6B - The Michigan Daily - SportsMonday - March 6, 2006 Wrestling places third in tourney MIKE HULSEBUS/Daily Freshman pitcher Stacy Delaney established herself as an emerging star. anew spot on top By David VandeVusse Daily Sports Writer BLOOMINGTON - After sitting atop the stand- ings for the entire conference season, the Michigan wrestling team was only able to finish third at this weekend's Big Ten Tournament. The second-ranked Wolverines - who took third for the second straight year - posted a score of 115 points, behind Illinois' 125 and champion Minneso- ta's 138. "We would've liked to have done a little bit better," Michigan coach Joe McFarland said. "We wrestled hard, and we lost some tough matches." Despite the disappointing place, nine of Michigan's 10 starters qualified for nationals by finishing in the top seven in their weight class. Most notable was senior co-captain Ryan Churel- la's championship in the 165-pound weight class. It was his second straight conference title at 165, but his third overall. In the final, Churella faced off against Minnesota's Matt Nagel, who Churella forced into five stalling violations en route to a disqualification in February. Once again, Churella set the pace from the start and dominated Nagel in his 7-0 win. "I made sure I was attacking in all my matches, and I was able to come out on top," he said. Churella won all three of his matches during the weekend, improving to 25-0 on the year. Fellow senior and co-captain Greg Wagner made the finals as well. But the Fort Wayne, Ind. native wasn't able to pull through, and was defeated 6-1 by top-ranked Cole Konrad of Minnesota. The match was wrestled very defensively, and the two standouts entered overtime tied at one apiece. Wagner almost mounted a takedown in the extra session but was caught out of position, and taken to the mat where Konrad held him in the near-fall position for three seconds. The five-point sequence ended the match, leaving Wagner in the runner-up position. "(Wagner) gave Konrad a great match." McFarland said. "He's getting closer and closer to beating him." Redshirt sophomores Eric Tannenbaum and Josh Churella had big expectations coming into the tourna- ment, after both won individual titles at last year's confer- ence tournament. Neither matched last year's success. Tannenbaum was the No. 3 seed in the 149-pound class but was stunned in his first match by unseeded Troy Tirapelle of Illinois. Tannenbaum finished a disappointing fifth after a forfeit victory over Ohio State's J Jaggers. Josh Churella garnered the top seed in the 141- pound class and looked strong in his first two matches Saturday, outscoring his opponents 14-0. But he fell EyC n tMAfsOLAwN-kdRsCMIANpsds/ Dily Senior Ryan Churella en route to one of his three weekend wins. Churelia pushed his overall record to 25-0. By James V. Dowd Daily Sports Writer COLUMBUS, Ga. - After shock- ing the nation by becoming the first team east of the Mississippi to win the Women's College World Series, the No. 8 Michigan softball team spent its Spring Break delving into uncharted territory - playing as the defending National Champions. The team has won 11 of its first 16 games to start the year. The record has helped Michigan remain in the nation's top 10, but Michigan coach Carol Hutchins believes the team's performance in the early part of this season is not an indica- tion of how the Wolverines' season might go. In these first few games, Hutchins is hoping the team, which includes three freshmen, can gel together: "We're always looking to get into a groove," Hutchins said. "We try to get better as a team and evolve as a team. The most important thing is to get together as a group so that everybody's rojes evolve." The team traveled throughout the southeast United States during the break, competing in the NFCA Leadoff Classic, the Sunshine State Tournament and a handful of other games. The Wolverines' trip began in Columbus, Ga. for the NFCA Lead- off Classic, which featured many of the nation's top teams. Hutchins was looking forward to seeing how Michigan stacked up against stiff competition. But the tournament was cancelled after the Wolverines' two Friday games when the Colum- bus area was hit with more than two inches of rain on Saturday. Michigan split its two Friday games, losing to No. 7 Alabama in extra innings before knocking off Hofstra immediately after. Senior Jennie Ritter was the star of the Alabama game, pitching a complete game including two extra innings. In the process, she showed Hutchins that she will likely continue her dominant form of last year. In the Hofstra game, freshman pitcher Stacy Delany emerged as a new star. After junior Lorilyn Wil- son struggled, allowing three runs in the second inning, Delaney came on in relief and shut the Pride down in the remaining five innings. Hutchins was pleased to see Delaney bounce back after a rough outing in her debut one week earlier. Delaney didn't seem to command the same authority as Ritter, but Hutchins remembers Ritter looking very similar during her first year donning the Maize and Blue. "(In Delaney), I see a lot of Jen- nie Ritter as a freshman," Hutchins said. "She's not as confident as Rit- ter was, but people don't remember Ritter as a freshman. Since then, Ritter has raised her mental game to an A-game." Even as the Hofstra game pro- gressed, Hutchins believes that Del- aney's confidence began to build. "I thought that inning after inning she got better," Hutchins said. "Con- fidence is really important in pitch- ing, and her confidence got better as the game went on. And you have to be confident to be in control of your