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Friday
February 13,2004
sports.michigandaily.com
sports@michigandaily.com
SPORTS
10
4
Sweet and Sour
'M' lets go of
17-point lead;
Spartans win
By Josh Holman
Daily Sports Writer
The Michigan women's basketball team was determined
not to repeat the 34-point loss it endured to Michigan State
in the Breslin Center earlier this season. But while every-
thing seemed so different for much of the game, it all
ended up the same.
The Wolverines surrendered a 17-point first-half lead
and the Spartans grabbed a 59-54 win in front of a record
crowd of 4,611 at Crisler Arena last night
"Maybe we can call this a rivalry now," Michigan coach
Cheryl Burnett said. "One thing we HG A
talked about besides the X's and O's
adjustments is that you have to play
hard against Michigan State because they play hard."
Michigan (4-8 Big Ten, 11-14 overall) carried a 13-point
lead into halftime, but allowed No. 17 Michigan State (9-3,
19-4) to chip away the entire second half. The Wolverines
made things very easy for the Spartans down the home
stretch when they failed to score a single point after a pair
of free throws by freshman guard Kelly Helvey gave
Michigan a 54-48 lead with 4:40 remaining.
The Spartans took advantage of the Wolverine scoring
woes by going on a 9-0 run in the next 1:48. A turnaround
jumper from forward Liz Shimek capped off the run, but
the exclamation point came off a possession earlier from
guard Kristin Haynie. The junior nailed a 3-pointer with
3:09 left on the clock, giving the Spartans their first lead
of the game at 55-54. The bucket turned out to be the
game-winner.
"She's a dagger girl," Michigan State coach Joanne P.
McCallie said. "If you've followed our team at all, Haynie
has always put the painful one into other opponents."
Haynie's play represented Michigan State's entire game
in a nutshell. She shot 0-for-8 from the field in the first
half, mirroring the Spartans' miserable display of 25-per-
cent shooting in the opening frame. Haynie made her shot
when it counted, though, finishing the game with 3 points
while shooting 1-for-10 from the field.
Guard Lindsay Bowen did most of the damage for
Michigan State in the second half. Fourteen of her game-
high 17 points came in the second half. Most of her buck-
ets came right after conversions on the other side of the
court by the Wolverines, who were desperately trying to
hold off a suddenly fervent Michigan State squad.
"In the first half, we didn't come out fighting or
focused," Bowen said. "We were really getting onto each
Like her team,
Gandy withers
By Erc Ambinder
Daily Sports Writer
Michigan women's basketball senior Stephanie Gandy
played her best basketball of the season against Michigan
State last night ... at least in the first half.
Gandy scored 15 points on 5-for-7 shooting in the opening
20 minutes, but scored just two points on
1-for-8 shooting in the second half.
ey tfGandy completed four 3-point plays
early in the first half, sparking the Wolver-
ines to a 33-20 halftime lead.
Unlike Michigan's energy level in the
second half, Gandy's shots weren't falling.
Burnett squeezed as much as she could from Gandy, play-
ing her all 40 minutes.
"At some point tonight, we lost that energy, that electricity
that creates offense for us," Burnett said.
The Spartans outscored the Wolverines by 18 points in the
second half.
FANS ANSWER THE CALL: Crisler Arena has never been louder
during a women's basketball game.
With Michigan State taking their first lead of the game, 55-
54, the chant from Crisler sounded like "Let's go Bleen" - a
mixture of "Let's go Blue" and "Let's go green."
Thanks to about 900 Spartan faithful, Michigan set an all-
time attendance record for a women's basketball game with
4,611 fans in attendance.
"I want to thank the game environment - of course our own
people that really came out to support us, and certainly quite a
few Michigan State people that were here," Burnett said.
To help boost attendance at Crisler, Michigan's promotion
department called thousands of fans with a taped recording of
Burnett. She encouraged fans to support the team in their
remaining home games. Michigan averages 2,100 fans per
game, but has eclipsed the 4,000 mark in recent games.
The Bluenatics, the women's basketball student fan club,
helped Michigan on defense. Spartan guard Kristin Haynie
went 0-for-8 in the first half after enduring taunts of "air-ball"
every time she touched the ball.
