RUNNING FREE The women harriers won their fourth Big Ten Indoor title in five years in Ann Arbor over the weekend. PAGE 2B GRAPPLING FOR THE TOP No. 5 Michigan boasted three individual wrestling champions but finished in third at the conference tournament. PAGE 7B IAN HERBERT Whether it's lockouts or contract disputes, sports just aren't fair. PAGE 3B The SportsMonday Column SPORTSM-ONDAY March 7, 2005 1B cdbe WOioan J)ttUv - -- ---------- --- Michigan 4, IWNG UREEN I MICHIGAN 5, B'w Icers wrap up second straight CCHA title with weekend sweep By Jake Rosenwasser Daily Sports Writer BOWLING GREEN - There were no excessive celebrations. There was no champagne in the locker room. It was just business as usual on Friday night as No. 4 Michigan dispatched Bowling Green 4-1 at BGSU Arena and clinched the CCHA regular season title. For the seniors, it was their third title in four years, and, for Michigan, it was its ninth title in the last 14. On Saturday, Michigan (23-3-2 CCHA, 26-7-3 overall) pushed its season-best unbeaten streak to nine games (7-0-2) with a 5-4 win over Bowling Green (13- 12-2, 16-14-4) at Yost Ice Arena. After the game, CCHA commissioner Tom Anastos presented senior captain Eric Nystrom with the CCHA championship trophy to celebrate the accomplishment. Nystrom spun around with the trophy in his hands as the Yost crowd cheered. But Nystrom is not Mark Messier and the CCHA trophy is not the Stanley Cup. There is more work to be done. "We came (to Michigan) to win the big one, but we haven't done that yet," Nystrom said. "Not many teams have done that since they've been here, and we want to do that and look back and to leave our stamp on Michigan hock- ey. We made a mission statement this season and the last words are 'time to join a legacy.' And we have as good of a chance as anybody right now (to win it all). We have the team to do it." Still, after winning the conference crown, Michigan can now cross one of its goals off its to-do list - a list that ends with an open box next to "national championship." Next item, the Wolver- ines will host Notre Dame in the first round of the CCHA tournament in a best-of-three series. On Friday night, four different Wol- verines scored, and Al Montoya made 21 saves as the Wolverines reeled in two more points and made it impossible for second-place Ohio State to catch them. "I can tell you that we did not talk - I didn't at least - about first place," Mich- igan coach Red Berenson said. "It was about playing well and playing our best hockey this time of year." And the Wolverines did play well in their first non-exhibition game in the last two weeks. Junior Andrew Ebbett got the Wolverines started seven min- utes into the game when he and Kevin Porter skated into the Falcon's zone on a shorthanded two-on-one. Ebbett acted as if he would pass but kept the puck and beat goalie Jordan Sigalet to break the scoreless tie. It was the first of Ebbett's four points over the weekend. "Coach and I have been talking a little bit over the last couple of days about how, on two-on-ones, I should try to shoot a little bit more," Ebbett said. "Because I think other teams are going to think I'm going to pass it. I mean, I only have four goals. It was nice to get a shot there, and I'll thank coach for that goal later." After Bowling Green's Mike Falk tied the game at 1-1, Ebbett helped the Wolverines take the lead again halfway through the second period. The junior skated along the left boards and fired a puck toward the net. Nystrom, who was positioned between Ebbett and the goal, deflected the puck into the top of the Bowling Green net. It was officially the conference-clinching goal. "I heard Nystrom yelling to shoot the puck," Ebbett said. "And he was there. He did a great job all night on the power play and five-on-five of just getting in front and screening the goalie." After the productive weekend, Ebbett has a more respectable six goals to go along with his 25 assists. the whole sea- son, we expect- ed it. But it's RYAN WEINER/Daily nice to actually get it Eric Nystrom done, and it's just one thing that we want to get accomplished, and we can chalk it off the board and move on now." The game was highlighted by a num- ber of huge hits, many of which were handed out by Michigan sophomore Mike Brown. "It was a physical game," Berenson said. "I thought that Mike Brown was our most physical player. He played a powerful game. And when you're on the road and the other team is testing you, you need to step up." On Saturday after the win, Michigan's 10 seniors were honored on Senior Night at Yost. The 10 players - all of whom dressed for the game - came out onto See CCHA, page 4B RYAN WEINER/Daily Junior Andrew Ebbet fires home the first goal of Saturday's game at Yost Ice Arena off a pass from junior Jeff Tambellini. Michigan won 5-4 in a game that honored the senior class afterward. To help scoring, Blue must look to two guys in the alley couple of months ago, it looked like the Wol- verines might stumble into the CCHA playoffs as they did last season. But unlike last year, they swept their last three series to keep first place and surge into the playoffs. Instead of looking forward to the CCHA tournament, let's look back to a more important time - when Michigan was losing. Just one month ago, Michigan was at the end of a four-game span in which it won just one game. The Wolverines lost a home game to Northern IAN HERBERT Michigan and then blew two Caught up in the Game date-game leads against the Spartans. ' E; In the span of two weeks, their lead in the confer- ,ence went from a comfortable five points to one dan- *erous point. But what happened in those two weeks? .What was different about the team then? It