game." Delaney earned another win at Georgia last Monday, in the sec- ond of two games that Hutchins scheduled because of the shortened tournament. She dropped her first decision against Troy in Auburn, Ala. on Tuesday, but Delaney was responsible for just two of the Tro- jans' four runs. After seeing both Delaney's solid pitching and the consistent play of freshmen shortstop Teddi Ewing and outfielder Allison Kidman, Hutchins is content with the play of her newest Wolverines. "I have been more pleased with the freshmen than any other group on the team," Hutchins said. "They're not trying to live up to other expec- tations; they are just trying to play good softball." After the loss to Troy, Michigan defeated No. 17 Auburn 1-0 before moving on to Tallahassee, Fla. The Wolverines shut out Florida State 9-0 on Thursday. Ritter allowed just one hit and struck out 12 in the game. The final games of Michigan's trip were in the Sunshine State Tourna- ment, where it went 2-1, defeating Maryland and Florida State before losing to Western Michigan. With their two wins, the Wolverines qualified for the championship, where they defeated Florida State again. This time, the score read 5-0 behind a 16 strikeout performance by Ritter, which matched her career high and was just one shy of the Michigan record. short in his semi final match against Northwestern's Ryan Lang. Churella ended up fourth after Alex Tsirtsis, the No. 2 seed from Iowa, defeated him in the third-place bout. Like Josh Churella, redshirt freshman Steve Luke, redshirt junior Mark Moos and fifth-year senior Wil- lie Breyer all took fourth. Still, Breyer was a pleasant surprise for the Maize and Blue. Not normally part of the starting lineup, he was named the starter at 197 in place of injured Casey White on Thursday. Breyer's weekend didn't start off well. He was pinned in his first match, immediately demoting him to the loser's bracket. But the veteran rebounded with three straight wins, including a pin of his own. He eventually fell to the No. 3 seed Matt Delguyd of Northwestern, but his finish qualified him for what will be his first and last NCAA Championships. . "My first match I was really nervous," Breyer said. "I lost and thought, well I'll just go for it. If I win, I win. If I lose, I lose." Also qualifying for the Wolverines were red- shirt freshman Tyrel Todd at 184 and true freshman Michael Watts in the 125-pound class. Todd knocked off the sixth-seeded No. 6 seed Mike Tamillow of Northwestern on his way to a fifth-place showing. Watts pulled off a dramatic pin in the first period of his seventh-placematch against Ohio State's Nathan Costello. Redshirt junior Nick Roy - the lone Michigan wrestler not to qualify for nationals - suffered a sea- son-ending knee injury in his second match Saturday and had to forfeit his remaining bouts. Michigan had big performances from several wres- tlers but had sub-par outings in a few classes. "The key (to winning) a Big Ten Championship is having everybody firing in the same weekend," McFarland said. "We weren't able to do that." A Baseball deals with disappointment By Dan Feldman Daily Sports Writer Even though they spent their spring break in the sun of Alabama, Florida and Georgia, last week was an educational one for the Michigan baseball team. The young team learned about playing college baseball, and Michigan coach Rich Maloney learned a lot about his players. Playing in the Wiregrass Classic, at Central Florida and in the GSU Invita- tional, the Wolverines finished a disap- pointing 3-4. "These guys don't want to lose," Malo- ney said. "I'm not happy with 3-4.I don't think anyone is around here, even though we're working out any kinks. Despite that sentiment, Maloney has continued to believe in the mantra that it's not how his team starts, but how they fin- ish. Michigan can only hope that its finish is sweeter than its sour start. In their sea- son opener against Alabama-Birmingham on Feb. 24, the Wolverines built a 4-1 lead through eight innings. They benefited from the strong pitching of fifth-year senior Drew Taylor, who at that point had surrendered just one run on three hits and two walks. Butinthetopofthe ninthinning,the Blaz- ers exploded for four runs - the first two of which were credited to Taylor, the latter two to senior Jeff Niemiec, who got the loss. In the bottom of the inning, the Wol- verines had a chance to tie when fifth- year senior Jeff Kunkel singled with one out. Senior Mike Schmidt came on to pinch run, and he stole second base before advancing to third on a fly out. But he was stranded 90 feet from forcing extra innings when senior A.J. Scheidt flew out to center field. "It was tough," Taylor said. "For eight innings ... they were never really threat- ening. It was kind of a crushing blow when they came back in the ninth." Two days later - after its Feb.25 game against Troy was rained out - Michigan played a doubleheader against South Ala- bama and the Trojans. After the Jaguars pounded the Wolver- ines by a 9-4 margin, Michigan got its first win of the season, 7-5 over Troy. The Trojans scored five runs in the bot- tom of sixth inning to tie the Wolverines. Troy still had two runners on with two outs when Michigan freshman Adam Abraham came in and got shortstop Tom King to ground out. Abraham continued his perfect pitching for the final three innings, and Michigan scored the winning run when sophomore Doug Pickens doubled in junior Brad Rob- lin in a two-out, seventh-inning rally. The Wolverines beat Central Florida 6-3 on Wednesday. Senior Craig Mur- ray allowed two runs on three hits in six innings for the win. Abraham pitched