The Michigan Daily - SportsMonday - September 13, 2004 - 7B Olin, Blue back to old form By Seth Gordon Daily Sports Writer Laura Olin and the women's golf team have come full circle. Three years ago, as a freshman, Olin contributed to a Michigan win at the Lady Northern Invitational. The win catapulted the Wolverines to a successful season that saw them advance to the NCAA Championships - where they finished 17th. After two years of rebuilding, Olin began her senior season this past weekend at the Michigan Golf Course with a second-place individual finish and led the Wol- verines back to the Lady Northern title. 4 Michigan entered the final round tied for the lead in the team competition and played steady golf yesterday, shooting a 296 to take a four-stroke victory over second- place Ohio State. The strong performance included four Wolverines who placed in the top-I1 individually, led by Olin (second), sophomore Ali Stinson (fifth), sopho- more Brianna Broderick (eighth) and freshman Isabelle Gendreau (11th). Senior co-captain Amy Schmucker finished in tie for 31" place and freshman Lindsay Davis tied for 59th. "It shows how much depth we have on our team," Schmucker said. "Look at the board, I don't think you're going to find another sixth player that shot 72 for their team. That is how deep we go. Laura is a great player, but we're all so close with our abilities that anyone can have a good day, and that's what you need to have a great golf team." Gendreau's emergence is one of the many amazing coincidences in the turnaround Michigan has made since the 2001-2002 season. On that team, it was Olin who made her collegiate debut with an 11th-place fin- ish, while senior Kim Benedict finished second. Now Olin is the savvy senior, and Gendreau is the freshman adding depth to a strong team. "Our team is so good, we're so deep," Olin said. "Everybody has been able to come in and step up. Isa- bella hasn't been playing that well, but she's a gamer. She comes up and shoots a 74 and 72 - that's unbeliev- able as a freshman." As for Olin, she is just excited to have a strong team around her, something she hasn't had since she was a freshman. Before her sophomore season, Michigan graduated the core of its team. Olin found herself trying to encourage and motivate her teammates to compete with the top teams in the nation, but the team just wasn't ready yet. "It took three years of rebuilding because we lost all of those players," Olin said. "It's been interesting. It's been a struggle. They had to instill confidence in them- selves before they could have confidence in the team. Over the summer, Brianna, Amy, Ali and Isabella had great summers, and they came out here ready to play and ready to kick some butt. Finally, we are able to play up to our potential." The potential that Olin spoke of is the opportunity to go where Michigan hasn't been since Olin's fresh- man season - the NCAA Regional and Championship tournaments. "This tournament sets the tone for the NCAAs, for the whole fall season," Michigan coach Kathy Teichert said. "We knew if we got a great win and good start we would have a head-to-head competition win over all these schools. That's what we have, and now we can build on that. If we can be in the top-eight or the top-10 after the fall season in the rankings, we know that we are going to secure a spot at the (NCAA) Regional. That is our goal: regionals, then nationals." Although it is only one tournament into the season, Teichert is confident about this team's ability to reach those goals. A lot of that confidence comes from the consistent play she saw this weekend. The Wolver- ines opened the tournament with back-to-back low rounds as a team at their home course - the Wolver- ines posted a 294 in the first round and a 291 in the second. "I didn't think we would shoot those scores on a con- ELISE BERGMAN/Daily Senior Laura Olin led the Wolverines to victory and finished the Lady Northern Invitational tied for second place. sistent basis," Teichert said. "We put ourselves in an excellent position, and today we lived up to that. We played with a lead or tied for the lead, and we held it through. When you can do that, I think it says a lot about your team." Teichert said that she had a good feeling about the tournament going in, but was still impressed with how her team handled the pressure, especially the younger players. This year's team resembles the 2001-2002 team in that regard, except that this team is actually younger and is carding better scores. "It does feel like 2001-02, but this team actually played a lot better," Teichert said. "That team of 2001- 02 did not shoot the consistent scores that this team shot here. We had optimal scoring conditions this weekend and that really helped out. But I did not think this golf course was that easy. It was a very good test of golf and our players handled it without a problem." 