over the weekend because of inclement weather. Michigan was victorious Friday night thanks to a strong finish. GAME ONE Michigan 4, Iowa 3 Michigan Iowa Player AS R H Of Player AR R H BI Tousa 2b 3 1 0 0 Cappellano rf 4 2 3 1 CanalaessaIf 3 0 0 0 Vitense ss 4 0 1 0 Koman3b 3 0 1 m0 Burks2b 4 0 0 0 Lollocof 4 0 1 0 Humes c 4 0 0 0 Wright lb 4 1 1 1 Mattiace 3b 4 0 0 0 Soklldh 3 1 10 Carlsoni1b 2 12 0 Roberts rf 2 000 ODvorsky dh 4 0 2 1 French ph/rf 2 1 1 1 Jansen If 4 0 1 0 Fox c 2 0 00 Bucklin cf 4 00 0 LaRosa ss 3 00 0 Totals 294 5 2 Totals 3439 2 E - Koman (2), 5. DP - Michigan 2, Iowa 1 LOB- Michigan 3, Iowa 8. 28 - Sokol 4, French 2,Cappel- lano 2, Carlson 4. 38 -None. HR - Wright 3, Cappel- lano 3. S8 - None. CS - Lollio, Dvorsky 2. S - Fox, PVitense 4. IP H R ER BR SO Before the eighth inning1 Wolverines trailed Iowa 2-4 i Iowa shortstop Kurt Vitens into the game-ending 4-4 i play in the bottom of the scoreboard read Michigan 4, For the first seven iir Wolverines' bats were keI> Iowa hurler Chad BlackwelI "We we're hitting him," captain Scott Tousa said. were hitting them right at p Finally Michigan first Nate Wright made some ni own by leading off the topI eighth with his team-eatI home run of the season. I second homer in as many g Jordan French and Mike: began, the * But when e grounded i-3 double ninth, the Iowa 3. nings the >t mum by 1. Michigan . "But we eople." baseman >ise of his half of the ling third t was his imes... Sokol fol- lowed him with back-to-bac k doubles to tie the game. That marked the end d f Black- well's afternoon on the hill. Unfortunately for Iowa, reliever Reed Pawelk left his contra. 1 in Iowa City. Pawelk walked three moi re batters that inning and allowed M ichigan's final two runs to score be cause of But Michigan shortstop Bill LaRosa ended the rally by charging a ball that deflected off of the Wolverines' No. I pitcher Bobby Korecky and completing the barehanded assist. "That was really a do-or-die play for us," Michigan coach Geoff Zahn said. "It was really exciting for Bill." The Wolverines also closed the game with their second double play of the afternoon. Korecky earned the complete game win to move his season record to 3-1 and drop his ERA to 2.43. "They got some hits on Korecky early," Tousa said. "But he made the adjustments and shut them down." "He pitched well against them last year," Zahn said. "And they were keying on his inside stuff early. He adjusted, using the outside breaking ball more. He used the whole plate and really pitched well." While the Iowa field was unplayable, Ralph McKinzie Field was not big-league quality either. "You need to stay aggressive on those surfaces," Tousa said. "Every hop is another chance for a bad bounce." Cold weather and high winds kept the Wolverines from playing any more games over the weekend. "We would have liked to play more games," Zahn said. "The wind chill was about five degrees. We even had ice forming under the tarp overnight." Michigan will next brave the cold in Bowling Green tomorrow after- noon. RUNNER-UP Continued from Page 18 onship. It's like a miracle to end up second," Golder said. Michigan's comeback was bolstered largely by sophomore Daniel Diaz-Luong, who scored at least{: : ,. 4z."" 8.85 in all six events. The performance was strong enough to earn him third place in the all-around standings. "I think second place is really good actually," Diaz- Luong said. "The team got together, and we pulled through and -fought all the way to the end. That's the best we could have done." But the Ohio State tandem of Jamie Natalie and Ra Bhavsar, who finished first and second respectively in the individual all-around standings, was enough to make: the Buckeyes better. "I knew they were a very good team, very capable of winning,".Golder said. "They had a great meet." The championships for each event was decided on the second day of competition, and Michigan junior ; Scott Vetere won the parallel bars title. Vetere also finished second on the rings. Diaz-Luong posted a $ second-place score on the high bar and sophomores Jamie Hertza and Kris Zimmerman tied for second on the floor exercise. Michigan's hopes to carry over its strong finish into the national championships, which will take place April 5-7 in Columbus. "I'm