The Michigan Daily - SportsMonday - December 12, 2005 - 3B s 'M' youth leads in intrasquad opener By Eileen Hengel Daily Sports Writer Surrounded by flashing lights, fog and the chorus of Kanye West's "Gold Digger," the women's gymnastics team lined up to inaugu- rate the 2006 season in style. The intrasquad meet pitted the Maize against the Blue in each of the respective appa- ratuses: balance beam, floor, vault and uneven bars. After four rounds the Blue outscored the Maize 193.26-190.825. Led by freshmen Becky Bernard, the Blue took the lead and never relinquished it. Ber- nard finished third on bars (9.825) and took home first place on beam with a score of 9.825. The Blue team also had the help of sophomore Katie Lieberman with her first- place finish on vault (9.875) and was aided by freshman Huneth Lor's third-place finish on beam (9.675). "The freshmen I thought did a really good job tonight, especially (Lor) and (Bernard)," Michigan coach Bev Plocki said. "Still, all the freshmen learned a lot in terms of how differ- ent college competition is compared to (indi- vidual competition)." The style of the meet focused on easing the newer team members into competition. With background music on beam that ranged from Mariah Carey to Rascal Flatts, the women were told to relax and have fun. "(The freshmen) aren't really used to hav- ing people rooting for them," Plocki said. "Before we went out there tonight, I told them that everyone here is here to support them and they all want you to do well. So there was no reason to be nervous." Similar to the freshmen, the returning play- ers were not plagued by nerves. Behind a pair of third-place finishes on uneven bars and bal- ance beam (9.825, 9.675) and a first-place fin- ish on the floor exercise (9.800), sophomore Nellie Kippley led the charge for the Maize. Fifth-year senior Lauren Mirkovich took the bars title for the Maize with a score of 9.875. But according to senior Jenny Deily, the meet, was less about competition and more WRESTLING Churella's big win spurs Blue victory By Katie Field Daily Sports Writer MOUNT PLEASANT - With 10-10 posted on the scoreboard, Michigan senior co-captain Ryan Churella stepped onto the mat solely focused on defeating Chippewa sophomore Justin Petrone. He did just that. Pinning Petrone after a minute and a half to earn his team six points, Churella earned his team a comfortable cushion over the Chippewas yesterday. The eager wrestling fans at Rose Arena erupted at Churella's victory. The close matches kept fans rapt until the very end - when No. 2 Michigan pulled ahead to notch a 22-14 win over No. 19 Central Michigan - the Wolverines' third dual victory of the season. "You don't really think about the team score as much," Churella said. "You just go out there and think about getting the pin because you know it's going to help the team overall. I just kind of knew what I had to do - go out there and score as many points as I did. And, luckily, that's what happened." Blocking out the Chippewa fans' taunts and feeding off the energetic crowd, Michi- gan senior co-captain Greg Wagner set the tone for the rest of the meet in the opening match by claiming a smashing victory over Central Michigan junior Bubba Gritter in the heavyweight match. For Wagner, wrestling first was a challenge he gladly accepted. "I don't get to go first all the time," Wagner said. "I guess I enjoy the opportunity when I get it. It is important to get off on the right foot and try to get some momentum going in some of the other weight classes where we maybe aren't favored to win the match. I just expect myself to go out and do what I need to do to win a match, and I try to win it convincingly to get everybody else going." Michigan coach Joe McFarland noted the importance of Wagner's performance. "I thought our heavyweight did a nice job of getting things started for us," McFarland said. "We got things on our side right away." It wasn't long before some of the Wolverines' momentum slowed down. In the four following matches, Michigan (2-1) snagged just one more win - Michigan junior Eric Tannenbaum over Central Michigan senior Mark DiSalvo. The Wolverines lost one match and tied three others. Following Churella's lead, three more Wolverines won their matches. Senior Nick Roy and sophomores Tyrel Todd and Casey White propelled Michigan to its 22-14 vic- tory. Coming off a loss to No. 14 Nebraska, Michigan's determination to regain confidence enabled it to persevere against Central Michigan (4-2). McFarland was pleased to leave Rose Arena with a win. "We needed this," McFarland said. "We lost a tough one on Friday night at our place. We knew we were going to need to rebound emotionally and get back and get a win. I knew it was going to be a tough dual, and I knew we had to rustle some tough matches to win. I thought, overall, our guys performed well." JUSTIN BASS/Daily Sophomore Katie Lieberman took first place on vault for the Wolverines at the intrasquad meet. about making the routine. "When you get out here and you do your routine in front of judges, you figure out what skills you get nervous on and what you change technically in front of a crowd," Deily said. Plocki stressed that the team was not shoot- ing for perfection. "If we were any better than we were tonight, then I would be nervous," Plocki said. "Because we don't want to be that good that soon. We have to keep building, and we have to keep working on our routines. It's important to keep that hunger of 'Well, I did OK, but I have a lot of things I still need to fix."' FLE M[HU Ohio State quarterbadk Troy Smith will face off against Brady Quinn and the Irish in the Fiesta Bowl Jan. 2. Nothing poetic about a Buckeyes-Irish Fiesta Defense unable to contain pesky Huskies By Sara Livingston Daily Sports Writer With both the shot clock and the game clock running down at the end of the first half, Washington guard Kristen O'Neill drove the lane, split the Michigan defense wide open and launched a running lay-up from just inside the free throw line. As O'Neill's shot bounced off the glass and circled around the rim, the shot clock sounded. Assuming the half was over, all five Wolverines