'4 The Michigan Daily - SportsMonday - November 7, 2005 - 3B WOMEN S SWIMMING AND DIVING Attitude . not enough for Blue By Nate Sandals Daily Sports Writer Payton Johnson and her teammates on the Michigan women's swimming and diving team went into their meet against Georgia on Saturday with a positive atti- tude. But even that couldn't keep the No. 14 Wolverines out of the wake of the No. 1 Georgia Bulldogs. Georgia, the defending national cham- pions, dominated in the swimming events and defeated the Wolverines 170-122 at Canham Natatorium. Johnson's first-place finish in the 100- yard butterfly was one of the few bright spots for Michigan (1-0 Big Ten, 1-2 over- all). The freshman looked crisp throughout the race and swam more powerfully than anyone else in the event. * ."I just went into the race with a positive attitude," Johnson said. "Even though we started off slowly as a team, it was impor- tant for me and my teammates to keep our heads up and improve over the course of the meet." But Johnson's performance was an excep- tion - most events involved one Georgia swimmer way out in front and then a race for second. The Wolverines struggled in the opening event, the 200-yard medley 'relay. Michi- gan's "A" relay team never looked relaxed in the pool and finished second, 1.26 seconds behind Georgia's "A" squad. "We were tight at the beginning of the meet," Michigan coach Jim Richardson said. "I expected more from that medley relay team. They brought their 'B-game' against a team they needed to be perfect to beat." Richardson admitted that he grew more * impatient as the meet progressed, but he said he was glad that his team did not give up after falling behind to a talented Georgia team. At times, the coach struggled to hide his frustration, throwing his hands up in bewil- derment when his athletes did not quite hit their marks. Michigan continued to flounder in the pool, and many of the swimmers ran out of gas at the end of their events. Richardson attributed his team's fatigue to the tough training regiment the team main- tained last week. While the coach called the team's training efforts its best of the season, he did acknowledge that it might have result- ed in the team's lackluster showing. Still, Richardson is confident that his team caA be in the top-10 at the NCAA Championships in March: The coach knows that the tough losses against quality teams like Georgia (4-0) will be forgotten when February and March roll around. "This meet is just part of a foundation for us to peak at NCAA championships," Rich- ardson said. "The team cannot get down after meets like this one. I told them that we were not going to compromise an important week of training just to look a little bit better against the defending national champions." Despite its struggles in the pool, Michi- gan excelled in the diving events. Sopho- more Elyse Lee finished first in both the one-meter and three-meter springboard events. Her teammate Ellen Van Cleve took second in the one-meter and fourth in the three-meter. "Elyse has all the tools," Richardson said. "She has a great chance to score points for the team in the diving events at NCAA Championships." With an important meet on Saturday in Columbus against Ohio State and Purdue, the coach said he hopes that his team will not be discouraged by the loss to Georgia. "We'll know how they respond when they come in to train on. Monday," Rich- ardson said. "If they walk through the door with their heads up and ready to work hard, I'll be even more convinced of this team's potential." Forget about Michigan's Big Ten title run don't know what most of the people in Ann Arbor did on a beautiful fall Saturday without Michigan football to watch, but I had a pretty nice day planned out, and it didn't even involve a trip to Home Depot or Bed, Bath & Beyond. You see, because my plans to attend all the Wolverines' games this season - home and away - fell apart due to a couple ill-timed midterms, I figured one small way to redeem myself was to watch the Wisconsin- Penn State game. But by halftime, the Nittany Lions were up 21-0 and I was certain of two things: 1) I had absolutely no desire to watch the second half, and 2) The Wol- verines' conference title' and BCS bid hopes were still alive. (Repeat after me ... Michigan over Indiana and Iowa over Wisconsin this Saturday, Michigan over Ohio State and Michigan State over Penn State the Saturday after ... ) Of course, only about four hours had passed before I was back in front of the television again. This time, wandering from channel to channel, I was shocked when I discovered that two unbeaten teams, Virginia Tech and UCLA, were Miami and Arizona. SHARAD MATTU The Sportsionlay getting blown out by Freshman Bobby Savulich won the 200-yard freestyle, finished second in the 50-yard and placed third in the 100-yard free events. Vanderkaay leads the way in M' romp over Bulldogs By Anne Ulble Daily Sports Writer After swimming in three events and totaling more than 100 laps of competition, senior co-captain Peter Vanderkaay stepped up on the block to anchor the final race of the afternoon - the 200-yard freestyle relay. With an arm's length of open water between the Michigan relay team and the inching Georgia relay, Vanderkaay cleared the water with a fast start and left the Bulldogs floundering in his wake. After a strong turn, Vanderkaay sprinted in his final lap and hit the wall with a dominating clash - 19.97 - the fastest split of any swimmer in the race. Said Vanderkaay: "I was thinking, 'Well, I've swam 2,500 yards already. I might as well go out with a bang."' The No. 4 Michigan men's swimming and diving team hosted No. 11 Georgia on Saturday and impres- sively dominated the 2004 SEC Champions, 179-121. "I think the meet went well," Michigan coach Bob Bowman said. "The guys stepped up and did what they needed to do. Georgia is a very good team, and I think we showed that we are much improved." In the past, Michigan has been led by a strong dis- tance team, while its sprinters have fallen short against most elite programs. But this year has been different. After recruiting four freshman sprinters, the first-years proved their abilities this weekend, scoring important points which would have been lost last year. Freshman sprinter Bobby Savulich secured a win in the 200-yard freestyle, went on to earn a second place finish in the 50-yard free and was third in the 100-yard free. Teammates Brian Vessels and Jamie Martone fol- lowed Savulich and earned top-five