the final third and got the save. Abraham's play has temporarily ended Maloney's search for a closer. "We found someone who can handle that kind of pressure, who has some moxie," Maloney said. Michigan lost 8-6 to North Carolina- Asheville on Friday in what Maloney described as his team's worst game. Although Maloney was impressed with his team's defensive play in six of its seven games - especially since it has been limited to practicing indoors since the fall - this loss was the exception. "Friday, for whatever reason, was the - 6 TREVOR CAMPBELL/Daily Fifth-year senior Drew Taylor pitched eight strong innings for the Wolverines. one game we didn't play well which was very disheartening," Maloney said. The Wolverines scored two runs in both of the eighth and ninth innings, but their comeback bid fell short when sopho- more Nate Recknagel struck out with run- ners on the corners in the ninth. Michigan played much better Saturday, but the result did not show it. Down 3-0 to Georiga Southern in the eighth inning, the Wolverines scored two runs on three doubles by Scheidt, Pickens and junior Leif Mahler. In the ninth inning, Kunkel drew a two-out walk and was pinch-run for by Schmidt, who once again wreaked havoc on the base path. He stole second and when the catcher's throw went into center field, took third. The centerfielder could not cleanly come up with the ball, and Schmidt came around third and scored. "My job at that point was to find any way on and keep the game alive ... ' Kunkel said. "(Schmidt) was able to make something happen ... Shmidty never slowed down." But the momentum was shortlived. The Eagles scored on Abraham in the bottom of the tenth for a 4-3 win. Michigan parlayed its improvement into a 9-4 win over LeMoyne yesterday. Junior Adam Hess - who was particu- larly impressive to Maloney over the week - earned the win. 10 0 MEN'S GYMNASTICS Tumblers can't handle Stanford 0 WOMEN'S GYMNASTICS Freshman is a force for 'M' By Colt Rosensweig Daily Sports Writer PALO ALTO, Calif. - Saturday night, the No. 6 Michigan men's gymnastics team was good. But Stanford was sensa- tional. The third-ranked Cardinal.set a team record with a total score of 217.15, while Michigan turned in a solid 207.35. The Wolverines began the night on their weakest event, the pommel horse. Three of the six gymnasts came off dur- ing their routines, and only freshman Joe Catrambone scored above an 8.0. But with the floor exercise coming next, Michigan could be confident of putting up some big scores. cesses. "We all need to go out there and be confident and know that we can hit as a team," Catrambone said. "(We need) to feed off each other's hits. Right now we're hitting maybe two people, then we'll miss three, hit one, miss four. We have to all hit at the same time." This elusive consistency, a goal Michi- gan has been striving for all season, was not present at Stanford. "Putting together a good team is like a jigsaw puzzle," Michigan coach Kurt Golder said. "You get some of the right pieces and put them in, and some of the other pieces are missing. I feel like we took some more steps forward again this time, but maybe some different guys had award for his floor routine. Golder remains confident in his team's chances to make NCAAs and possibly bring home a national championship. "We've been working on trying to fix some of our problems with guys having trouble competing,"Golder said. "(We just have to) remain optimistic; that's the best solution. Certainly, we demonstrate all the time the potential we have, but it's not very often that we realize it all at the same time. Hopefully, it will just all come together in the end. In 1999, we didn't win a meet until this weekend, until we were out (in Cali- fornia) during Spring Break at the Santa Barbara Invitational. That was the first meet that we won, and we went on to win the NCAA championship. (This year), we This freshman is making her mark. On Saturday, Tatjana Thuener- Rego won the all-around title with a 39.350 against No. 18 Denver at the Hamilton Gymnasium. "Winning the all-around, I was really happy about that," Thuener- Rego said. "I have had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to accom- plish it, and the fact that I did it, tonight, it really meant a lot to me." Saturday served as the third time she posted a score above 39.000 in her five times competing in the all- By Katie Niemeyer Daily Sports Writer trol that. I was just really pleased, I think we got things back on track. The team had a lot of energy and a lot of focus. And that's exactly what we need to be doing." Michigan started the meet with a strong showing on bars, capped off by the first-place performance of senior Lauren Mirkovich. But it wasn't until sophomore Katie Lieberman round- ed out the Wolverines' vault lineup with a winning score of 9.875, and Michigan posed just its second score above a 49.000 on the event that the tumblers could relax. "We did one of our best vault performances of the season," Plocki said. "I think we're definite- was a key moment to follow it all the way through and have a great last event on balance beam." Heading into possibly the biggest meet of the regular season against No. 1 Georgia, the importance of finishing an entire meet cleanly is more apparent than ever. With the consistent performances of veterans like junior Lindsey Bruck and senior Jenny Deiley, who placed third and fourth, respectively, in the all-around and the ability of younger gymnasts like Thuener-Rego, Lieberman and Kipley to keep improving and make a bigger impact each week, Michigan can compete against the top teams in the nation.