Tuesday April 1, 2003 michigandaily.com sportsdesk@umich.edu iPORTS 10 'M' nine puts hurt on Hawkeyes 20-4 Tourney action eases pain of missing Blue By Jake Rosenwasser Daily Sports Writer The Wolverines made Duane Banks Field in the plains of Iowa seem more like Coors Field in the Rocky Mountains. Without the aid of thin air, Michigan (3-1 Big Ten, 1I- 10 overall) smacked four homeruns, and the Wolverines bombarded Iowa (1-3, 7-9) for 21 hits, en route to an easy 20-4 victory. "Game four of a series is typically when the pitching gets thinner," coach Rich Maloney said. "On top of that, the wind was blowing out for us." YESTERDAY'S GAME Michigan 20, Iowa 4 MIchig(3.1, l1-10) Iowa (13, 7-9) Player AS R H BI Player AB R H BI Lollio cf 5 2 1 2 Thousand cf 3 0 0 0 Ruddenss 3 3 2 1 Bucklin cf 2 0 1 0 Scheidt 2b 2 1 00 Yoho rf 5 1 1 0 Koman 3b 6 3 3 5 Steele dh 5 1 1 0 Fox dh 4 2 2 1 GuyerIf 4 1 1 3 Kunkel c 2 2 21 Besti1b 4 14 0 Cantalamessa 3 1 1 1 Gremley ss 4 0 2 0 Goldschmeding3 0 0 0 Andrulonis 3b 4 0 2 1 Sokol If 3 1 1 2 Bruckner c 4 0 1 0 Schmidt ph/If 2 0 1 1 Lytle 2b 4 0 0 0 Wrighti1b 6 1 2 3 Jensen p 0 0 0 0 Wuerfeldh 5 2 20 Reasland p 0 000 Tognetti p 0 0 0 0 Seward p 0 0 0 0 Husain p 0 0 ,0 Jackson p A 0 0 0 Leveque p 0 0.0 0 Total 394134 Total 50 202118 LOB- Michigan 7; Iowa 8; E - Koman (10); Sokol (2); Gremley (9); Lytle (2) OP - Michigan 2 28 - Michigan 6: Koman 2 (13), Kunkel (1). Cantalamnessa (7), Sokol (9), Burhans (5) 38- Steele (1) HR - Lollio (3), :Koman (3), Fox (8) Wright (4); Guyer (4) HBP - Wuerfel. RH E Michigan 129 001 124 2021 2 Iowa 000 300 020 4132 IP H R ER BB SO Michigan Tognetti 6.2 9 2 2 0 7 Husain 1.1 4 2 2 0 0 Leveque 1.0 0 0 0 0 1 Iowa Maliszewski 20 7 8 7 1 1 Jensen 4.0 3 5 5 1 0 Reasland 2.0 6 3 3 0 1 Seward 0.2 4 4 2 1 0 Jackson 0.1 1 0 0 0 0 At.- Duane Banks Field, Iowa City Time - 2:39 In the first inning, Michigan took advantage of some Iowa mistakes in the field. After Gino Lollio grounded out, Nick Rudden walked and advanced to second on a fielder's choice. A wild pitch let Rudden advance to third. Then, Jake Fox's ground ball to second should have ended the inning, but Iowa second baseman Andy Lytle made a throwing error, allowing Rudden to score the first run of the game. That was the start to what was going to be a long day for the Hawkeyes. Michigan kept up the pressure in the top of the second. Nate Wright followed up a Chris Burhans single with a homerun to left-center field, widening Michigan's lead to 3-0. Iowa pitcher Chris Maliszewski escaped with just moderate damage in the first two innings, but the wheels came off in the third. The first five Michigan batters reached safely on base hits. A Rud- den single was followed by a Brock Koman double to right-center. Then, a Fox single was followed by doubles off the bats of Jordan Cantalamessa and Mike Sokol. Maliszewski left without recording an out in the third. Fox's single extended his hitting streak to 17 games. Unfortunately for Iowa, relief pitcher Nick Jensen did not fare much better. After recording two quick outs, Jensen hit Jason Wuerfel with a pitch and walked Lollio to load the bases. Rudden advanced each of the runners one base with an RBI single to widen the lead to 5-0. Then the big blow: Brock Koman cleared the bases with a grand slam to left center. With one swing, Koman stretched the lead to 9-0 and all but assured that the Wolverines would come back to Ann Arbor with three wins in four games in their opening Big Ten series of the year. "Our confidence level is high - as 44 seior this is- thefirst time that we've gone on the road and taken JEFF PHILLIPS Ramble on INNEAPOLIS - When Michigan announced that it was banning itself from the postseason this year, my dreams of attending an NCAA Tournament game came crashing down. I'd be lying if I said the decision surprised me, but it was still a disappointing turn of events for my last year at