2B - The Michigan Daily - SportsMonday - November 21, 2005 CLUBSPORTSWEEKLY Synchronized skaters take ice at Yost U frbcAIkbdtgati Athlete of the Week Name: Ta'Shia Walker Hometown: Lansing Team: Women's basketball Class: Sophomore By Amber Colvin Daily Sports Writer Typically at Yost Ice Arena, the sound of skates on the ice means the Michigan hockey team is hard at work. But yesterday, sequined skirts and twirling jumps were common fare at Yost as the synchronized skating team took over for their annual fall ice show. The show was their first performance of the season, giving the skaters a chance to run through routines in front of an audience before competitions start up in December. "It's always so helpful just to skate in front of a crowd and in our dresses," said Marie Picini, who skates for both the collegiate team and higher-level senior team. "Any time you skate in front of a crowd, it's so much different than prac- tice. It just gets us mentally prepared." Coach Brooke Sloan used the show to test the skaters in a real performance and work out the kinks before their first competition the weekend of Dec. 3. "It was good because they got the jitters out," Sloan said. "We've got two weeks until the competition and it was good to see how they react. It went OK, and you know it will get better. This was a good run before the competition. Now we have a gameplan for the next two weeks." Sloan's main goal after the show is to clean up the routines. Liz Cutshall, who also cross-skates between the senior and collegiate teams and serves as president of the Michigan Figure Skating Club, agreed that tightening up the performances was the key to a good performance in competition. "We just want to make everything cleaner," Cutshall said. "Once we get ner- vous, everyone rushes a little bit and goes faster, so we just want to get calm and bend our knees more and get into it more." Along with the full-team performances, skaters got to get creative with indi- vidual and group acts for the show, including crowd favorites such as "Barbie Girl" and "Hey Mickey." The routines, choreographed and practiced outside of the regular team practice, showed a side of the team that doesn't always get to come out in the regimented long and short programs prepared for competitions. "We have to do the synchronized numbers, but then we get to go out there and be goofballs and just have fun and remember why we like skating," Picini said. "Sometimes, it just gets so intense with how much we put into it, but when you do stuff like this, it's such a break and less pressure." Sloan said it was important to give the skaters a chance to break free from the usual routines. "They got to kind of cut loose and have fun, and that's not usually what they get to do," Sloan said. "For them, this is a great opportunity just to kick back and have a good time." This is Sloan's first year heading up the program, taking over for former coach Anne Marie Copp. But this team is no stranger to Sloan, who worked with many of the skaters as children through various club teams. Under Copp's seven-year watch, the collegiate team scored a national cham- pionship and synchronized skating was bumped from club status to club varsity, the first women's sport to make the switch. Cutshall said Sloan's coaching style is completely opposite from how Copp led the team. "She's just really peppy and loud," Cutshall said. "She's on the ice all the time chasing us and making us go faster, where our other coach was just relaxed and always complimenting us. She's just very energetic. It's been nice for this team and what we needed." Why: The six-foot forward went 8-for-10 from inside the arc and notched 20 points and eight rebounds in Michigan's win over Miami (Ohio) yesterday. She gave up just two turnovers and was the team leader in points and offensive rebounds with five. A 'M' SCHEDULE Date Event 11/21 M Cross Country at NCAA Championship 11/21 W Cross Country at NCAA Championship 11/22 M Basketball at Boston University 11/25 Volleyball vs. Ohio State 11/25 Ice Hockey vs. Minnesota Location Terre Haute, Ind. Terre Haute, Ind. Boston Ann Arbor Ann Arbor State College Ann Arbor Ann Arbor Ann Arbor Ann Arbor Time 12 p.m. 1:15 p.m. 7 p.m. 6 p.m. 8 p.m. 1 p.m. 2 p.m. 6:30 p.m. 7 p.m. 7:35 p.m. 11/26 11/26 11/26 11/26 11/26 Wrestling at Penn State M Basketball vs. Butler Volleyball vs. Penn State W Basketball vs. Toledo Ice Hockey vs. Wisconsin I Mixngit up earns Blue win By Anne Ulble Daily Sports Writer Senior co-captain Davis Tarwater didn't swim in his best events in Friday night's meet against Michigan State. In fact, he didn't even swim his best stroke - butterfly. Instead, Tarwater watched from the pool deck as teammate and co-captain Chris DeJong handily won the 100-yard fly in 49.80. Michigan coach Bob Bowman intro- duced his version of the game musical chairs, and the No. 4 Wolverines used their depth and ability to overpower the Spartans, 152-83. "We wanted to have a racing opportu- nity and give the guys the chance to swim some events they