finishes in each of still not ready to compete with the very best, but they're much improved, and I think they can get the job done for us. "They're all still figuring things out. They're still try- ing to cope with swimming a lot of events very close together at a high level." The freshmen only had to look at senior captains Vanderkaay, Davis Tarwater and Chris Dejong for good examples of swimming several events with little time between them. All three swimmers won each of their individual races and relays. Bowman was pleased with how his top-three swimmers performed on Saturday and said he thinks they are exactly where they need to be at this point in the season. Speaking specifically to Vanderkaay's races, Bow- man thought the senior was filling the role of captain and champion swimmer. "His (200-yard freestyle relay) split was an excep- tional swim," Bowman said. "To come out of the 400 (yard individual medley) and show that kind of speed just shows you the kind of kid Peter is. He's as tough as they come. Olympians Michael Phelps and Klete Keller faced off in two exhibition races on Saturday during breaks between races. Phelps broke his own pool record in the 200-yard freestyle by one second (1:33.41) and fell short of breaking his pool record in the 100-yard freestyle by .01. "They swam fantastic," Bowman said. "Those were great times for both Michael and Klete. I couldn't have asked for anything more." Michigan will get a meet-free week this week and then it will swim against Michigan State on Nov. 18 at Canham. "We'll train really hard before then," Bowman said. "We'll try to correct some of the things that didn't go well here and see if we can make some improvements. I think Michigan State will offer us the chance for some people to swim some events that might not be their best." I (and most other college football fans I figure) was dis- appointed by the two results. First of all, in today's college football, unless you're Notre Dame, if you have even one loss nobody pays any attention to you. And UCLA's loss severely squashes the hype that will lead to its game against No. I Southern Cal in four weeks. But not everybody was disappointed by Saturday's results. The people who run college football - whoever they are - were ecstatic to see the Hokies and Bruins fall. Great, they're telling themselves, now we just need Alabama to lose, and then we've got the Texas-USC championship we all want. With a brand-new poll and all those wacky computer rank- ings, these conference and bowl game presidents have lost all control and have to pray for the season to end with two - and just two - unbeaten teams. This year, they might just get lucky. But they didn't last year when Auburn and Utah fin- ished undefeated, or the year before when No. 1 Southern Cal was excluded from the National Championship game. Of course, life in the Big Ten isn't much different. Like the college football rulers rooting for the undefeated to crumble, Michigan fans are now rooting against Wisconsin and Penn State. In fact, it's not hard to imagine 110,000 people in Michi- gan Stadium this Saturday checking for Iowa-Wisconsin score updates every couple minutes and not even paying attention to the game in front of them (Though it is understandable - after all, Michigan will be playing Indiana.). And if the Wolverines pull it out, the same thing could happen the following week for the Michigan State-Penn State game, which would be a shame considering they'll be playing Ohio-freakin' State. It's still pretty unlikely Michigan is headed to the Fiesta, Orange or Sugar bowls, but if the Wolverines beat Indiana and especially Ohio State the next two weeks, where they are spend- ing their winter break shouldn't mar the season as a whole. Sure, we could all look back to that third-down run against Minne- sota, but we could also talk about how the Wolverines recovered from the injuries to Mike Hart, the safeties and offensive line- men, bounced back from early struggles and gutted out close wins. Of course, that's if they beat Ohio State. Because the bowl system is so ridiculous these days, I'm just going to stop worrying about who could play whom, and wait until we all know who will play whom. Maybe all the Michigan athletes I've talked to the last couple years - the ones who love to make use of what they learned in Sports Cliches 101 - are right after all. It's useless worrying about what you can't control. - Sharad Mattu can be reached at smattu @uinich.edu. MICHIGAN MAY NOT HAVE PLAYED THIS WEEKEND, BUT SOUTH FLORIDA DID. AND IT STILL HAS A BCS BOWL TO PLAY FOR. their events. "They're all coming along," Bowman said. "They're " Selsky sets record as Spikers split By Chris Herring Daily Sports Writer In the world of sports, being aggressive can be a double-edged sword. When unsuccessful, the aggression can be the downfall of the match for a team, but when successful, it can create momentum swings that change the course of a game. The Michigan volleyball team experi- enced both the success and failure in the aftermath of its aggression this weekend. A night after being beaten at home by No. 17 Minnesota in four games, the team camew 1 back strong against Iowa by winning the match in four games, 30-24, 19-30,30-17,30- 24 at Cliff Keen Arena on Saturday night. Though Michigan (5-9 Big Ten, 11-12 overall) took the match against Iowa (4-9, 14-12) in four games, the Hawkeyes momen- talked about it, made some small adjust- ments and then played much better in games three and four." It was in games three and four when the Wolverines came back to life. Michigan coasted to victory in the last two games, coming out with increased intensity to finish off Iowa. In game three, the Wolverines won a point on a rally that lasted nearly 30 seconds, helping Michigan build momentum against Iowa. After that point, the Hawkeyes looked to be no match for Michigan. Sophomore Lyndsay Miller led the team with 16 kills in the match. "Last night (against Minnesota), we focused on taking the game one point at a time, and I think we got better at doing that from last night," Miller said." The Wolverines reached a few milestones with their win on Saturday. Sophomore Stesha Selsky set a Michigan single-season for more information call 734/998-6251 The University of Michigan College of Literature, Science, and the Arts presents a public lecture and reception { DIAGR4AM eSSCO ON TABUL 1I. .. . 's .'0y 4 ~amMi 2 '@ :S .. "~ o ., xoc ~) k et1 ,v f 'Is t 1 , " I~2 V1~~v dfI toEI I .L~ -' _ i