very proud of the way the guys fought back," Golder said. "They have to eliminate those mistakes at nationals. I think they definitely showed themselves that they can win the championship if they eliminate those mistakes." As their attention shifts to the final meet, the Wolverines hope to regain a title they held two sea- sons ago and lost to Penn State by such a narrow mar- gin a year ago. "I think we're in a really good place going into nationals," Diaz-Luong said. "Right now we've got JAMES RAJOTTE/The Daiy collegian about a week and a half to train, and we are hungry Jamie Hertza and Michigan scored a 35.8 on the pommel for that championship title." horse en route to a second-place finish at Big Tens. Title IXfrom the cutting-room floor 0 C i i i f Michigan KoreckyW (3-1) 9.0 9 Butler Backwell L(1-1) 7.0 5 Pawelk 1.0 0 Miguel 1.0 0 WP- Pawelk (2), 5. PB- None. 3 2 2 5 3 1 0 3 1 0 0 6 3 0 1 1 wild pitches. "He was throwing it all over the place," said Tousa, who saoyred the Wolverines' final run. After scoring four runs. on just three hits, Michigan return d to the field with a 4-2 lead. , That lead was soon in jeop ardy. With two outs, Iowa be nefited from a hit batsman, a balk a ad a sin- gle to cut the lead to one a ad bring the winning run to the plate. Umpe- Home: Umland 1st: Mecca 2nd: Sharkey At: Ralph Mcinzie Feld, DeKab, Ill. Attendance: 75 Start: 2 p.m. Time: 2:39 Powerful offense keys victories 0 The Michigan softball team contin- ued it's improvement on the season by picking up two victories at the Purdue Boilermaker Invitational. The Wolverines, ranked 24th in the country, improved their record to 11-9. In game one, freshman third baseman Angie Churchill hit a grand slam and Marie Barda gave up only one earned run in six innings as Michigan won 11-5. The late game saw the Wolverines defeat Butler 7-3 behind the pitching of freshman Meghan Ritter, who picked up her first career win. Senior rightfielder Melissa Taylor was solid at the plate for Michigan, going six-for-nine on the weekend with four runs scored. 'Michigan coach Carol Hutchins was. scheduled to coach in her 1,000th career game yesterday before inclement weath- er cancelled play. Hutchins has a career record of 695- 301-3, with 672 wins at Michigan. - Nate Linsley GAME ONE Michigan 11, Toledo 5 Michigan Toledo Player AR R H BI Player AE R H BI Kollen 2b 5 1 1 1 Linton ss 4 2 3 0 Taylorrf 5 2 3 2 Stavroulakis3b4 1 1 0 MouldenIf 5 0 1 2 Schaaf dh 2 0 1 1 Tune ss 3 0 10 Nagel c 4 1 11 Volpe dh 3200 House1b 3 1 1 2 Young 1b 3 1 1 1 Nelson 2b 3' 0 0 0 Schock c 3 2 2 0 Bartkowiak cf31 0 0 0 Churchill 3b 2 3 1 4 Riepenhoff if 3 1 0 1 1 Garza cf 2 0 1 0 D'Amore rf 3 0 0 GAME TWO Michigan 7, Butler 3 Michigan Butler Player AB R H BI Player AB R H BI Kollen 2b 4 2 2 0 KeechlIf 3 0 0 0 Taylor rf 4 2 3 1 Goldstone cf 3 0 1 0 Moulden 1b 3 2 1 3 Kellerib 3 1 1 0 Tune ss . 4 131 AWrasse rf 3 11 0 Youngdh 3 0 1 0 Bradley dh 3 0 0 0 Bugel c 3 0 1 0 Ryan c 3 1 1 3 GarzaIl 1 000 Sommers 2b3 00 0 Churchill 3b 3 0 0 0 Poast 3b 1 .0 0O 0 Doe cf 3 0 0 0 Kulpinski ss 2 0 0 0 Totals 317 127 Totals 243 4 3 - Churchill. DP - Michigan 2 LOB - Michigan 6, Butler 1. 2 - Tune 2, Wrasse, Bugel. 3. - oge HR - Moulden, Ryan. SR - Taylor. CS - None. S - Young. t Totals 35111210 Totals 290, 58 5 E - Tune, Linton 3, Nagel, House. OP - None, LOB - Michigan 9, Toledo 6. 2B - Moulden, Linton; House. HR - Churchill. SB- None. CS - Schaaf. S - IN tone. Michigan Barda W (4-4) Ritter IP H R ER BB 6.0 4 2 1 3 1.0 4 3 3 0 S .b 5 0 Michigan Ritter W (1-0) Butler Benter L (8-4) IP H R ER BB SO 7.0 4 3 3 1 8 7.0 12 7 7 2 6 Toledo McMasters L (3-2)7.0 12 11 6 WP - Ritter PS -Schock, Bugel Umpire - Pete Grabner At: Harrison Field, West Lafayette Attendance: 42 Start: 11:00 a.m. Time: 2:23 6 7 WP - None. PS- None. Umpire - None listed At: Harrison Field, West Lafayette Attendance: 89 Start: 4:35 p.m. Time: 1:25 STATE COLLEGE - I couldn't help feeling filthy, feeling like an ambulance chaser as I sat and watched the ien's gymnastics Big Ten Championships with a tearful Tony Golden, the father of Michigan State gymnast Brad Golden. It was the final night of the event, and the Golden family was having a sensational bit- tersweet moment. Sweet because Brad had just cap- tured a