The Michigan Daily - SportsMonday - February 3, 2002 - 7B Tankers maintain' Big Ten perfection Late lead not enough to keep Irish at bay By Waldemar Centeno Daily Sports Writer Ohio State didn't spoil No. 4 Michigan's annual Senior Recogni- tion Day, but Michigan's fantastic freshmen sure did in the last 800- yard freestyle relay - a matchup of seniors and freshmen. "The most exciting part of the race was the last relay," head coach Jon Urbanchek said. "We took the freshman class against the upper- classmen. Last year, the upper- classmen got third at the NCAA Tournament in that relay. So the freshman class pretty much demol- ished the third place team at the NCAA Tournament." Although Saturday's meet was for the commemoration of Michi- gan's seniors, the freshmen class stole the day's spotlight. While the seniors tried to trash talk the fresh- men down during the final relay, the freshmen prepared to send the upper-classmen out as losers. "This (victory) was for pride," Urbanchek said. "The freshmen have been taking so much shit this year from the upperclassmen. This was the ideal way for pay back. It kind of made me feel good because they're young guys. Nevertheless, when you're a rookie or a fresh- man, you do take a lot of crap from the upperclassmen. However, the freshman class was able to carry the team this year. They predomi- nantly controlled our destiny." Although the seniors rushed out to an early lead, the confident freshmen came back from a con- siderable deficit and captured the victory over the older generation with a time of 6:36.86. After beating the Buckeyes 161- 114, the Wolverines recognized seven soon-to-be-graduates swim- ming in their final dual meet at Canham Natatorium. Justin Drake, Ryan Earhart, Josh Hack, Tony Kurth, Garrett Mangieri, co-cap- tain Jeff Hopwood and co-captain Heath Novak were all honored at the meet. "I can't even describe it," Hop- wood said. "The sheer camaraderie with the guys that I met over the last four years, who came in and out of the program, is something that I'll never forget. Those guys will always be life-long friends. The experience of competing on a superb athletic team, such as Michigan, is just unbelievable." Leading Michigan (5-0 Big Ten, 8-2 overall) to victory over Ohio State was the freshman Peter Van- derkaay with an NCAA automatic qualifying time in the 1,650-yard freestyle. Just one second from obtaining an NCAA qualifying time in the dual meet win against Texas, Vanderkaay swam with a vengeance in his win against Ohio SETH LOWE~R/Daily Chris DeJong won both the 100- and 200-meter backstroke events en route to Michigan's regular season-ending victory over Ohio State. By Megan Kolodgy Daily Sports Writer Last Saturday, before beginning its post- season training, the Michigan women's swimming and diving team suffered a heartbreaking 153-147 loss at the hands of Notre Dame. The Wolverines were on their way to vic- tory, winning four of the first five events against a tough pack of Fighting Irish. But they began to slip after Notre Dame's yicto- ry in the 200-yard butterfly, and halfway through the contest, the score was tied at 75. No. 19 Michigan (3-3) struggled to keep up for the remainder of the meet, and despite victories in seven events, lost to No. 18 Notre Dame by a mere six points "We haven't beaten Notre Dame in four or five years," Michigan coach Jim Richardson said. "So we knew this meet would be back and forth. Every swim mattered." Michigan learned this lesson the hard way. The swimmers went into the last two events of the competition with an eight- point lead, and let victory slip away. The Fighting Irish's Marie Labosky edged out Michigan's Sara Johnson in the 200-yard individual medley. The Wolverines still had a shot at victory if they placed first in the 200-yard freestyle relay. Victory, it seems, was not in the cards for Michigan, as it was edged out by a minis- cule .3 seconds. "We really thought we could win that relay," Richardson said. "I really thought we'd do it. But they had a great lead-off, and we had a bad turn. We might've had it if the pool was five yards longer." Michigan's relay defeat came as a shock to Richardson. "It was like we had cooked the dinner, and set the table, and just as we were about to sit down, they jumped in our chairs and ate all the food!" he said. This was a disappointing loss for Michi- gan, but the meet did not lack outstanding performances. "I thought we competed better this week than we did against Northwestern, even though we won that meet,' Richardson said. The Wolverines placed first in seven events, including the 200-yard medley relay, the 1,650-yard freestyle and the 200- yard freestyle, and achieved