The Michigan Daily - SportsMonday - September 12, 2005 - 3B Consistent play good enough for third By Kevin Wright Daily Sports Writer As the saying goes, "there are no prizes given for halftime scores." The Michigan men's golf team learned it the hard way when it finished play in the final round of the Hawkeye Intercollegiate in Iowa City on Sunday. The Wolverines started the tournament with a solid first round of 289 on Satur- day morning and then finished the second round in second place with a team score of 288. Entering the final 18 holes on Sunday, the Wolverines seemed poised to take the over- all lead and Western Illinois but faltered slightly from their third-round score and finished the last round in third place with a score of 289. "We compete to win," Michigan coach Andrew Sapp said. "Whether we finish first, second or third, we want to compete going into the final round. We wanted to try to beat both Western Illinois and Iowa on Sunday, but unfortunately, it didn't work out that way." Senior Christian Vozza paced Michi- gan in the first two rounds of the tourna- ment, shooting 70 twice to finish Saturday four under par. Vozza was tied for fourth place behind Tim Streng of Western Illi- nois who led the individual golfers with a 10-under 134 before Sunday's final round began, Even though the Wolverines had three golfers finish in the top 15 after the first two rounds, Sunday was a different story. Vozza, senior Brandon Duff and freshman Bill Rankin were the only Michigan golfers to finish in the top 20. Vozza followed his solid start with a disappointing 5-over 77 on Sun- day to finish with a 1-under performance over the weekend. Meanwhile both Duff and Rankin fin- ished with a 71 on Sunday to ensure that the Wolverines did not fall further down the pack. "Bill Rankin ever played a bad round," Sapp said. "He hit the ball well all weekend, RYAN WEINER/Daily Jeff Samardzija caught a touchdown off of Michigan linebacker Chris Grahams's tip. For Notre Dame, luck actor is a W ays FOREST CASEY/Daily Christian Vozza shot a disappointed 77 in final round as the Wolverines claimed third place. When we were waiting for the press elevator at the end of the game, the four of us foot- ball writers were discussing the luck of the Irish. Another writer interrupted us to say, "Not luck of the Irish, the suck of Michigan." I know it's unfair to talk about the luck of the Irish. It's like Keyser Soze - everyone knows it exists, but it's almost impossible to prove. For any of us who have been here for the last four years, it's difficult to dispute it. Last year, a Notre Dame team that had been embar- rassed by BYU turned around the next week to beat * Michigan. The Wolverines finished the season with a 9-3 record and made the trip to the Rose Bowl; Notre Dame went 6-6. At that time, no one had heard of Darius Walker. But he ran for 131 yards anyway. Walker didn't do all that much the rest of the sea- son, rushing for just 655 more yards. Two years before that, when the Irish won 25- 23, the Wolverines held Notre Dame to 3-of-13 on third down conversions. And we all remember Carlyle Holiday scoring that three-yard keeper just before half- time, when Holiday fumbled on the goal I line but got the points counted for the HE Irish anyway (This was obviously before HE replay). As far as luck goes, that play was The Spo off the charts. Co Maybe luck is not a great word this year because the Irish looked like they might be a great team. And they definitely beat Michigan sound- ly. But in case you forgot Saturday's game - whether by accident, through drinking or on purpose - let me give you a short list of some of the "lucky" things that went the way of the Irish this weekend. Each play is rated on a luck scale out of a maximum five clovers: 1. The week before the biggest nonconference game of the year, senior tight end Tim Massaquoi injured his arm. How big of a deal was it? Well, Massaquoi was preseason All-Big Ten first team. With a team-high seven catches for 74 yards, senior Tyler Ecker did a great job filling in, but it's tough to replace Massaquoi - at least in terms of scaring defenses. Massaquoi is not a blocking tight end, so there's no chance of him playing with a cast the way offensive linemen might do. Notre Dame had some players injured during the game, but at least the started out healthy. Luck factor: 2. Backup right tackle Mike Kolodziej, who was filling in for Jake Long, also didn't play. He was injured, but coach Lloyd Carr said he didn't know what was wrong. So starting at right tackle for the Wolverines was Rueben Riley - more than capable, but still the third string for that position. Michigan traditionally has one of the best offensive lines in the country, but Notre Dame overloaded the right side of the line a couple of times early and got to quarterback Chad Henne, rattling the true sophomore. Henne had trouble stepping up in the pocket all day, and you can't tell me that the Irish weren't lucky that Kolodziej wasn't in there. Luck factor: ; .R l 3. Mike Hart. Ah, Mike Hart. The Wolverines' star running back hurt himself this week. This is the kind of thing that we've come to expect the week before Notre Dame. Hart played just a couple drives before getting hit hard and coming out of the game. Kevin Grady did his part, rushing for 79 yards on 18 car- ries. But it's the combination of Grady's pure size and Hart's shiftiness that make them impossible to con- tain. This is why Carr has said every week that he's happy to have such great running backs. But I don't think even the biggest Notre Dame fans would argue that Hart being out of the game wasn't a bit of luck shining down on the Irish from above. Luck factor: 4. Notre Dame's second touch- down was a five-yard pass to junior Jeff Samardzija. On that play, line- backer Chris Graham made a great defensive play that ended up giving the Irish an extra seven points - or four because they'd