Wbe Lirbigan flailg SPORTS Sports desk: 763-2459 sportsdesk@umich.edu SECTION B w . rqr I I 1,1, I llI 'l" '1 11 1 Boiling over Game a role- reversal from last season's stunning loss efore Saturday's game against Purdue, the Michigan football team wanted nothing to do with the idea of revenge. The players scoffed at the notion, each giving canned responses to questions asking how much last year's loss in West Lafayette still burned. And I'm not going to spin some tale about the win on Saturday and how it gave the Wolverines what they wanted, but didn't want to talk about. I think it brought something much bigger than the quickly-passing gratifi- cation of payback. Michigan's defense, perennially among the nation's strongest, but last year, an embarrass- ment to the pro- gram, is being treated this season like the guy that did three turns in jail, but has now found God - you're intrigued by him, JON but at the same time, you're waiting SCHWARTZ for him to screw up The Schwartz again so he can go Authority back where he belongs. It's no secret that the Wolverines' are performing better on the defensive side of the ball this year. They're control- ling the line of scrimmage, they're demolishing unassuming running backs and they're. not jetting up. So when the season began, it was obvious that the Purdue game was going to be a real test -- how would the defense fare this year against the team that so demoralized it last year? Very well. Last year, Michigan blew a 28-10 halftime lead before losing on a last- second Travis Dorsch field goal. All week, the Wolverines were saying that they had to play four quarters, that they couldn't let up like they did last year. Easy enough to say, but the true test comes on the field. Michigan did what it wanted to do. It played four quarters without ever let- ting up. The most obvious example of this came on Purdue's last drive of the game. Down by 14 with about three minutes remaining, Purdue got the ball at its own 14-yard line off a Chris Perry fumble.- After moving the ball well enough for two first downs, the ball sat at the Boilermakers' 45. It was a situation that the cynical Michigan fans feared - what was going to happen this time? On first-and-10, Purdue quarterback See SCHWARTZ, Page 4B ALYSSA WOOD/Duaily Freshman phenom Alan Webb was as good as adver- tised yesterday morning. Webb cruises to v1cto at Interregional By Megan Fitzgerald For the Daily JOHN PRATT/Daily Quarterback John Navarre threw over and around Bryan Scott and the Nittany Lions for 246 yards and two touchdowns. Wolverines handle Boilermakers, 24-10 By Arun Gopal Daily Sports Writer No. 9 Michigan came into Saturday's game against No. 16 Purdue with only one goal on its mind: Winning its third straight Big Ten game and maintaining at least a share of the conference lead. Mission accomplished. Paced by a pair of touchdowns by B.J. Askew and another strong performance. from their defense, the Wolverines (3-0 Big Ten, 5-1 overall) throttled the Boiler- makers (2-1, 4-1) 24-10 in front of 110,450 fans at Michigan Stadium. Cou- pled with Ohio State's stunning collapse against Wisconsin, Michigan now sits alone atop the Big Ten after three weeks of league play. "I don't know how this whole thing is going to end; but I really like this football team," Michigan coach Lloyd Carr said after the win. "For six games, they've played hard, and today, if you knew how banged-up this football team was, you'd be proud of them just like I am." Early on, it didn't look like it was going to be Michigan's day. Purdue quarterback Brandon Hance - who was making just his fifth career start on Saturday - started out strong on the Boilermakers' opening drive. Hance converted three separate third-and-long situations to put Purdue deep inside Michigan territory. Then, on first down from Michigan's 12-yard line, Hance recovered a fumbled snap and, while off-balance, tossed a touchdown pass to tight end Tim Stratton to give the Boilermakers a 7-0 lead. "It was rough," Michigan linebacker Larry Foote said. "We were just getting adjusted, and it took us a minute to get into the flow." Michigan's offense finally got going in the second quarter. Senior wide receiver Marquise Walker provided the Wolverines with a spark when he fielded a Travis Dorsch punt at his own 30-yard line and ran 42 yards to Purdue's 28-yard line. Michigan only needed three plays to punch it in against a stunned Purdue defense. John Navarre's 24-yard comple- tion to Walker gave Michigan a first down at the Boilermakers' three-yard line. On the next play, Askew scored his first touchdown to tie the score at seven. "You can't say enough about Marquise," Navarre said. "He works hard, and today, he was the guy who got open. You look for that big target, and that's a comfort zone with him" The Wolverines took the lead for good on their next possession. After a Purdue punt, Michigan drove to the Boilermakers' 43-yard line. Navarre then connected with his favorite receiver once again, hitting Walker in stride with a touchdown pass to give Michigan a 14-10 lead. Walker had Purdue cornerback Ashante Woodyard so