CHOKE, COUGH, AND GREEN: The Bluenatics may have taken
Haynie out of the game in the first half, but the junior nailed
the biggest shot of the game - her only field goal - and gave
Michigan State their first lead, 55-54 with 3:09 remaining.
This girl was sick - literally.
"I'm not a doctor, but you know when you cough up all that
green stuff," Michigan State coach Joanne P. McCallie said.
"She's got an infection."
Haynie was subbed in and out of the game five times in the
first half.
"She couldn't breath, she couldn't do anything," McCal-
lie said. "I said, 'Can you play or not.' She said, 'Yeah I'm
playing.'"
DANNY MOLOSHOK/Daily
LEFT: Senior captain Stephanie Gandy looks fired up after
scoring in the first half of Michigan's game against Michigan
State yesterday. RIGHT: Gandy reaches for a discouraged
Tabitha Pool after falling behind in the second half.
other about being blue-collar and fighting through this to
stay together. In the second half I think we did that."
Michigan pulled out to as much as a 17-point lead
before taking a 33-20 lead to the lockerroom at break.
Senior forward Stephanie Gandy came out fired up and
on fire, scoring 15 of her 17 points in the first half.
She got a little help from junior forward Tabitha Pool,
who was perfect from the field in the first half on 4-for-4
shooting, including two from downtown.
Behind a noisy crowd by Crisler Arena terms, Michigan
jumped out to an early 14-4 lead and was able to add to the
cushion until halftime.
The first-half play of center Kelli Roehrig may have
been the only thing that kept the Spartans in the game. The
6-foot-4 Roehrig cleaned up on the offensive boards, scor-
ing 6 of her 10 first-half points off of offensive rebounds.
She also shut down senior center Jennifer Smith, who
shot 2-for-11 in the first half. Smith finished with 15
points, more than six below her average.
All five of Michigan's starters played at least 33 minutes,
while both Gandy and Smith played a full 40. Michigan
State, on the other hand, had only two players play more
than 30 minutes, and had seven players log at least 10.
"When we're having five players play an incredible
amount of minutes with the depth that Michigan State has,
I just am proud of our kids for playing so hard so long,"
Burnett said.
Michigan's schedule doesn't get any easier, as it travels
to State College to take on No. 8 Penn State on Sunday.
O , 0°0 °0
Miami enters Yost duel for first
By Gennaro Filice
Daily Sports Editor
Every time the Michigan hockey team enters the north
gate of the Yost Ice Arena surface on game night, it is greet-
ed by a team on a mission.
Every college hockey team wants to win each time they
hit the ice, but the desire to prevail seems to escalate when
a team is donning the white sweaters in Ann Arbor.
" 'At Michigan' is everybody's biggest weekend," junior
alternate captain Eric Nystrom said.
Under Red Berenson, the Wolverines have enjoyed
well-documented success, including two national title
championships and nine Frozen Four trips. Michigan's
track record has placed a constant target on the team's fig-
urative back. To many college hockey coaches, including
Miami's Enrico Blasi, the Wolverines have become the
team to beat.
"We've really built our team around playing against
Michigan," Blasi said. "We have nothing but respect for
the Michigan program. I think a lot of the teams in our
league have taken that approach as far as emulating what
(Michigan's) done and tried to do some of the things that
they've done.
"Michigan is probably at the top of the country as far as
how consistent a winning program it is, and Red Berenson
and staff have done a great job."
Blasi and the No. 8 RedHawks (18-9-3 overall, 15-5-2
CCHA) enter Yost Ice Arena with sole possession of first
place in the CCHA, holding a three-point lead over second
place Michigan. With just over a month left in conference
play, success in Ann Arbor this weekend would give the
RedHawks a good chance of winning their second confer-
ence title ever. But, victories at Yost don't come easy. Blasi
and the Miami program know this all too well.
Since starting as head coach in 1999, Blasi has gone 0-6
in the hallowed building. Miami hasn't won on Michigan's
home ice since 1994. But Blasi says the losing streak hasn't
even crossed his players' minds.
"Not at all," Blasi said. "Every year's a new year. As far
as we're concerned, we're 0-0-0 at Yost this year and we're
going in there with that mindset. We have not talked about
it. A lot of these players weren't around for a lot of those
losses."
See MIAMI, page 11
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