don't normally do," Bowman said. "I think everyone stepped up and really made the most out of each race they swam." Even though Tarwater didn't swim the fly, he showed his versatility by winning both his individual events - the 200- and 500-yard freestyle. "It was strange watching the (fly) and not swimming it," Tarwater said. "I really would have liked to have been in it. But it's good to get the opportunity to swim other events." The victory improved Michigan's record to 3-0 overall and 1-0 in the Big Ten. The win also bettered the Wolver- ines' all-time record against Michigan State to 75-5. Bowman pointed to sophomore Johnny Austermann - who secured two sec- ond-place finishes in the 200- and 500- yard freestyles - as the swimmer who impressed him the most. "Johnny had U WOMEN'S SWIMMING AND DIVING Brady and Smith qualify for NCAAs I By Nate Sandals Daily Sports Writer In many sports, it's important to save your best effort until the most important contest. But for junior Kaitlyn Brady and her teammates on the Michigan women's swimming and diving team, it was cru- cial to be at the top of their game last weekend, almost four months before the NCAA Championship meet. Brady's two individual first-place fin- ishes helped pace the Wolverines to an 871-point, third-place finish in the seven- team field. Host Texas A&M led the invi- tational from the outset on Friday and pulled away to win with a total of 1,123 points, 230.5 points ahead of second- place Southern Methodist University. Brady started her weekend quickly by winning the 50-yard freestyle on Friday night. Her winning time of 22.66 seconds automatically quali- fies her for the NCAA Championships in March. Adding to Brady's perfor- mance for No. 14 Michigan was Lind- sey Smith's fourth-place finish in the same event. The junior captain's time of 22.87 seconds was also under the automatic qualifying standard for the NCAA Championship meet. Brady and Smith teamed up later on Friday to lead the Wolverines' 400-yard medley-relay team to a first-place finish. Freshman Payton Johnson and sopho- more Valeria Silva rounded out the quar- tet, helping to complete the event in a time of 3:42.24. Michigan (2-1 Big Ten, 2-3 overall) continued to post fast times on Saturday. Smith finished in first place in the 200- yard freestyle in another NCAA auto- matic qualifying time of 1:46.40. The Kaitlyn Brady Show returned on Sunday. The Wilmington, Del., native claimed her third first-place finish of the invitational in the 200-yard backstroke. With a winning time of 1:56.35, Brady again qualified for the NCAA Champi- onship meet. "I'm really happy to get my (qualify- ing times) so early in the season," Brady said. "The team as a whole did really well. It's exciting that we will be able to start to prepare for the national champi- f onship meet this early in the season." Coach Jim Richardson was pleased by Brady's showing. But the 200-yard free- style relay team impressed him too. The squad, consisting of Brady, Smith, fresh- man Hannah Smith and senior Abby Seskevics, missed its cut in the event finals on Friday night, but it came back with a time of 1:31.04 in a time trial on Saturday night to guarantee itself a spot in the National Championship meet. The members of the relay team will immediately begin to train under Rich- ardson's "Plan A" program. The training regimen is designed to help the swimmers peak at the NCAA Championships. The rest of the team will continue with the regular training program, known as "Plan B." "Plan B" is designed to help the swimmers achieve their best times at the Big Ten Championships in February. Overall, Richardson said the team's terrific three days made the meet one of the best in-season meets for Michigan in recent years. "We had a lot of swimmers who showed great improvement," Richardson said. "Some of our times were close to qualifying for the National Champion- ship meet in March. I'm feeling good about where this team is right now." STEVEN Sophomore Johnny Austermann placed second in both the 200- and 500-yard freestyles against Michigan State on Friday. a good day," Bowman said. "He's been improving every meet, and I have high hopes for him" Austermann led the 200-yard free for the first 100 yards, but Tarwater inched up on him in the final four laps and out- touched Austermann by just over second. "I was just waiting for Davis to creep on me like that," Austermann said. "He's a great guy to swim against because he can push you a lot in a race." Austermann finished second but came away with a personal-best time of 1:40.86. "I was kind of surprised and a little dis- appointed at the same time," Austermann said. "I've never been at a 1:40 in the first couple of months of a season, so I was sur- prised and happy. But I was also a little disappointed because I didn't get the 1:39. I haven't been there yet, so I wanted to get that time." Bowman was pleased with Auster- mann's race and said he believes that the sophomore has the potential to improve his time especially with some elite-level meets on