8B - The Michigan Daily - SportsMonday - April 9, 2001
Blue falls to physical
Princeton in Southerns
Golf fifth at Marshall
By Courtney Lewis
Daily Sports Writer
By J. Brady McCollough
Daily Sports Writer
After cruising through the Eastern
Conference unbeaten with a previous
record of 18-0-1, the No. 14 Michigan
water polo team collided with its first
obstacle on the road to the NCAA
Championships -No. 15 Princeton.
The Wolverines (19-10-1) met the
Tigers Saturday for the third time this
season after winning the first two match-
es by counts of 8-4 and 9-8. But this
time around, the stakes were higher as
the Southern Division Championship
and top seed in the Eastern Conference
Championships were on the line.
Princeton dominated the champi-
onship game, winning by a comfortable
margin of 11-5, and will enter the East-
em Championships in three weeks as the
team to beat.
"We didn't play to our potential," util-
ity player Abbi Rowe said. "We have a
lot of talent, but we just weren't able to
execute together."
This past weekend's championship
was Michigan's first postseason compe-
tition as a varsity program, putting the
inexperienced Wolverines at an immedi-
ate disadvantage against Princeton's
more established program.
"We were a little bit nervous when we
went into the game against Princeton,"
captain Melissa Karjala said. "It was the
final game, and a lot of people did things
that they weren't used to doing. People
tried to overstep their roles. It got messy
- we were confused."
The Tigers shocked the Wolverines
with their physical play, forcing Michi-
gan out of its game -much like Massa-
chusetts did two weekends before.
Within the first five minutes of the
game, a Princeton player was kicked out
of the game for punching Rowe in the
face.
"They were playing really physical
overall," Rowe said. "It was back and
forth, and once we got down, we could-
n't pick ourselves back up. We just
weren't playing together. It was really
hard to focus."
In Michigan's 9-8 victory over
Princeton on Feb. 25, the Wolverines'
shooting was on fire. But on Saturday,
Michigan couldn't muster any offensive
punch to keep up with the Tigers. The
Wolverines, who normally take advan-
tage of their power play opportunities,
were stagnant even with the one-woman
advantage.
"Bottom line - Princeton put their
shots in and we didn't," Michigan coach
BHENDAN O'DONNELL/Uaity
No. 14 Michigan was unable to stay afloat against No. 15 Princeton on Saturday.
The Michigan men's golf team is still
clinging to hopes of qualifying for the
NCAA Tournament - but just barely.
The Wolverines tied with Kentucky for
fifth place at the Marshall Invitational
this past weekend, well behind winner
Ohio State. The Buckeyes set a tourna-
ment record with their team total of 839.
The field consisted entirely of District
IV teams competing for slots in the
NCAA Central Regional along with the
Wolverines. Michigan knew going in it
would all but eliminate itself with
another poor showing. The team
responded by posting an 871, its best
three-day total of the season by nine
shots.
"I can't be unhappy when we finished
fifth out of 20 teams," coach Jim Carras
said. "But even with that, realistically,
there are areas we need to improve on if
we're going to be the team I think we
can be."
As defending champion in the invita-
tional, Michigan was familiar with the
treacherous sloping greens of the Guyan
Country Club and putted well. The
Wolverines also improved off the tee,
taking advantage of wider fairways.
M
Mitke
But the keys to their solid perfoa
mance was a strong start and low scores
from their best players.
"The thing that hurt us the last two
weeks was we shot ourselves in the
knee with poor first rounds," Carras
said.
This time Michigan shot 289 in the
first and second rounds, both of which
were played on Friday, and followed
with a 293 Saturday.
Scott Hayes and Andrew Chapman,
who had both been plagued by erratic
play, led the team with 14th and 19th
places, respectively. Hayes shot 72-72-
70 on the par 71 course, marking the
fourth time this year that the fifth-year
senior turned in Michigan's lowest tally.
Redshirt freshman Scott Carlton tied
a personal best with 218. Carlton's solid
play has been a pleasant surprise for
Michigan all year.
Michigan needs to develop more con-
sistency from golfer to golfer. In order
to secure an NCAA Tournament berth,
the Wolverines will have to use the
Marshall Invitational as a launching pad
and finish even higher in its final two
events.
"We are marginal, there's no question
about it," Carras said. "But there's still a
ray of sunshine."
ia omen
Amber Drury-Pinto said. "We had plen-
ty of opportunities to put the ball in the
net and we didn't. Our power plays
probably let us down the most."
Another key to Princeton's success
against the Wolverines was the play of
its two-meter Adele McCarthy-Beau-
vais, who dominated Michigan defend-
ers in front of the net. She scored a
whopping six goals to lead the Tigers,
who were a step gove their competition
all weekend.
"We really knew what to expect, but
Beauvais had a great game and a great
tournament," Drury-Pinto said. "We did-
n't stop her. You have to give the credit
to (Princeton). They played really well
the whole way through."
Michigan has played a relatively easy
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schedule this season, which can be
explained mostly by its location in the
Midwest. The Wolverines' only good
competition in the region comes from
Indiana, who is not an elite opponent.
Because of their schedule, the Wolver-
ines are not as prepared as they should
be for quality opponents like Princeton.
"We can't get good competition (con-
sistently)," Drury-Pinto said. "Yeah we
were on a roll, but we were playing
teams that we were beating 17-5. We
need to structure things a little bit differ-
ently to get more competition in the
end."
Even though Michigan experienced
its first defeat in Eastern Conference
play with its loss to Princeton, the
Wolverines did qualify for the Eastern
Conference Championships in Provi-
dence, R.I. Michigan tallied three con-
vincing wins this weekend against
Bucknell, Grove City, and George
Washington, earning a second place fin-
ish in the Southern Division.
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AA/E: 0
By Chris Burke
Daily Sports Writer
again gat Indiana Invite
The Michigan women's golf team
has shown flashes of brilliance this sea-
son - first-place finishes at the Lady
Aztec Invitational and the Hatter Spring
Fling, for example.
But it's been the other tournaments
where the Wolverines have struggled
that continue to bother coach Kathy
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Teichert.
The problem of inconsistency again
reared its ugly head for the Wolverine
over this past weekend at the Indian
Invitational, where the team finished
sixth out of 15 teams with a 54-hole
team score of 958. The Wolverines fin-
ished 36 shots behind tournament win-
ner Michigan State and 18 strokes back
of an Ohio State team that they've
defeated previously this spring season.
"We've been practicing so tough late-
ly, but we just haven't produced durin
play in tournaments," Teichert sai.
"The tournament wasn't bad, but we
simply should have done better."
LeAnna Wicks paced the Wolverines
with a score of 237 on a par-74 course,
good enough to tie for 18th place over-
all in the tournament Bess Bowers
turned in a 240, while Courtney Reno
and Kim Benedict finished with marks
of 241 and 242, respectively.
It was not a poor performance for tha
Wolverines. But, with three weeks unt
the Big Ten Championships mark the
beginning of post-season play, it wasn't
exactly the caliber of performance the
team was looking for.
"We can't make the mistakes that we
are - mistakes that we should never be
making in the first place," Teichert said.
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