several NCAA consideration cuts. One swimmer who attained her consid- eration time was Junior Emily-Clare Fenn. Fenn bettered her personal best this sea- son in the 1,650-yard freestyle with a 16:40.28. "Emily has been very, very strong over the past three weeks," Richardson said. "She's been swimming the 1,650 pretty reg- ularly, and hasn't had a bad race yet." Wolverines Amy McCullough and Anne Weilbacher also swam NCAA considera- tion times. Junior diver Tealin Kelemen placed sec- ond in the one-meter event, but still man- aged to pull off an automatic NCAA qualifying score of 267.52. The Notre Dame dual meet brought the Wolverines' regular season to a close and marked the beginning of an 18-day break before the Big Ten Championships. Cur- rently, Michigan has its sights set on a peak performance at Big Tens. "Right now, we're resting and tapering," Richardson said. "I'd like to think that we could get nine girls to the NCAA Champi- onships. If we could do that, that'd be out- standing." State (1-2, 7-2) with a time of 14:56.96. "Peter Vanderkaay had the best swim of the day," Urbanchek said. "Even though he is a freshman, he is now No. 2 going into the NCAA meet behind Erik Vendt from Southern California, who is the returning NCAA champion." Junior diver Jason Coben also contributed to the team's effort by once again winning both the one- and three-meter diving events. Coben scored a 332.4 in the one- meter and 295.35 in the three- meter. Also, earlier in the week, Michi- gan seized a victory over North- western (0-4, 4-7) with a 153-132 win. Garrett Mangieri secured two -wins against Northwestern in the 50- and 100-yard freestyles. The Wolverines are now looking, forward to the Big Ten Champi- onships in Ann Arbor from Feb. 27 to March 1. "This (meet) was the rehearsal for the Big Ten Championship, and I believe that we accomplished what we set out to do," Urbanchek said. "It was a learning and teach- ing experience for this team." Seminoles hand netters season's worst loss Gal leads Michigan attack By Brad Johnson Daily Sports Writer Florida State's Mat Cloer swept into the Varsity Tennis Center yesterday and taught Michigan's previously unbeaten Michael Rubin a valuable lesson. "If you give someone the opportu- nities to strike, he is going to cash in on you," said Rubin, the Wolverines' top singles player with a 4-1 record this season. "(Cloer) played a little more offen- sively than I did. I saw right away that he was the kind of guy who would be able to hurt you even if he was out of position. He was able to change direc- tions really well." Rubin's loss was just the tip of the iceberg. The Seminoles (2-0) beat the Wolverines 6-1 yesterday, a day after Michigan defeated Ball State at the Varsity Tennis Center. Florida State opened yesterday's match by storming to the doubles point. "We came out tiptoeing instead of charging out of the lockerroom," Michigan coach Mark Mees said. The Seminoles continued their solid play in the singles portion of the competition, winning all but one of the six matches with Michigan sopho- more David Anving being the lone victor. Anving took his match 6-2, 6-4 over Seminole sophomore Chip Webb. "We had some spots where we played significantly better in singles, but we got thumped pretty good in others," said Mees. On Saturday, the Wolverines (3-2) notched a 4-3 comeback victory over Ball State at home, a win which saw junior Anthony Jackson take a tough three-setter. Jackson dropped the first set 3-6 but came back to win the final two sets 7-5, 7-5, in a hard-fought marathon that lasted nearly three hours. "He is a real competitive kid," Mees said of Jackson. "One of the things he has to do is define his style and play his game regardless of what the score is. He did a good job yesterday of doing that." Michigan also struggled in doubles play against Ball State, winning just one of its three matches and surren- dering the doubles point as a result. The strong singles play of the Wolver- ines, however, was the difference in the victory over the Cardinals. "We have been coming out a little tentative at the beginning of the dou- bles, and against good teams you can't do that," Mees said. "You have to be ready to match the intensity of the other team. You're not going to be able to back into any wins." The coach stressed that the team needs to serve better, return better and improve their movement on the court in order to turn its doubles play around. Despite the tough loss to Flori- da State, the Wolverines remain confident. "We are always going to go out and improve ourselves", Rubin said. "We are going to have to really play well to come out with the wins." By Jeremy Antar Daily Sports Writer