BACK FROM THE BRINK
Down 2-0 heading into is third
game, the Michigan volleyball team
came back to beat Purdue 3-2.
PAGE 8B
GENNARO FILICE:
A scary look into the future
reveals what's in store for
football in Ann Arbor.
PAGE 3B
The SportsMonday Column
:)RTS D AlY
November 8, 2004
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At AVWt tt Badi v
I i li - 1. INEM INNIN
Stickers winBig
Ter.
By James V. Dowd
Daily Sports Writer
EVANSTON - Having played a grueling regular
season during which any secret weapons were forced
out into the open, the Big Ten Tournament is a time
when teams are forced to rely purely on heart and
talent.
All seven teams had played each other by the time
they reached the Leonard B. 'wA2
Thomas Sports Complex this
weekend, so there were no dark
horses to be revealed. In the end, top-seeded Michi-
gan prevailed, using lessons learned from its sole
conference loss at Iowa City to defeat the second-
seeded Hawkeyes 3-2 in the tournament final.
"There weren't too many surprises out there,"
Iowa coach Tracey Griesbaum said. "It was just a
matter of who would capitalize on them. In the first
game of the year there might be surprises, but at this
point we have played them once and seen them play
other times. It's just a matter of execution."
Iowa capitalized early, taking a lead when Deb-
bie Birrell put one past Michigan goalkeeper Beth
Riley. Hawkeyes forward Sarah Dawson worked the
ball deep into the circle and shot. Birrell found the
rebound amongst heavy traffic in front of the Michi-
gan goal and tipped it past Riley.
Though her team fell behind early, Riley had
confidence that her defense would help her keep the
game within reach.
"I've got the best defender in the Big Ten (junior
Lori Hillman) right in front of me," Riley said of
Hillman, the tournament's most valuable player.
"I'm pretty confident with her, and everyone else on
the team, that it's not even going to get back to me."
The teams continued to battle in the midfield and
Michigan caught a break when it was awarded a pen-
alty corner 27 minutes into the match. After sopho-
more Kara Lentz put the ball into play, Jessica Blake
tourney
took a shot from the left side, but Iowa goalkeeper
Barb Weinberg turned it aside. Lentz was waiting in
the corner and tried again to put it in, but Weinberg
again got a piece of it. This time, however, Wolver-
ines' forward Katie Morris was waiting on the door-
step and lifted the ball into the top right corner of
the net - her third goal of the weekend - tying the
game at one.
Just before halftime, Michigan took its first
lead when sophomore Mary Fox tapped in another
rebound. Lentz again took a shot from the corner,
but after the ball made it past Weinberg, it clipped the
post and bounced out to a wide-open Fox.
While Michigan's defense continued to hold strong
in the early parts of the second half, the offense
became stagnant. Once again, a penalty corner was
the spark Michigan needed, and Blake bounced a
shot off of an Iowa defender and into the net.
Though Iowa managed to pull within one just five
See STICKERS, Page 6B
JOEL FRIEDMAN/Daily
The Wolverines celebrate their 3-2 win over Iowa and Big Ten Tournament victory.
Goal Rush
Friday: MICHIGAN 5, Miami (OhIo) 2, Saturday: MICHIGAN 5, Miami (Ohio) 3
le~er duo teams
upfor six goals:
By Ian Herbert
Daily Sports Writer
Moss to Tambellini. Moss to Tambellini. Moss to Tambellini.
Tambellini to Moss.
Moss to Tambellini.
The duo of junior Jeff Tambellini and senior David Moss didn't feel
like sharing with others this weekend and teamed up for five goals against
Miami (Ohio). Tambellini added one more empty-netter by himself at the
end of Saturday's game, and Michigan came away with a weekend sweep
-5-2, 5-3.
At 17:20 of the third period on Saturday, Tambellini scored what turned
out to be the game winner offa faceoff from - guess who - Moss. Tam-
bellini got the puck at the top of the right circle and fired. The shot just made
it over the glove of Miami goalie Brandon Crawford-West to give Michigan
a 4-2 lead.
"To look back at it now - I know I made some pretty good saves - but
I would like to have the fourth goal back," Crawford-West said. "And that
ended up making the difference in the game."
The goal put No. 2 Michigan (5-1-0 CCHA, 7-2-1 overall) up by two
with less than three minutes to go. But with just over one minute left in the
game, and the two teams facing off in Michigan's zone, No. 16 Miami (2-4-
0, 4-6-0) pulled its goalie to get an extra skater out on the ice. Forward Matt
Christie - who leads the nation in scoring with 17 points - found junior
Chris Michael right in front of the net. Michael capitalized and narrowed
the lead to 4-3. But 18 seconds later Tambellini scored an open-netter.
Skating with an extra man with less then 30 seconds left Saturday night,
Miami lost control of the puck. Tambellini grabbed it and shot it off the
boards. As the puck drifted toward the open net, both Tambellini and senior
Jason Ryznar skated hard after it. But Tambellini beat his teammate to the
puck and put it into the back of the net.
