The Michigan Daily - SportsMonday - October 11, 2004 - 7B
Tuura terrific in
weekend sweep
s Illini need five
sets to beat Blue
By Matt Singer
Daily Sports Writer
The referee places the ball just 12
yards away from the goal line. Team-
mates and opponents have cleared the
goal area - just the goalkeeper stands
between the ball and the net. In a game
where good scoring opportunities are
a rarity, the penalty kick is a gift from
the soccer gods - a point blank shot
at glory. So when Michigan sophomore
Judy Coffman was taken down inside
the 18-yard box in the first half against
Purdue on Friday, women's soccer
coach Debbie Rademacher knew whom
to turn to.
"It's not often you get a (penalty kick)
dall," Rademacher said. "You always
want someone who's confident. You
don't make someone take it. You want
someone who wants to take it."
Senior captain Laura Tanchon fit the
bill. The midfielder already takes the
Wolverines' corner and free kicks, and
she's no stranger to pressure situations.
So it was no surprise when she booted
the ball past Purdue keeper Lauren
Mason, scoring the game's lone goal in
Michigan's 1-0 victory.
For Rich1
No. 15 Michigan (6-1-1 Big Ten, 9-3-
2 overall) needed to come out strong to
start a five-game road swing. But Pur-
due (3-4,7-6) gave Michigan all it could
handle, matching the Wolverines' physi-
cal brand of play at every opportunity.
The two teams combined for 34 fouls
- a rate of more
than one every
hEethree minutes.
"The referee
was calling a
pretty tight game,"
Rademacher said.
True to her usual form, sophomore
goalkeeper Megan Tuura was a brick
wall, stopping five Boilermaker shots.
The Michigan defense kept the pressure
off for most of the game, but Purdue
broke through with an offensive spurt in
the last ten minutes. Tuura was able to
keep the net clear and seal the Michigan
victory.
"Megan played great in goal," Radem-
acher said. "She made some key saves."
After taking out the Boilermakers,
the Wolverines headed to Blooming-
ton yesterday to take on Indiana (3-
2-1, 8-4-1). In a game that played out
much like the previous one, the Wol-
Michigan's Therese Heaton scored the only goal in Michigan's 1-0 over Indiana just
1:46 in to the match. The junior leads the Wolverines with eight goals in 14 games.
verines jumped out to an early lead
and fought tooth-and-nail to hang on
to a 1-0 victory.
"They were two really physical games
- two teams that play pretty direct,"
Rademacher said.
Junior Therese Heaton, who scored
in six consecutive games earlier in the
season, got back in the groove when she
took on a couple of defenders and blast-
ed the ball into the left corner of the net.
The goal would be all Michigan needed.
Its rock-solid defense would hold Indi-
ana to just eight shots.
"You want to go into halftime up,"
Rademacher said. "You know the teams
in the second half come out hard, it's
hard to recover when you've dug your-
self a hole"
Tuura once again came up huge, mak-
ing four saves and keeping Indiana's
nine corner kicks out of the net. Tuura
has given up just two goals in her last
seven games.
"Our defense is playing well,"
Rademacher said. "We're not getting
beat behind because we're covering for
each other."
By Stephanie Wright
Daily Sports Writer
Despite bouncing back from a 30-16
game three defeat to force a decisive
game live, the Michigan volleyball
team ultimately couldn't hold off No.
24 Illinois, losing 3-2.
Illinois played well on both offense
and defense throughout the match.
The Illini out-hit
M ichigan .303 to .4 ,a dGAf u
.240, and had four LNis3
players finish with
double-digit digs. But Michigan coach
Mark Rosen attributed the loss more to
what Michigan didn't do than to any-
thing Illinois did.
"Illinois played really well defensively,
and followed every swing we took with a
really good dig." Rosen said. "But we had
a lot of uncharacteristic mistakes in ball
control, errors and passing, particularly
in the third game. We needed to execute
at a higher level."
With the match tied at 1-1, Illinois
(3-2 Big Ten, 11-3 overall) was in con-
trol of game three from the start, but
strong Michigan hitting kept it close
early. Then a string of Wolverine
attack errors propelled the Illini to a
22-11 lead. Illinois held Michigan to a
.022 hitting percentage and forced 10
attack errors on its way to a 30-16 win
and a 2-1 lead in the match. Michigan's
16 points in game three was its lowest
total of the season.
