8B - The Michigan Daily - SportsMonday - April 14, 2003 Pep talk from coach makes big difference 0 By Albert Kim Daily Sports Writer1 In practice on Wednesday, the Wolverines had just come off a fall on their bar routines, and had to move to beam. Michigan coach Bev Plocki gathered the troops and gave them the scenario. Hit on beam to go to nationals. They then had one of their best beam sets1 of the year. An eerily similar situation arose Saturday night, as the Michigan women's gymnastics team came off1 a fall on bars and moved on to beam in its last rota- tion. With an NCAA Championship berth and a1 regional championship on the line, Plocki gave her pep talk.I 'I circled them up after bars, and said, 'Look, we've practiced it, and you have got to compete to win,' " Plocki said. "You have got to go out there and be aggressive." And the Wolverines did. Posting no scores lower than a 9.8, Michigan seized the opportunity to prove1 once again that the mental strength of the team is bor- dering on exceptional. It's a coach's dream to have a scenario in practice1 play itself out in competition. For Plocki, it was proba- bly not the scenario she wanted, but she still ended up ! looking like a genius as Michigan rolled on the beam. "It was amazing what our team did on beam and bars and coming back," senior co-captain Janessa Grieco said. "Just the way we went out there and did it under pressure was just unbelievable." Earlier in the week, the Michigan coaching staff said it was pleased with the rotation it had gotten. Nor- mally, the home team would like to end on the floor, but the Wolverines drew beam as their last event. Michigan is very strong on beam, but it becomes a lot more difficult in pressure situations, and everyone was having second thoughts Saturday night. "It's hard to end a meet like this on beam, because there's a lot of pressure, and there's no room for error up there," Plocki said. "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous, but I did have a lot of confidence in the kids." The team was admittedly nervous, but those nerves mixed with confidence. "I was really nervous, but I just knew I could do it," Lauren Mirkovich said. "We were really confident going into beam just because beam is one of our best events," freshman Jenny Deiley said. Michigan's upperclassman leadership helped pull the team through. "I think that's one of our best aspects, everyone is so good at picking each other up," freshman Becca Clau- son said. "Especially the older girls, for us who don't really know what it's like in a team sport and event like this." Clauson was especially impressive on the beam, tal- lying a 9.9 in an event that has perplexed her through- out the year, both in practice and competition. "Becca has had a little bit of confidence problems lately on beam, and we've been really working hard on that," Plocki said. "This past week has been outstand- ing for her in practice, and I had enough confidence in her to put the big flight series back in the routine, because I knew she could do it." Plocki asked Clauson afterwards if her confidence was back, and Clauson replied, "Oh yeah." The underclassmen once again showed that they are for real, silencing any remaining doubters. Beam will be key as the team moves on to the national champi- onships in Lincoln, Neb., and the Wolverines' mental toughness will be tested yet again. But there is no indi- cation that Michigan will crack anytime soon. The bigger the meet, the bigger this season's Wolverines perform, and something Clauson said ear- lier in the week is a perfect illustration of what this team is all about. "She (Clauson) had said before that she performs the best in the biggest meets," Plocki said. "She proved herself right." So did the Wolverines. .0 REGIONALS Continued from Page 1B And that was basically it. Just go after it. That's kind of the attitude we had going into beam." Ryals herself was, simply put, on fire. In addition to being the All- Around Title winner, she also tied for first place on both the floor exercise and the uneven bars. "It's kind of cool because I've had kind of a rough season," Ryals said. "It feels good to be able to pick it back up. Freshman Jenny Deiley, who was the runner-up to Ryals in the All-Around, also had a very good showing. In addi- tion to being the runner-up in the All- Around, she also tied won the vault title and Ryals for first on uneven bars. Michigan also got some help in win- ning the meet. The Sun Devils, who have been ranked in the top five nationally for much of the season, choked on beam, scoring a 49.2 to hand the victory over to the Wolver- ines. "It just so happened that we were a tenth better," Plocki said. "There's so much parody across the country, that on any given night it doesn't matter if you're number three or number ten, either team could win. I think that that's something that we have to take into the national championship and go okay they were number, well there's four through nine that are technically still ahead of us, but if we could beat number three we could beat any of the rest of them too." In the end, the Wolverines left the floor tired but elated. All the hard work over the season had finally put them in the position that they wanted to be in. "In the situation we were put in, I think I was really proud of our team," Ryals said "(We) did awesome REBECCA SAHN/Daily Junior Call Ryals performs on the floor at regionals this Saturday at Crisler Arena. The Wolverines advanced to the NCAA championships. Polo takes home division championship By Ellen