'M' freshman shines in opening tournament By Eric Ambinder Daily Sports Writer In his very first collegiate tournament, Michigan golf freshman Brian Ottenweller finished four shots better than any other teammate and ninth overall at the Radrick Farms Intercollegiate this weekend with rounds of 71, 71 and 75. But his efforts didn't count towards the team's over- all score (893) or team finish (13th out of 14th) because the freshman played as an individual and not as a part of the team. Each team is allowed to play five members for a combined team result, but can also play others as individuals. "We didn't have any time for qualifying," Michi- gan junior Christian Vozza said. "Having all 10 of our guys playing, more than likely someone will have a hot day. We're happy for Brian, and, hopefully, he can continue to play well for us when he is in the line-up, which will be next week." Since the Wolverines started practicing the begin- ning of school, Michigan coach Andrew Sapp didn't have time to fully evaluate the freshman, but said that Ottenweller's initial success will garner him a spot in next weekend's tournament in Wisconsin. "I was really pleased with the way Ottenweller played," Sapp said. "He had a spectacular first tourna- ment. For a freshmen, to finish top-10 in this field is just tremendous." Before Ottenweller decided to attend Michi- gan, the program's recent struggles drew him in - the Wolverines haven't finished better than seventh in the Big Ten during the past five sea- sons. The Grand Rapids native has long been partial to the Wolverines. "I've always been 'Maize and Blue,' so to see them kind of struggle (the past few years), was extra motiva- tion for me to bring them back up," Ottenweller said, "Hopefully I can do that.' On Saturday, the Wolverines started poorly with a combined 306 through the first eighteen holes. "We just shot ourselves in the foot pretty bad in the first round," Sapp said. "It's hard to dig yourself out of a hole that deep." But the Wolverines managed to make up some ground later in the day with a second-round score of 294, an improvement of 12 strokes. "I've never seen the scores from the morning to the afternoon improve overall as much as they did (on Saturday)," Sapp said. "It was good to see our guys show some fight." The Wolverines' third round of 293 was a bet- ter final-round score than eventual co-champions Purdue had. And if the Wolverines had played Ottenweller, they could have finished as high as tied for second place. Michigan was led by sophomore Matt McLaughlin with a five-over, three-round score of 221. The sopho- more managed to improve his score with each succes- sive round. Sophomore Kevin Dore was also able to improve with a final-round score of 72 before rounds of 74 and 76 on Saturday. "This definitely isn't the way we wanted to start (the season)," Dore said. "I think because we have another tournament next week, we just have to put it in the past and learn from it." Christian Vozza shot 226 at the Radrick Farms Intercollegiate this weekend. TITANS Continued from page 1B goalkeeper, Ryan Mendonca, who made several saves throughout the game, includ- ing two consecutive headers from Michi- gan players. And while the Wolverines are struggling to generate offense, they contin- ue to turn to their most consistent weapon - their defense. "(Chris) Glinski and (Kevin) Hall stepped up and shut down everyone," Dzubay said. "(Camara) liked to dribble a lot, so we tried to body him a lot more. We gave him a hard time, and he started get- *i ting frustrated. I think we're pretty solid on defense right now." Dzubay himself contributed to Michi- gan's defensive effort, recording a save and only allowing one goal. Dzubay demon- strated a "no-fear" style when he repeated- ly came out of the goalie box to challenge Detroit forwards. "This year, I'm trying to make it one of my strong points to come off my line and be more aggressive because it gives more confidence to the team," Dzubay said. "Basically, if the ball comes into my box, I want to try to win it." Consistent defense also played a role in Michigan's 2-1 victory over Dayton on Fri- day. Glinski scored the game-winning goal at 84:05 and also tallied an assist when Michigan sophomore Bobby Trybula tied the game at 1-1 in the 531 minute. The win marked the Wolverines' best start (4-0) since the program's inception in 2000. e ' " v +w w w w vu ,tu1- , 1UYUWtl Un.,'n, I~ III11r,fl1 nyu,.' K, p-I A - & A **