the horizon. In two weeks, the Wolverines head south to compete in the much-antici- pated Texas Invitational. The meet will showcase several top-10 teams includ- ing No. 5 Arizona, No. 6 Texas and No. 8 Southern Cal. Due to the intensity of the competition, some teams will be shaved and tapered in preparation for their races. But Bowman plans on continuing along with the pace of his training schedule this week and allow- ing the team to rest a couple days next week before the meet. "You don't want to go in and be so totally broken down that you can't com- pete," Bowman said. "But we also don't want to be in total peak performance mode either." Bowman is looking forward to the meet as a midseason report on how well his team is faring. "I think we are in a good spot right now in the season," Bowman said. "But I think they can be better in two weeks." Seisky shines in Spikers' loss By Danielle Ravich Daily Sports Writer Despite Michigan's 3-1 loss to North- western on Saturday, history was made last night when Stesha Selsky notched a career high of 39 digs. It gave her the second-most single-match digs in program history, just four short of Jayne Hickman's 43 digs in a match against Wisconsin in 1985. Sel- sky now totals 954 digs in her career, and she could become the fastest Wolverine to reach 1,000. "I had a lot of fun being there with my teammates tonight, and we all tried to do our best," Selsky said. This weekend's game got off to an excit- ing start with an edge-of-your-seat 10 ties and 10 lead changes, finally leading to a 23- 23 deadlock before Northwestern caught fire with a 7-1 run to finish off the first game, 30-24. Game two was also a tight match, and the Wolverines successfully overcame a 20- 11 deficit to take a late 28-27 lead. But the Wildcats managed to tie the score and then go on to win 30-28. The Wolverines fought back and domi- nated the Wildcats in game three, taking a 0 WRESTLING Grapplers compete for spots to start season By David Murray For the Daily Most Michigan athletes are accustomed to the concept of Maize and Blue. But for the Michi- gan wrestling team, Maize versus Blue is the only way to determine which wrestlers get to represent Michigan as a starter. On Friday, the wrestling team did just that, competing in their annual Maize and Blue Intra- squad meet. The meet gave the top-two wres- tlers from each weight class the chance to battle each other for a starting position - one sporting maize and the other suited in blue. The prelimi- nary matches for each weight class were wres- tled during practice earlier in the week. The team competition ended in a lopsided victory for the Maize team, 21-10, but more importantly, the starting rotation was all but solidified. The two newest Wolverines to crack the start- ing lineup are both redshirt freshmen - Steve Luke at 157 pounds and Tyrel Todd at 184 pounds. Luke had to overcome a difficult match to earn his starting position, narrowly defeating Jeff Marsh of the Maize team, 3-2. "I didn't wrestle as well as I usually do," Luke said. "It was the first match situation in a while in front of a crowd. But overall, I will get better as the season goes on." Luke and Marsh were locked up at 2-2 after two periods, with Luke scoring a two-point takedown early in the first and Marsh scoring an escape in each of the first two periods. Luke started the third period from the bottom posi- the bottom position, giving him a 3-1 advantage heading into the third period. After Maktabi scored one point for escaping, Todd took him down with 13 seconds left, adding two more points to his score. Todd also received one point for 2:15 riding time, giving him the 6-2 victory. "I'm really looking forward to (being a start- er)," Todd said. "I looked forward to it all of last year. I'm really happy to be there. Anything can happen. I'm a freshman, so all of the pressure is on the older guys." Although wrestle-offs for six other weight classes took place on Friday, Luke and Todd will be the only new names inserted into the starting rotation this season. "Both Steve and Ty are really going to add a lot to our team this year," coach Joe McFarland said. "They're young, but they're tough, and I really like the way they compete. They are both really committed to it. They have the desire and commitment to be national champions. We're really excited to have them both in our program, and I think they're really going to solidify a tough lineup for us." The Maize and Blue will return four All- Americans to the starting lineup. Redshirt soph- omores Josh Churella and Eric Tannenbaum won their wrestle-offs at 141 and 149 pounds, while fifth-year senior co-captains Ryan Churella and Greg Wagner will return at 165 pounds and heavyweight. Three other starters were also determined at the intrasquad. Junior Jim Shutich had to defeat true freshman Michael Watts twice on Friday to garner the 125-pound starting posi- tion, while redshirt juniors Mark Moos and Sophomore Stesha Selsky came up with 39 digs on Saturday in a losing effort against Northwestern.