$jer 3idtigrn rialg SPORTS ' February , 2003 SECTION B ill m i I i:!::: i l l : 1:i iii !: I I I ill 1 11 1 1 11 1: :i :I I i : 1: 1 1 i : l a n I I T.K. q FRIDAY: MICHIGAN 6, FERRIS STATE 4 SATURDAY: FERRIS STATE 4, MICHIGAN 3 Michigan digging itself into a hole it may not.get out B IG RAPIDS - Michigan captain Jed Ort- and see if anyone else can meet them. T meyer came from one direction, alternate played that way from the opening of bot captain John Shouneyia came from the In Saturday's game, they attacked theI other. SMACK! They collided and careened battling for every loose puck and, at tim across center ice. ing by their opponents. Ferris State skated right by, all the way to the goal, Michigan did outshoot Ferris State ev where Jeff Legue beat goaltender Al Montoya. Just Bulldogs were controlling play, but fewc like that, Michigan was down four goals less than period shots were quality chances. Beren two minutes into the second period Saturday night. the standard cliche, saying Michigan cou That play epitomized the way Michigan started bounces while Ferris State was getting a both games of its weekend battle with Ferris State. But you make your own breaks, too, and Friday night, the Bulldogs went Wolverines had showed intensity on def up 2-0 in the first 3:20 at Yost, enough cohesion to hang onto the pucki but the Wolverines didn't let the tral zone, the Bulldogs wouldn't have tak deficit deflate them. They got commanding lead so easily. two quick goals of thier own in That said, Ferris State is at the top of d the middle of the period and for a reason, and Michigan isn't the only pulled out the 6-4 comeback. burned by Hobey Baker candidate Chri A win on Saturday would . who scored two first-period goals in eac have completed the sweep and And you have to give the Wolverinesc moved Michigan into a tie for COURTNEY storming back within one goal Saturday first place in the CCHA. The LEWIS a potent team. Down four goals in a hos Wolverines should have known they could have easily waved the white f that league-leader Ferris State, Full court instead they turned on the engines in the in its own rink and with even press the second period until they were scrapp more to prove, would play with along with the Bulldogs. The Wolverine more intensity than it had on Friday. And after beat- better team in the third period, aside fron ing the upstart Bulldogs once, they should have had penalties at the end of the game. the confidence to come out firing on Saturday. But by that time, Michigan had run ot Instead, Michigan spent the first part of the game play in the second half of the game show digging itself into an even deeper hole than the night problem wasn't that Ferris State was just before. While the Bulldogs were zipping around the for Michigan to handle, it was that the W ice and hounding the puck, the Wolverines were run- didn't wake up in time. If they had found ning into each other. Michigan looked a little like before the game was half over, it could h last-place Lake Superior State, while Ferris State evenly matched contest, and Michigan m looked like best team in the league. been in a significantly better position in In its biggest challenge of the season - a show- the CCHA title. Ferris State's lead is bac down for first place that give it a chance to tranquil- points, and although Michigan has two g ize the rabid Bulldogs, who had come from nowhere hand, it also has a tougher schedule thanl last season (ninth place to be exact) - it's puzzling Freshman Jeff Tambellini said that the that Michigan could come out flat. were not satisfied with anything less tha "Hockey's a game of emotion and momentum and this weekend and admitted that they wen we didn't have either at the start of the game," pointed with their early effort Saturday. Michigan coach Red Berenson said of Friday's game "It was a character game," Tambellini - although the same could be said for Saturday. "It a game that was going to be played with took us half the (first) period for us to really start and desire. And they outdid us tonight." playing up to their level." Michigan showed both heart and desi If Michigan was going to get pumped up for any it just took them too long to find it. weekend this season, this should have been it. And as for playing to Ferris State's level, great teams Courtney Lewis can b don't try to match their opponents; they set the terms cmlewis of ,he Bulldogs h games. Wolverines, es, just skat- ven while the of its 19 first nson issued uldn't get the all the breaks. d if the fense and in the neu- ken such a the CCHA y team to get s Kunitz, ch game. credit for against such tile rink, flag, but middle of ping right s were the m costly ut of time. Its ted that the too much Wolverines d their fire ave been an night have the race of k to four games in Ferris State e Wolverines an the sweep re disap- u said. "It was your heart re Saturday, e reached at ,Pumich.edu. TONY DING/Daily Michigan goaltender Al Montoya is checked over by trainer Rick Bancroft after being knocked down in the second period of Friday's game. leers re-main four poi'nts back of Ferris By Bob Hunt Daily Sports Writer BIG RAPIDS - After Michigan spot- ted Ferris State two goals to at the outset on Friday night, Michigan coach Red Berenson admitted that if the Wolverines did the same thing Saturday they would have a long road back. Well, Michigan didn't just give up two goals. It gave up four. The Wolverines came out on Saturday night with a chance at sharing first place in the CCHA. Instead they gave up four goals in the first 22 minutes and ended up falling to the. league-leading Bulldogs 4-3. Michigan's comeback bid looked prom- ising after Jeff Tambellini's broken-stick dribbler squeezed past Ferris State goal- tender Mike Brown's legs to put the Wolverines within one with 14:35 left in the game. "Our team really felt they were going to win this game," Berenson said. "Even when they were down." But Michigan's chances were stymied when it committed two penalties in the final five minutes. Andrew Ebbett received a hooking penalty for taking down Ferris State's leading scorer, Chris Kunitz, and just minutes later, forward Jason Ryznar liter- ally tackled Kunitz again for a roughing penalty, leaving Michigan a man down for the rest of the game. "It's a killer for them to have to sit for two minutes without having their full team out there and not going full blast," Kunitz said. "Just for us to work hard and to get the penalties means we're doing a lot." The loss severely diminishes Michi- gan's chances of repeating its CCHA reg- ular season title. While Michigan (12-5-1 CCHA, 18-7-1 overall) has two games-in- hand on Ferris State (14-5-1, 19-8-1), the Bulldogs have a much easier schedule down the stretch. The Wolverines have to play against Michigan State, and their easiest series on paper is at Nebraska-Omaha, one of the hardest places to play in the league. Ferris State, however, has just one team with a winning record, Western Michigan, on its schedule. See BULLDOGS, Page 4B Blue can't hang with fast-paced Gophers UNNECESSARY ROUGHNESS Mother's illness, shoulder injury waylay top 'M' football recruit By Jim Weberfl Daily Sports Writer By Charles Paradis Daily Sports Writer MINNEAPOLIS - In a game in which it looked like Minnesota couldn't miss, it was important that the Michigan basketball team match the Golden Gophers punoh for punch. But the Wolverines didn't have enough in them as they fell 87- 80 in a shootout Saturday. Minnesota and Michigan came out hot in the early minutes of the game. The perimeter MICHIGAN 80 players for r MINNESOTA 87 both teams __ NNE__TA__7_ were throw- ing up - and making - improba- ble long-range shots to start the game off at a scorching pace. The Golden Gophers took a 44-41 lead into halftime, after both teams scored just two points in the final three minutes of the half. For Michigan - who has not won a game in which its opponent has scored more than 80 points - the fast-paced start was a bad omen, almost as bad as when Minnesota's Steve Esselink banked in a 3-point- er from a few feet behind the top of the key. "In the first half, we gave up too many open three's and then we started to getting hands up, but they still hit them," freshman point guard Daniel Horton said. "Once you let them get their rhythm, get a few open ones and knock them down, after that it doesn't matter what you do because if they get a good look, then they are most likely going to knock it down." In the second half, Michigan effectively creating a turnover before the half had even begun. But the good start did not pay off for the Wolverines. Bernard Robinson, who played just seven minutes in the first half because of foul trouble, was forced to sit much of the'second half after collecting four fouls. Despite play- ing just 19 minutes in the game, Robinson. was involved in one of the most dramatic plays. Driving into the offensive end, Robinson spun at the foul line, and a Min- nesota player was called for a blocking foul. The Williams Arena crowd went crazy and an object was thrown on the court. After review- ing the play, the officials ruled a double foul on Robinson and the defender. After that, Robinson was forced to sit on the bench, though his body language and posture clearly indi- cated he wanted to be in the game to help his team. Most of Michigan's help came from the play of its freshmen class. The five freshmen played down the stretch and the outcome of the game rested squarely on their shoulders. This did not just come from the freshman phenom Horton, but also from some unexpected sources. Sherrod Harrell, a preferred walk- on, hit one of Michigan's biggest shots of the game. With a little more than a minute left in the game, Harrell squared up to the basket and launched a three from the corner. Harrell's triple was his only basket of the game and cut the lead to 80- 78. Harrell, who has attempted just Prescott Burgess' first game as a Michigan Wolverine is almost seven months away. That date seems further away for his mom, Leslie, than anyone else. A year ago, Leslie Burgess became ill and no one knew how to cure her. A year later,'nothing has changed. During a three-month stay in the hospital, doctors discovered that Leslie has a rare illness called Castle- man's Disease, which is normally char- acterized by the growth of non-cancerous lymph nodes. The doctors don't know how Leslie contracted the disease, how to rid her body of the disease and most importantly, if the disease will prove to be fatal. So when asked how many games she will attend at the Big House next season, Leslie responded: "As many as God allows me to get to." Even in the event she can't make it to Michigan Stadium, there is no doubt she will be watching her son play. "Regardless of what is going on in the world, with me or without me (physically), I am always with (Prescott)," Leslie said. Burgess is confident his mother will be at the opener and is expecting her presence to lift his game like always. "I love it when my family comes to watch me," Burgess said. "It makes me play better. Most people it makes nerv- ous, but for me it makes me play better than I usually do." Since his mother contracted the disease, Burgess has lived with two different relatives in Warren, Ohio and infuriated recruiters that couldn't focusing on football. Work ethic "is an area that could improve," Harding coach Thom McDaniels said. "He's been shuffled from place to place to place. He has a home situation that is not a great one, that is reflected in lack of a better work ethic." Burgess admits that his mother's ill- ness has been hard on him and creeps into his mind during games. As if he wasn't going through enough off the field, Burgess also missed six games during his senior season because of a nerve injury in his shoulder. He said he is now "back to 100 percent." Despite adversity on and off the field, Burgess is still one of the top recruits in the country after a junior year in which he recorded more than 100 tackles. Rivals.com ranks him as the top safety and the sixth-best recruit in the country. ESPN's Tom Lemming ranks him as the second- best safety in the country and the No. 16 recruit overall. Lemming also selected Burgess to his ' Super Team," equivalent to an All-America team, with fellow safety and Michigan recruit Ryan Mundy.:Both Burgess and Mundy were also selected to the U.S. Army All-America game a month ago on ESPN2, where Burgess announced his commitment to Michi- gan by pulling a block 'M' hat out of his duffle bag on the sideline. According to his coaches, the 6-foot- 3, 210-pounder is a very physical player that is especially strong in run support. His safeties coach, John Arlesic, even DAVID KAL/zDaily Bernard Robinson (21), who sat out much of Michigan's 87-80 loss in foul trouble, shares his disgust with freshman Lester Abram (2) and senior LaVell Blanchard. very good shooter he selects his shot," fellow freshman Chris Hunter said. "Sometimes he should shoot more often when he is open because he is a good shooter and he knocks points and was 2-for-4 from beyond the arc, had a look at the basket to tie the game with less than a minute, but his shot fell off the front iron.