have kicked a field goal. The pass was thrown AN well behind the intended receiver, 2BERT but Graham's tip gave Samardzija just enough time to make the catch "s"Monday and put the game out of reach. It lumn wasn't luck that Notre Dame was on the Michigan five-yard line, but only against the Irish does a great defensive play by Michigan turn into an Irish TD. Luck factor: *No 5. Replay was introduced to the Big Ten just last year. Both of the overturned replays in the game went - correctly, I should add - against Michigan. You can't argue against the success of replay because of it gets the calls right. But why did we have to have it this game? Luck factor: 6. Even more unlucky than the goal line fumble by Henne was the play before. After watching the replay over and over, it's clear that Henne made it across the line on first down - although none of the refs gave the signal. Instead, an illegal participation pen- alty on Notre Dame forced the Wolverines to redo the play. Michigan never should have even been on the field for the fumble that cost them the game. Luck factor: Holiday's run in 2002 was easily worth five clovers on the luck scale. And even though there wasn't anything this week quite at that level, I don't want anyone to forget some of the things that happened for the Irish. Just think to yourself: Would this have happened if we were playing any other team? and I was glad to see his performance.", The Hawkeye Intercollegiate tourna- ment started out very promising for the Wolverines, but due to a poor showing on Sunday, they left Iowa City without the unparalleled high of a tournament vic- tors. Instead, Michigan dropped a chance to pass Western Illinois and finished a dis- tant third. Iowa had a strong Sunday to claim second place. While Western Illinois coasted to an easy victory - Iowa finished 19 points behind it. But the Hawkeyes used a strong final round from Larson, Cole Peevler and Luke Miller - who finished with a 69, 69 and 71, respectively - to pull ahead of the Wolverines and capture second place REDBIRDS Continued from page 1B The turning point of the match was during game three. With the game tied at 29, two Illinois State players ran into each other trying to get to the ball. The referee blew the whistle, saying that the ball touched both players. Michigan was awarded the point and never looked back. On Friday night, Michigan defeated Cleveland State (3-3). The Vikings had upset Illinois State earlier in the day but failed to make it two in a row. Michigan fell behind early 3-1 in game one after a kill attempt was viciously blocked..But errors by Cleveland State allowed the Wolverines to stay in the game, and Michigan took its first lead of the match, 7-6, after a Viking blocking error. The Wolverines ran away with the first game 30-20. The second game of the match began much better for Michigan. After a kill by Pflum, the Wolverines took a commanding 8-3 lead. Michigan continued its great blocking and solid digging throughout the game, which was most evident at the midway point. During a nail-biting back-and-forth rally, in which Martin made two diving digs to save the ball, Miller put the point away with a punishing spike to put the Wolverines up 19-7. Michigan won the next two games easily 30-14 and 30-12. The Wolverines' first win of the tournament came on Friday afternoon with a three game sweep of Akron (5-4). "We are playing out of our minds and we're just loving the game and loving what we're doing," said Pflum on Friday night. "We go into matches and we know we're going to win. Instead of hoping and praying we know we're going to do this, and we know we're going to play well, and we know we're going to get it done." with a team score of 864. Although Michigan would have pre- ferred a first-place finish, Sapp was pleased with his team's fierce competition in the tournament. The third-place finish showed Sapp that even though his team needs to improve, they are on the right track to have a good season and a strong finish. "(The competition) will not just make it more of a challenge for the golfers to get into the starting lineup but also stay in it," Sapp said. After a slightly disappointing final round in the Hawkeye Intercollegiate, the Wolver- ines return to Ann Arbor to prepare for their next tournament - the Wolverine Intercol- legiate - on Sept. 24-25. BLACKBIRDS Continued from page 1B up the left flank, beat two Long Island defenders and found senior Ryan Alex- ander at the far post. Alexander was then able to slip the ball into the right corner of the Blackbirds' net.. Burns called Blanks, who finished the day with two goals and one assist, the "MVP of the Tournament." Burns added that Blanks has become a valuable utility player for the squad, thriving as both a starter and reserve. Michigan totaled 10 shots on goal for the day to Long Island's six, creating several scoring opportunities that just missed. Senior goalkeeper Peter Dzubay held the Blackbirds at bay as well, tally- ing three saves. "This was our most complete game yet," Burns said. "It's nice to see at this point in the season that we are right on track in terms of how we are coming together." Michigan's 3-1 win on Sunday rounded out a successful weekend for the invita- tional hosts. On Friday, the Wolverines defeated Louisville, 1-0, in the first game of the Michigan Invitational. Alexander scored the only goal a pass from freshman Jake Stacey, slipping the ball past the Louis- ville goalkeeper on the right side. "Five games in, I like where we are," Burns said. "We're starting to see some combinations coming together in the front half of the field. It looks like we're start- ing to find some form offensively." - Ian Herbert can be reached at iherbert@umich.edu. -o-- p - - -~ ! Sports Apparel k& Giftwear r s 4ยข f Nike Apparel " Over 10% of all sales at the Michigan Unioh & Pierpont Commons Bookstores go back to support U of M student services.