Michigan. While wallowing in self-pity, two friends and I decided that instead of waiting for the tournament commit- tee to invite Michigan fans to the Big Dance, we'd just invite ourselves. So we bought tickets for the Midwest regional and waited, knowing our berth was secure. When the brackets were released, we were less than pleased with our region. I saw the most dominant No. 1-seed in the tournament (Kentucky), with the dullest No. 2 seed (Pitts- burgh), the most overrated No. 3 seed (Marquette) and an inexplicable No. 4 seed (Dayton). My hope was that maybe we would get to see No. 6 seed Missouri take down the Wild- cats in the regional finals if we were lucky. But that is why they play the games. Instead of witnessing what I thought would be the most pre- dictable regional, we saw the most compelling story of the tournament so far: The resurgence of Marquette. My closed-mindedness produced some god-awful brackets (not one of my 23 brackets had Marquette in the Sweet 16), but left me that much more surprised at the Golden Eagles' sperformance. On Thursday, Kentucky was greet- ed by a stadium full of Wisconsin fans, which only had to make the short four-hour drive to the Metrodome - as compared to the 12-hour trek that Wildcats' fans faced. The game could not be con- sidered anything but an away game in a hostile environment for Ken- tucky, but thanks to 28 points by Marquis Estill, the Wildcats narrow- ly prevailed, 63-57. Not even an injury to the Wildcats' Keith Bogans was enough to help Wisconsin. In the next game, the intermission featured comments like, "I'm sur- prised Marquette made it this far" and "Do you think Bogans will be okay for Pitt on Saturday?" Of course, we spoke too soon. Marquette came out shooting, knocking down several 3-pointers to keep the game tied at halftime, 34- 34. At the break, I turned to my friend and said, "How is Wade so good? I've never seen him play well once:" As if on cue, Dwyane Wade happened. It was a rare performance. Every possession he demanded the ball and almost every time he scored. He looked like a different player. He absolutely took over the game to earn the 77-74 victory over the Pan- thers. He finished the half with 20 of Marquette's 43 points (after netting just two in the first), but it seemed like more. On Saturday, we questioned whether the home favorite Golden Eagles could repeat their perform- ance against the Panthers. If they did, they certainly had the crowd behind them. The feared "Blue Mist" of Kentucky was no match for what I've dubbed the "Golden Downpour" of Marquette - a sea of yellow across the stadium. I was surprised to see the support for a school with an enrollment of approximately 7,300 students. Upon closer inspec- tion, many of the- yellow shirts were actually for the Green Bay Packers or Team Abercrombie, but it's the thought that copts. The Go~den See PHILLIPS, Page 11 C DAVID KATZ/Daily Michigan pitcher Phil Tognetti stifled Iowa's bats yesterday, giving up just two runs in 6.2 innings pitched to pick up a win in his first start of the year. three out of four," Sokol said. Fox and Lollio added homers in the later innings to pad the Wolverines' lead. "We have a lot of veteran hitters and we know that it's up to us to either pick up our pitchers when they're struggling or help them out when they're going well," Fox said. Making his first start of the year for the Wolverines was Phil Tognetti. Coming off of a solid relief win against Central Michigan last week, the sophomore went 6.2 innings "while surrendering just two runs. "Phil Tognetti threw really well (Tuesday), and he did the same today," Fox said. "He was keeping batters off balance all day." With the win, the Wolverines find themselves over .500 for the first time since the 2001 season. They are also 3-1 where it matters the most - in the Big Ten season. "We've talked about being pre- pared for the Big Ten because every- thing before this weekend was preseason," Fox said. "Everyone has increased their focus." The Wolverines will look to improve on their winning record when they host Eastern Michigan tomorrow. 