"I feel terrible right now," Tambellini said. "I thought I had a guy on my
back, and I should have just given it to Ryznar. So I think I'm going to be
sending him sorry cards all week."
The goal was Tambellini's second of the game and fifth of the weekend.
He led the team in shots even before this weekend's series with 47 - 19
more than the next Wolverine - but had just one goal on the season.
"There's nothing like scoring to get a goal-scorer scoring," Michigan
coach Red Berenson said. "And you could just see him. He really had his
nose to the grindstone."
Tambellini - who led the team in points during his freshman year with
45 - credited his breakout performance to an added bit of confidence.
A scorer by nature, Tambellini tallied 41 goals in his first two seasons at
Michigan.
"You get a couple in the net, and you really start to get an extra bit of
patience and see the net better," Tambellini said."I'm just trying to put shots
away, and right now, they're going in."
The first goal of the night was also scored by the Tambellini-Moss pair-
ing. But this time, it was Moss taking the shot. Tambellini skated with the
puck down the left side of the ice through the neutral zone. At the top of the
circle, he saw his teammate alone in the right slot. The two-on-one break-
away paid off, and Moss managed to push the puck past Crawford-West.
"He played unbelievable this whole weekend," said Tambellini of Moss.
"He made passes that were just phenomenal. He sees the ice so well, so he
deserves to score some, as well."
Michigan took a 2-0 lead less than one minute later on a goal by sopho-
more David Rohlfs. Senior defenseman Nick Martens got the puck at the
point and fired a slapshot. Rohlfs, standing in front of the net, got his stick
on the puck and deflected it past Crawford-West.
Freshman Chad Kolarik also added a power play goal 6:18 into the sec-
ond period that gave Michigan a 3-0 lead. The goal was Kolarik's third
power play goal of the season.
JASON COOPER/Daily
Jeff Tambellini found his scoring touch this weekend, notching a hat trick on Friday and adding two more goals on Saturday. He's now the team's leading scorer, with six on the season.
Blue shuts down Hawks' leadingline
By Jake Rosenwasser
Daily Sports Writer
The CCHA's leading scorer came to Yost and con-
tinued his torrid point-scoring pace by registering a
point in each game of the weekend series. The only
problem was that each time he was credited with a
point, the game was all but over.
Miami sophomore forward Matt Christie - who
came into the weekend series with five goals and 10
assists in just eight games - was limited to a garbage-
time goal on Friday night and an assist on Saturday
that also came too late.
On Friday, with Michigan leading 5-1 in the final
minute and Miami down a man, Christie managed
to pull away from the Michigan defense for a break-
away. The Mighty Duck draft pick beat junior goalie
Al Montoya glove side and notched his sixth goal of
the season.
"(The gameplan) was definitely to shut down
their top line, and him in particular," senior defen-
seman Brandon Rogers said. "It's frustrating he got
two points right at the end of both games when we
had him in check all night both games. But I think
for the most part we did a good job of keeping him'
off the scoreboard."
Christie had nothing but praise for the stout Michi-
gan defense.
"They played solid as a team," Christie said. "When
you play against good teams, they don't usually worry
about individuals. We had a gameplan, and they had a
gameplan. And they just outplayed us this weekend."
The breakaway was not the first showdown of the
night between Christie and Montoya. On two occa-
sions Christie and Montoya collided on the ice. On the
second occurrence, Christie was whistled for a two-
minute goalie interference penalty.
"The two of us battled a little bit last year," Christie
said. "Sometimes I play down low on the power play
so I'm in front of the net. He's a competitor, and so an
I. So things like that happen."
Overall, Michigan was happy about the way it
defended the top CCHA scorer and one of the top
offensive lines in the conference.
"We knew that if Christie and (Chris Michael)
had good weekends then we probably wouldn't win
because they win when those guys score," Michigan
coach Red Berenson said. "I'm disappointed with the
shorthanded goal last night, but we did a pretty good
job, and it wasn't just by playing defense. It was by
playing offense and good forechecking, as well."
'M' tames Huskies in exhibition '
By Megan Kolodgy
Daily Sports Writer
Nearly midway through the sec-
ond half, sophomore Brent Petway
r used his jaw-dropping vertical leap to
here or there."
Prior to yesterday's matchup, one
of the Wolverines' primary concerns
was neutralizing Division II preseason
Player of the Year Josh Buettner in the
paint. Michigan junior Graham Brown
"They really defended us," Luke
said. "We have two very good bas-
ketball players for our level in Jason
Marcotte and Josh Buettner, and
they just bottled those guys right
up - and that's a credit to their
start of the game when the Wolver-
ines held just a single-digit lead. But
Horton quickly heaved a shot from
behind the arc and put Michigan up
by a more comfortable 12 points. Hor-
ton notched three triples in the game,
..