McGarrity Daily Sports Writer Some say the third time is a charm - this supersti- tion held true for Michigan women's water polo coach Matt Anderson this weekend when he and his team traveled to Lewisburg, Pa. With Michigan's third thrashing of rival Indiana this season, the Wolverines claimed the Southern Division Championship title for the second year in a row with a 6-2 win. "Winning the championship was awesome - no doubt about that," said Anderson about his first year on the winning side of the rivalry. Anderson was assis- tant coach for Indiana last year when it lost to Michi- gan and knows how it feels to be at opposite ends of the rivalry. Last time Michigan faced the Hoosiers, victory did not come easy, as Michigan barely tied the score in the last quarter and eventually won in overtime. One of the factors that helped Michigan exhibit more skillful play was that Anderson has been teach- ing his team to score goals early in the game and toward the ends of quarters. For most of the season, Michigan has tended to make its goals in the second half of the game, giving its opponents the chance to claim an early advantage. In this game, though, by the end of the first quarter, Michigan had already put three tallies on the score- board. Anderson also explained the advantage of scoring goals near the end of a quarter. "You've established that you can work a period and play strong defense," Anderson said. "Then you show at the end that you can throw a goal on the board. Your opponents question themselves on how hard they want to work in order to beat you (in future quarters)." Michigan's six goals were all scored near the end of quarters. Also to Anderson's advantage was that he finally had his entire team to draw from. For much of the sea- son, two or more of his top players have been injured or out with illness. "I think the difference in this game and the last time we played Indiana is the fact that we are healthy again," Anderson said. Junior Jo Antonsen, who has been out much of the season due to a broken left finger, was the leading scorer in the game with her second career hat trick. "Jo Antonsen was huge," Anderson said. "She real- ly adds another weapon for us on offense, and she is an outstanding defensive player. She adds a lot of ver- satility to the team." Antonsen poses a unique challenge for opponents because she is one of the two left-handed players on the team. She said that all three of her goals were aimed at the goalie from angles only a left-handed player could set up. Michigan goalie Betsey Armstrong also played a key role in stopping Indiana. With an amazing 17 saves, Armstrong nearly broke her own school record of 19, recorded last year in another game against Indiana. "Armstrong just destroyed Indiana defensively," Anderson said. "We were allowing (Indiana) to take shots we knew she would just eat up." Now that the Wolverines have proven themselves as number one in their own conference, they will head to the Eastern Championships, taking place April 25-27 in Boston. Michigan will likely be chosen as the No. I seed after its performance this weekend. NCAA Continued from Page1B minutes outside of Philadelphia so I had a lot of family there. Hearing people cheer for me brought up my confidence and helped me perform well." Other standout performances of the night came from sophomore Geoff Cor- rigan and freshman Gerry Signorelli. The pair posted Michigan's best score on the horizontal bar with a 9.300. This was good enough for a fifth-place tie and matched the season high for the team. Senior Brian Peterson also posted his highest score of the season on pom- mel horse with a 9.300. With these combined efforts, the Wolverines advanced to the finals in second place out of six teams. On Saturday, Michigan was the only school that had three people in the top 10 of the all-around event. Vetere placed third, and freshmen Justin Laury and Gerry Signorelli grabbed top-10 finishes as well, making them the two highest-placing freshmen. "I felt pretty good," Signorelli said. "Withthe amountaof struggles we've had all season and all of the injuries, by bringing everything together we defi- nitely hit our potential, and I think all of the guys feel the same way." At the end of the night, the Wolver- ines walked away with theif fourth-place finish behind repeat champion Okla- homa, Ohio State, and Big Ten champi- on Penn State. After the night's events, the Wolverines were able to send top- eight finishers Vetere (on the pommel horse), DiGiore (on vault), and senior Conan Parzuchowski (on the still rings) to the Individual Event Finals yesterday. Even though just one national cham- pion came out of the event finals, Vetere finished seventh in the pommel horse, and Parzuchowski finished in fifth-place on the still rings. It was an amazing weekend for the Wolverines, and they were proud to finish on a strong note. "This season was a lot better than last year," Golder said. "Although we placed the same, we had a better and smoother championship." 0 0 UNFUNNY COMICS The girl from Ipanema goes walking, and when she passes each YOUR GOT USED BOOKSTORE - ~she passes goes OUCH! Hey! What is this? r . , t mmmmm SELL THOSE BACK YOU JERK! l i J i I I I I Man, Jerry, my El Camino sure needs a new paint job. Well,did you sell your boo ks back to the hookstore? Y AN No, I didn't Jerry. Then I guess this El Camino stays ugly. ((549 E. University)) 662~3201 (m-f 9...6) (sat 10...5) (sun 12...5 ) www.ulrichs.com BOOK & SUPPLY ((317 S. 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