11 Fatigued Wolverines travel to Kalamazoo By Daniel Bremmer Daily Sports Writer Sometimes, there's just no time to rest. Today in Kalamazoo, the Michi- gan softball team is finding that out the hard way. Less than 48 hours after it wrapped up a 3- 1 victory over North- western to sweep a To doubleheader, the Mich Wolverines are back in Wstem action for two more games against Western Tne Michigan. Fran + "I think the biggest Kana fatigue factor comes " -"""""' from being outside - those kids were on the field from 10:45 until somewhere after five o'clock," Michigan coach Carol Hutchins said. "And I tell you what: (The cold weather) makes you really tired and sore. It makes your muscles tired, so the fatigue factor comes from the cold, and that will be something they'll have to overcome." Michigan (3-1 Big Ten, 19-8 over- iga :t e: U all) can't afford to come out slug- gish against a Broncos team on the rise. The team is hitting a collective .288, .50 points higher than last year at this time. In addition, Western Michigan has already slugged 19 homeruns this season, almost doubling the previous school record """"""'""'''" of 10 set in 1996 AY "I think that they're a an at rapidly improving pro- lich ig gram," Hutchins said. "They're a good hitting p team, and our pitchers t Field are going to have to oo come to play." S Western Michigan junior Jaymie Voss leads the Broncos with a .348 batting average and 14 RBIs, and is third on the team with three homeruns through 26 games. The Kalamazoo native will probably be the toughest out for the Wolverines in the dou- bleheader. The Broncos (4-2 MAC, 14-12) have faced two Big Ten opponents so far this season, defeating Illinois 5-1 on March 7 and falling to Pur- due 4-1 a day later. Michigan split games with Illinois this weekend, dropping a 4-0 deci- sion on Friday before coming alive in a 12-4 win on Saturday. Senior Marissa Young will be one of the pitchers that Michigan will turn to in today's action. After taking her first loss of the season in a start on Friday, Young bounced back on Sunday, pitching well in a no-decision in the first game and earning a win in relief in the second game. Young leads the team with an 11- 1 record and an impressive 1.38 ERA through her 16 appearances. She just moved into sole possession of second place on Michigan's all- time wins list with 77. Young also led the team at the plate over the weekend, hitting the game-winning homerun in the bot- tom of the ninth inning in the first game and driving in two of runs in the top of the eighth inning of game two. Following an 0-for-2 mark at the plate on Friday, Young bounced back with an impressive 4-for-4 per- formance on Saturday, including three RBIs and two runs scored. "I was seeing the ball a lot bet- ter," Young said after Saturday's game. Young - who leads the team with six homers on the season - will be an asset to her team today, as she has been all her career, according to Hutchins. "Marissa Young has been valuable since the day she walked into Ann Arbor," Hutchins said. Junior Monica Schock has also been hot at the.plate for the Wolver- ines. The catcher combined for three hits on Sunday and extended her hit- ting streak-to 10 games, a team-high this season. Most importantly for Michigan, the team will look to find a sense of stability at the plate following a weekend where it scored zero, 12, six and three runs in its four out- ings. "In general, I want us to come back from a great two wins (on Sun- day) and stay consistent," Hutchins said. "We're looking for consistency at this point." 0 pick up your complimentary, premiere issue op magazine at your local sta travel branch. 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