stood back and watched as the ball eventu- ally rimmed out. But O'Neill and teammate Maggie O'Hara knew there were still a few seconds left on the game clock, and O'Hara tipped the rebound back to a wide-open O'Neill. She went right back up with the rock, laying it in from the left side of the paint to put Washington up 37-23. And there it was - the dagger. O'Neill had just sealed the game, and there were still 20 minutes of basketball left to play. "There is nothing that upsets (me) more than anything than when they get a shot and we just stop," coach Cheryl Burnett said. "Up to that point, we felt like we were fighting to stay in it but we were close enough. But that particular basket made us go into halftime on a bit of a downer." Michigan was unable to contain the Huskies' offense, giving up 45 points in the second half. The Wolverines were constant- ly switching their zone setup to try to contain Washington's lethal combination of inside and outside scorers. Nothing the Wolverines did seemed to work, and they gave up 82 points on 90 shot attempts. The Huskies' ability to rotate the ball around the perimeter and find one open player after another left the Wolverines helpless. Michigan was unable to make defensive changes fast enough to adjust to Washington's various offensive setups. In shifting among its assortment of zones, Michigan frequently got caught in Husky screens, and as a result its on-ball defense greatly suffered. "We changed up into some of our zone looks and some of our three-quarter zone looks," Burnett said. "But what Wash- ington does such a great job of is what we call making the next pass. They dribble penetrate and then make the next pass off another open player. They are such a great shooting team and such a great dribble-penetrating team. They just find the open player really, really well." Washington's most deadly combination was its ability to draw Michigan's defense into the post only to kick the ball out to the wing. On many occasions, the Wolverines' defense immediately collapsed on the post, but it was unable to rotate over to the outside shooter soon enough. The Huskies shot 41 HUSKIES Continued from page 1B man-to-man coverage, holding the Wolverines to just six treys. With the perimeter completely covered, the post players did whatever they could to score, but the ball just didn't get to them often enough. Despite tying for a game-high 17 points, there were several possessions when Walker was open down low and never received the ball, which found its way into a Washington player's hands first. "A lot of our scoring problems are due to turnovers," Walker said. "We can't get the ball in a position to execute because turnovers are killing our offense." With Walker on the bench taking a breather, freshman 'Twas the night before finals, and all I could think, was about the BCS system, and its horrible jinx. Every year it does something And without fail, I find myself saying, "I hate this tale." This year they got the title match right. But it's not this game, that fills me with fright. It's the game sponsored by Tostitos that makes me most scared. For I hate both the teams that will play there. Notre Dame-Buckeyes won't be any fun And I won't even watch for fear of the runs. The Irish have a coach who's "the best," and he's transformed the offense into the best of the rest. IAN HERBERT The SportsMonday Column Notre Dame is too lucky, which accounts for the hate. They get all the bounces. It makes me irate. And the Irish only won three against winning teams. But somehow they made a BCS game. It's because they are popular and bring in the dough that they get a place in the big show. The antipodal of great. The Buckeyes are sleazy with their $100 shakes. And when they play Michigan, it only raises the stakes. There is no mutual respect when it comes to these teams. They despise each other, or at least that's how it seems. The Buckeyes also beat Michigan at home. And their reward is a mention in this rambling poem. It pains me to think, as these two horrid teams vie. that one must win. Why can't they just tie? The other games are great: Joe Pa v. Bob in a game between grandpas with 80 years on the job. Then No. 1 and No. 2 will fight it out in the Rose Bowl game - DAVID TUMAN/Daily Sophomore Ta'Shia Walker led the Wolverines with 17 points and eight rebounds, but it wasn't enough to beat the Huskies. percent from 3-point range while only turning the ball over 12 times. "They are a very diverse team," sophomore Ta'Shia Walker said. "They have a lot of flashers through the lane, and then (the flashers) kick it out for a three. We did a great job on the help side, but our recovery was a bit slow, and they hit the open shot." The Wolverines struggled to plug the numerous holes Washington was able to find in their defense as the game progressed. The Huskies slash penetration exposed the weaknesses in Michigan's zone, and the Wolverines strug- gled to close the lanes and stop both Hicks and O'Neill from driving through the zone. "We got beat on a lot of drives," Clement said. "When that was happening, they were able to get either lay-ups or to level- two jump shots, and that is just something we are going to work on in the next couple of days - just really being in the right defense to make sure they don't go by us." the game at that time and that was big for us." But Skrba's offensive spark was quickly counteracted by freshman Jessica Minnfield's back-to-back turnovers. Min- nfield went on to turn the ball over six times before Burnett pulled her. Michigan's turnovers resulted in 22 Huskies' points, and the team's dismal 46 attempted shots were the main reason they were able to have a second-half field goal percentage at 55 percent - a season high. "We were shooting 55 percent in the second half and that's a really good stat," Burnett said. "But what is deceiving about that is the fact that, on many possessions, we aren't even get- ting a shot because we are turning it over. We cannot turn the ball over that many times and we certainly can't have our point guards turning it over a combined 10 times." After the teams shook hands, the Wolverines again gathered