confused that Woodyard actually stopped running at one point as See BOILERMAKERS, Page 4B The Michigan men's cross country team faced lousy weather, and a challenging course head-on yesterday as it easily won the Wolverine Interregional. Led by freshman Alan Webb, who won the first home meet of his collegiate career, the Wolverines took six of the top eight places in the race. This gave them a score of just 18 points, which easily beat sec- ond-place Purdue and third-place Montana State, which finished with 53 and 70 points, respectively. "Everyone did what they were supposed to do," Michigan coach Ron Warhurst said. "The course is difficult, and with the weather how it is, it's even worse." Even on the challenging course, Webb managed to run a time of 25:12, which was 32 seconds faster than his closest pursuers. "It was tough", said Webb, referring to. the condi- tions of the course. "You felt the ground pull under- neath you, you were pushing your feet, but not going." Webb went for the lead right from the starting gun, and had opened a gap between himself and the rest of the field at the half-mile mark. The freshman ran his first mile in about 4:45, which was a bit fast consider- ing the poor conditions. "I paid for a quick mile,"Webb said. But, going out too fast, in the sloppy conditions didn't seem to phase the freshman, as he looked strong holding the lead for the remainder of the race. See WEBB, Page 6B 'M' falls to Minnesota-Duluth By Naweed Sikora Daily Sports Writer OMAHA - Just one night after doubling up No. 6 Providence 6-3 on the first night of the Nebraska- Omaha Maverick Stampede, the Michigan hockey team was handcuffed by tournament underdog Min- nesota-Duluth - losing to the Bulldogs in the championship game by a score of 3-2. Although the game seemed evenly matched throughout, Minnesota-Duluth's ability to convert on the powerplay made the difference in the game. Both second period goals for the Bulldogs came on the power play. Their biggest goal, however, came in the third period with the team skating at even strength. With just over three minutes expired in the peri- od and the score 2-2, Minnesota-Duluth freshman Tyler Brosz gained control of the puck in the Michigan defensive zone behind both Wolverine defensemen. Brosz fired a wrist shot from the top of the circle that sailed past Blackburn into the top corner of the net. Although frustrated by several missed opportuni- ties by his own team, Michigan coach Red Beren- son did not take anything away from unranked Minnesota-Duluth, which advanced to the champi- onship game after defeating host Nebraska-Omaha they played a strong game because they scored the goals that they needed to score - in particular the powerplay goals. "It was one of those games where we couldn't score when we had to and they scored when they had to. We had -#n edge early, but after the midway point of the first period, I thought it was a pretty even game." Early on, Michigan (1-1-1 overall) was given multiple opportunities to build a strong lead, but was unable to convert those chances into scores. With 11 minutes to play in the first period, Michigan junior captain and Omaha native Jed Ort- meyer received a breakaway opportunity coming out of the neutral zone, but was stopped by Min- nesota-Duluth goalie Adam Coole - the eventual MVP of the tournament. A few minutes later, with the Wolverines on the powerplay, Michigan freshman Milan Gajic fired a shot at an empty net with Coole out of position, but hit the side of the net. "There's no question that we had some golden opportunities," Berenson said. "Ortmeyer had a great chance and Gajic had an empty net setup. Whenever you have two or three good chances like that, you have to put those chances in." Michigan finally converted a scoring chance to take a 1-0 lead, but this time it was the individual at Stampede shot was saved, Cammalleri retrieved the rebound, was stopped on his initial shot, but got his own rebound and fired it over Coole into the goal. Michigan sophomore Joe Kautz managed to tally his first goal of the season in the second period to give Michigan a 2-1 lead, but the real story of the evening was Minnesota-Duluth's special teams. Minnesota-Duluth (2-0-0) converted on two of six powerplay attempts and killed off all four of its penalties successfully. The Bulldogs first powerplay'goal, which tied the score at one, came on a quick shot from the slot by captain Judd Medak, who redirected the puck past Michigan goalie Josh Blackburn. The .second, which tied the score at two, came on a hard slap- shot from the point by Brosz. After the goals, Michigan was unable to reestab- lish control over the game like it had in the first period. "The penalties really hurt us," Berenson said. "We are going to have to play better individually and be more consistent as a team if we want to do better. When we play well, we look really good, but when we play bad, we look really bad. There's no in-between for us." "We learned tonight that if you don't play the best game you have you're not going to win in the NCAA," Cammalleri said. "There's so much parity, tfl 7 i