doesn't take long to figure that one out. Seniors' boos enough in OT If By Brian Schick both free throws to Daily Sports Writer with 21 seconds le Sophomores Mike Brown and David Rohlfs were both out for each of those four games. The two for- wards were infected with mononucleosis over winter break, and they both sat out for those two heartbreak- ing series. In those four games, Michigan averaged 1.75 goals per game, almost three goals per game less than Michigan has averaged this season. This season, Brown and Rohlfs have combined for eight goals and nine assists, so it's clearly not their scoring that has made them such an integral part of the team's offense. What is it that has made both Brown and Rohlfs fifth-round NHL picks? The short answer is their size. At 6-feet-3 and 234 pounds, Rohlfs is one of the biggest guys on the team. He would be short for basketball and light for foot- ball, but, in hockey, he's huge. Brown is a little bit smaller at 6-feet and 210 pounds, but he is one of the strongest and, even more importantly, fastest guys on the team. "If you can't beat them in the alley, you can't beat them in the rink," long-time Maple Leaf executive Conn Smythe said. Brown and Rohlfs may or may not know who Smythe is, but Smythe would almost certainly like their style. It's clear to me that big, physical "enforc- ers" are important to the success of any hockey team. But until this year, I didn't realize how much impact they had or why they were so important to helping the team win. So I asked. "Physically, we've got to be hitting," senior defense- man Eric Werner said. "A lot of the coaches and a lot of teammates say a hit equals a goal." If that's the case, then Brown had at least a hat trick in Friday's conference-clinching win at Bowling Green. Brown hit one of the Falcons so hard that his feet flew above his head and his body crashed against the boards. Brown's hit actually did lead to a goal when, moments after the hit, junior Andrew Ebbett got the puck in the left circle and fired a shot at senior cap- tain Eric Nystrom who tipped the puck into the net and gave Michigan a 2-1 lead. That might have been the biggest hit of the year, and the boards at BGSU Arena might still be shaking. But practically every game, Brown makes powerful hits seem routine. And it's not always clear why his other hits result in goals for the Wolverines. Some of Michigan's leading scorers - sophomore T.J. Hensick and freshman Chad Kolarik - helped me figure out what it was that Brown and Rohlfs do to help them score goals. Michigan coach Red Berenson changes the lines just about every month, but Hensick and Kolarik have each gotten a chance to play with these guys at some point during the year. "They definitely give us room out there," Kolarik said. "They're big boys. They hit everyone that moves." Oh, so I get it. They physically clear out room on the ice. Hensick is a great puck-handler, but he can't do much with the puck if the defenders are always putting bodies on him and forcing him to give up the puck. "They grind in the corners and get us the pucks," Kolarik added. That's pretty self-explanatory, but I realize it's more complex than just skating into the corner and getting the puck. These guys bang along the boards and, actu- ally, scare people. They get players to cough up the See HERBERT, page 4B tnot 'loss o put Iowa up by four ft. M WOMEN'S BASKETBALL Iowa gives M' early exit Michigan wasn't ready to end the regu- lar season just yet. Maybe it was the emo- tion of senior night, but 40 minutes wasn't enough for the Michigan basketball team to determine the outcome against Iowa on Saturday. Down by three Iowa 74 with under three minutesto go, junior Graham Brown put the Wolverines on his back. He scored on three consecutive possessions to give Michigan a two-point lead with just over a minute to go. Then, Iowa's Adam haluska hit a iumner with "I'm not sure (why it wasn't a 10-sec- ond violation)," Amaker said. "I don't think they saw it. It could have been a missed call." Michigan (4-12 Big Ten, 13-17 over- all) couldn't overcome the deficit, and lost 74-72 to wrap up the regular season. The Wolverines have lost 11 of their last 12 games and now need to win the Big Ten Tournament to secure a postseason berth. This was a dramatic reversal from the last time Michigan faced Iowa, when the Wolverines upset the Hawkeyes (7-9, 19-10) in Iowa City and Iowa was ranked in the ton-25. out of Big By Matt Venegoni Daily Sports Writer INDIANAPOLIS --If the Michigan women's basketball team were a television.series, it would have been cancelled long ago. The plot never changed and every game for the Wolverines this sea- 4 son seemed to go the same IowA 70 way. Michigan would com- pete for a good portion of the contest, but then they would fall behind by too much. But in last Thursday's 70-42 Big Ten Tournament loss to Iowa, Michigan lost, but with a different script. This game was much different from the pre- vious meeting between the two teams, which 7en tourney main reason Michigan never threatened the Hawkeyes (8-7, 20-8). After Wolverine senior BreAnne McPhilamy hit a jumper from the elbow, Smith scored 15 of Iowa's next 20 points. She started by hitting back-to-back 3- pointers. A Becky Flippin 3-pointer temporar- ily stopped the 11-0 Hawkeye run, but Smith quickly reeled off nine straight points. "I thought Crystal was very good attacking the basket tonight and taking the open three when it was there," Iowa coach Lisa Bluder said. "I like to see the ball in Crystal's hands. We called a play to get her an open three, and I think that really kind of ignited her." Even Michigan's defensive specialist, sophomore forward Kelly Helvey, could not U r - IA u