Game four was back and forth
throughout, with 10 ties and four lead
changes, until Michigan pulled ahead
to take a 26-25 lead. Freshman Katie
Bruzdzinski - who had 10 kills in the
game - and Lyndsay Miller had two
kills apiece to lead the Wolverines on a
4-1 run to win the fourth game, 30-26,
and tie the match 2-2.
Michigan (4-2. 14-3) carried this
momentum into game five, keeping it
close despite Illinois hitting .526. But with
the game tied at 10, a kill by Illinois soph-
omore Meghan Macdonald and a Wol-
verine attack error gave Illinois a 12-10
advantage that it would not give up. The
Fighting Illini won game five, 15-12.
"We competed well to get back into
game five." Rosen said. "We were
right there, the game was going back
and forth, and then the next thing you
know, (Illinois) is up by two, and that's
all you need."
Bruzdzinski led the Wolverines
in kills for the fourth straight match,
finishing with a career-high 20, while
adding nine digs. Senior Jennifer Gan-
dolph rebounded from an off match
against Michigan State last week to fin-
ish with I kills and 12 digs, recording
her sixth double-double of the season.
Two other Wolverines - Miller and
sophomore Erin Cobler - finished
with double-digit kills for the match.
Although Michigan hit well and
out-blocked Illinois eight to five, it
struggled in its service game and was
outplayed on defense. The Wolverines
had just one service ace and 11 service
errors. In contrast, the Illini recorded
eight aces, while committing just seven
errors.
"Illinois served really tough," Bru-
zdzinski said. "They got us out of our
system, but it's our own fault. We need
to be more consistent so that doesn't
happen again."
Illinois was also more aggressive on
defense throughout the match, finish-
ing with 81 digs to Michigan's 70.
"Illinois came out with a higher level
of defense at the start of game two,"
Rosen said. "It really put us back on
our heels and made us scattered. We
have to be stronger."
ardson, timing is everything
By Ben Voss
For the Daily
In the world of swimming, timing
is everything.
Elaborate electronic timing sys-
tems allow swimmers to win races
by mere hundredths of a second.
Women's swimming and diving
coach Jim Richardson knows the
importance of timing in events, but
he also makes it a priority to know
the value of timing in long-term
training as well.
"We develop freshmen in a timely
fashion," Richardson said. "We don't
give them too much (work) too soon,
so that we don't bury the kids and
get them too fatigued."
The team held an intrasquad meet
on Saturday before the football
homecoming festivities began. Rich-
ardson said the scrimmage served as
a preview for the season ahead and as
a way for new members of the team
to get used to the format of a col-
lege swim meet. After the meet took
place, the coaching staff felt confi-
dent in its team for this season.
"I am more comfortable with this
team and its potential than I have been
in a long time," Richardson said.
He's so comfortable, in fact, that
he believes the team could ultimately
win a Big Ten championship. Rich-
ardson's confidence comes from his
success with a new training program
he started last year.
Richardson began a training regi-
men that focused on knowing how
hard to push the athletes at differ-
ent times of their careers. Genadijas
Sokolovas from USA Swimming and
Sergei Beliaev, took data compiled
from sports schools in the former
Soviet Union and created "algo-
rithms that pin-point the key ele-
ments of training" over a given year.
Richardson worked closely with the
physicians to apply their knowledge
to training the team.
He developed a hybrid training
format that involved swimming and
dry-land conditioning. The dry-
land training has helped to combat
tendonitis and shoulder injuries,
problems that plague the swim-
ming community on a regular basis.
According to Richardson, his team
did not have a single serious shoul-
der injury because of the program
all last season.
After last year, two-time All-
American swimmer Susan Gilliam
made it to the Olympic trials over
the summer. She believes she found
success through the new training
format.
"The main reason I got faster last
year was because of the dry-land
program," Gilliam said.
This year, the team's three
most important meets are the Big
Ten Championships in Febru-
ary, the NCAA Championships in
March and the USA Swimming
National Championships in April.
Richardson will try to have his
top swimmers peak in the USA
Nationals, which, if they qualify,
will place them into international
competition. Richardson feels it's
important to represent Michigan
swimming across the world.
"It's good to represent Michi-
gan day in and day out," Richard-
son said. "But if you can represent
Michigan and your country at the
same time on a broader scale, that's
even better."
TONY DING/Daily
Sophomore Ellen Van Cleve benefits from
the training of coach Jim Richardson.
Freshman Lyndsay Miller had 15 kills on 35 attempts in a 3-2 loss to Illinois on Friday.
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