Confident after a strong start to the 2003 season, the Michigan women's track and field team walked into Eastern Michigan's gym on Friday hoping for its second team victory in as many meets. And that is what it got. The Wolverines stampeded to victoryat the Michigan Intercollegiate hosted by the Eagles. Michigan placed first out of five teams, finishing with 187 points. The Wolverines had a monstrous day in the distance events. Sophomore Lindsay Gallo won the 3,000-meter run in her first time running the event this season. But Gallo was not surprised with her time because she had been doing well in practice. "I ran how I expected to run," Gallo said. In the mile, freshman Katie Erdman and sophomore Andrea Parker captured first and second place. Erdman was happy with how she and Parker ran. "It was a good race for both of us," Erd- man said. In the 800-meter run, again, the Wolver- ines finished in first and second place. This time, senior Rachel Sturtz and sophomore Theresa Feldkamp led the way, both running season-best times. Feldkamp said she wouldn't expect anything else than a first place finish from Sturtz. While Feldkamp was fine with finishing second, she certainly will not become complacent. She has worked hard in practice and she says that she "expects to run better as the season goes on." Following the trend in the distance events was freshman Amy Barker, who won the 5,000-meter run. E U THE "PEACE"MOVEMENT ISN'T ABOUT PEACE... It's about carrying on the left's war against America. When your country is attacked, when the enemy has targeted every American regardless of race, gender or age for death, there can be no "peace" movement. There can only be a movement that divides Americans and gives aid andcomfort to our enemies. In his speech to Congress after 9/11, the President said: "We have seen their kind before. They are the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the 20th Century. By sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions, by abandoning every value except the will to power, they follow in the path of fascism, Nazism and totalitarianism." The so-called "peace movement" today is led by the same hate-America radicals who supported America's totalitarian enemies during the Cold War. They marched in support of the Vietcong, the Sandinista Marxists and the Communist guerrillas in El Salvador. Before that they marched in behalf of Stalin and Mao. They still support Castro and the nuclear lunatic in North Korea, Kim Jong-Il. They are the friends in deed of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. What prompts American radicals to make common cause with such monsters? The answer is obvious: They share a common view of America as the "Great Satan." They believe that it is America - not tyrants like Saddam Hussein - that inflicts misery and suffering on the world. The targets of the 9/11 terrorists were Wall Street and the Pentagon. These were the targets of American radicals long before. In the perverse minds of the so-called "peace" radicals, America is the "root cause" of all the root causes that inspire the terrorists to attack us. "America is to blame for what is wrong in the world. The enemy is us." Today, as we battle the Axis of Evil, which threatens us with weapons of mass destruction, these familiar mantras are rising on college campuses from coast to coast. Just as they did in the Cold War past. During the Cold War, the radical "peace" movement bullied right-thinking Americans into silence. Our government lost the ability to stay the course in the anti-Communist war. The result was the Communist slaughter of two-and-a-half million peasants in Indo-China after the divisions at home forced America to leave. Once again, the hate America left is attempting to silence right-thinking citizens. It is attempting to divide the home front in the face of the enemy. Even as we go to war. It is stabbing our young men and women in the back even as they step into harm's way to defend us. It is attempting to paralyze our government again and prevent it from securing the peace. We can't afford to let this happen. The time has come for those who love freedom and who appreciate the great bounties of this nation to stand up and be counted. David Horowitz President Center for the Study of Popular Culture This ad has been placed by The National Campaign to Combat the Anti-American Left, a program of the Center for the Study of Popular Culture. The goal of the campaign is to place this ad in as many college newspapers as possible and to distribute The Hate America Left, a book edited by David Horowitz that exposes the "peace" movement for what it is. 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