confer- ence championship, in the floor. DAN exercises. Bitter VILLIAMS because he's The only a sopho- Outsider more, but he is rounding out his final year as a varsity athlete. Michigan St'ate men's gymnastics is the latest casualty courtesy of Title IX - it will cease to exist after the national championships in less than two weeks. So this family - the Goldens - was experiencing an abrupt but touching culmination to Brad's 13- year gymnastics career, and I was at their side observing and taking notes. And I don't have a problem writing human interest stories. What I didn't like was knowing that I had ignored the plight of the Michigan State pro- gram until a good piece presented itself. "Everybody hears about it and shakes their head, but it usually goes no further than that," said Jeff Robin- son, a gymnastics enthusiast who coached Brad pre-college. That pretty much suinmed up my reaction. So now it's difficult for me to hop aboard my soap box, and preach the evils of the way Title LX is being applied. Nevertheless, that's exactly what I'm about to do. Men's gymnastics is getting wrongly burned, and it needs as many public advocates as possibler to avoid complete obliteration. While Title IX has been the great- est thing to ever happen to women's sports, current interpretations of the law are killing many non-revenue men's sports. Men's gymnastics, which will be down to 24 Division I programs after the Michigan State team dissipates, is probably being hit the hardest. Everyone agrees that Title IX has done unbelievable, necessary things for collegiate women's sports, and no one wants to see the inroads reversed. But the intention of the law is to create more opportunities for women, not to subtract opportunities from male athletes. The problem is that women's sports have to receive proportional participa- tion and funds to the gender numbers of the student population to comply with the law. When a school doesn't comply, an athletic director's choices are to increase the women's numbers and funding, or to cut male programs. The latter is generally considered the easy way out. The Michigan State AD, Clarence Underwood, chose the easy way out, thus, Brad Golden and his teammates are up the proverbial creek. Michigan had a similar situation in 1995 -- it was even announced that the gymnastics program would be dropped. But under Athletic Director Joe Roberson, the decision was reversed in 1996. Michigan gymnas- tics coach Kurt Golder said that Roberson "mandated" that Michi- gan's women's teams increase their participation numbers while men's team slightly lowered theirs. According to Golder, Michigan State tried to do the same thing, but its leadership didn't enforce the changes, and now.the program is on the eve of being defunct. Michigan is safe -- safe as long as there are other teams to compete against, I suppose. Men's gymnastics is an easy'target because it doesn't make a university money, and it doesn't have the sup- port base that a sport like wrestling has. Wrestling is also being hit hard, but it will survive because of its numerous and zealous fans. Most of the websites mobilizing citizens against Title IX are wrestling-based. Because gymnastics takes such an unbelievable amount of strength, skill and commitment, most kids never get exposure to the sport. Therefore the fan base consists almost solely of people who excel or excelled at gym- nastics - a small group. So it may be up to you, me and other men's gymnastics outsiders to save the sport on the college level. I can't believe anyone, even those who feel that Title IX hasn't done enough to create gender equality. would want Golden and his team- mates to turn in their uniforms. The injustices are obvious, the American population just has to become aware of the situation and willing to go to bat for a good cause, even without vested personal interest. I know I am going to write to my congressman and let them know that this situation must be rectified. After sharing that moment with the Gold- ens, after writing this column, I'd be quite a hypocrite to do otherwise. Dan Williams can be reached at .dhw@ur mich.edu. GROUND - I .The center or origin of rapid, into nse activity or change... 2. 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