Monday, September 18, 2006 - The Michigan Daily - 3B
i
Long wait ut setup
makes winpefc
t wasn't quite as bad as the New York bag Heisman.
Rangers (54 years) or the Red Sox (86 Lloyd Carr critics, drop the pitchforks and
years) or the Cubs (98 years and counting) torches.
But it sure seems like a pair of waits (ha!) This time the mercury in Notre Dame's
have been lifted off of Michigan's shoulders. hype-meter reached a boiling point, and Michi-
In road openers, there hasn't gan proved the Irish might just
been much good since 1999 - have been holding it a little too
the last time the Wolverines won close to the heater.
one - but there's been plenty of That's one lossfor the Irish.
bad and ugly. And Michigan couldn't have
There were two late-game John . done it in a better fashion.
Navarre interceptions (2000 at It wasn't the nail-biting, down-
UCLA and 2002 at Notre Dame), to-the-wire finish fans of the two
a blocked Hayden Epstein field college football giants have seen
goal (2001 against Washington) so many times before. This time,
and a late drive and John Stocco the Wolverines brought years of
keeper for the score (last year pent-up frustration to the field and
against Wisconsin). JACK steamrolled the Irish.
Each and every time, Michigan HERMAN In 1887, Michigan taught Notre
hit the road ranked higher than its The SportsMondoy Dame how to play football. Satur-
opponent only to settle for a long, Cohnmn day, the Wolverines taught them
quiet, depressing trip back home. again.
Likewise with the Wolverines' Mario Manningham put on a
three trips to South Bend since 1994. show. His quick cut - giving him about five
So the wait until Saturday was long. But it yards distance on Notre Dame cornerback
may just have been worth it thanks to the con- Ambrose Wooden - sent him on the way
ditions that offered a bit of role reversal. to a 69-yard touchdown. It would have been
Michigan 47, Notre Dame 21. enough. Then he did it again. And then again.
That's one winfor the road. He became the first person to score three
Finally, it wasn't the big, bad Wolverines receiving touchdowns in South Bend since
marching into South Bend only to be upset by Texas tight end Pat Fitzgerald in 1995.
the Irish with a worse (and, one time, no) rank- How long until we subtract 85 from Man-
ing. Nope, this time, No.2 Notre Dame held ningham's jersey number?
the upper hand against a No. 11 Michigan team That's onefor a new star.
that had much to prove to many still unsure Chad Henne put any fears of a diminished
critics. Wolverine air attack to rest. Forget the first-
In South Bend, the Charlie Weis era had pass interception. Henne turned things around
people in a fervor. Irish fans believed that Weis to connect with Manningham on those three
- an alum with Super Bowl credentials - had touchdowns and threw for 220 yards on an effi-
the team on the verge of becoming a college cient 13 completions - a number that surely
football dynasty that would rival the Zhou would have been greater had it not been for
years in China. I half expected this year's game some dropped balls.
to be played in "Charlie Weis Stadium." The defense continued to demonstrate that
The hype for quarterback Brady Quinn was things might be very different from last year.
nearly as high. The "sure" (see Matt Leinart) Leon Hall showed why he's an preseason All-
No. 1 pick in next years NFL draft sat high American with a touchdown-saving swat and
upon a golden-boy pedestal in the home of the diving interception. If opponents hadn't yet
Golden Dome. After a big game against Penn taken note, the collection of big hits delivered
State last week (25-for-36, 287 yards, three on Quinn by the defensive line will have them
touchdowns), you can be sure Quinn hoped to fearing the Blue Crush. And Prescott Burgess's
add some highlights to his reel and avenge the two right-place, right-time interceptions proved
just-about-average performances against the that sometimes a little luck can go a long way
Wolverines in the past. (like for 66 yards and a touchdown).
And in Ann Arbor, some called for coach That's onefor redemption
Lloyd Carr's head. His recent failures against There's not quite much that can top this
Notre Dame, Ohio State and in bowl games victory. Well, until No. I Ohio State vs. No. 2
combined with a 7-5 record last year had some Michigan that is.
ready to storm his office and demand his res- That's one -for the ages.
Webster and Co. on top again
By Amber Colvin very confident," McGuire said. "She place with a time of 21:23.
Daily Sports Writer did a nice job pulling away in the last Missing from the Wolverine lineup
thousand meters. She beat an outstand- was graduate student Katie Gwyther.
The sun just keeps shining on the ing runner by a significant margin. Due to her intense academic load, it
No. 3 Michigan women's cross country Hopefully, that will lend itself to bigger wasn't feasible for her to travel across
team - even if they're running in the and better things as we get to the cham- the country and race this weekend.
Rainy City. pionship part of the season." Instead, she ran a race individually in
The Wolverines blew away the com- Joining Webster in the top 10 were Toledo, Ohio. Gwyther came in third
petition at the Sundodger Invitational redshirt sophomore Nicole Edwards last weekend in her first race for the
in Seattle on Saturday with a first-place at fourth (20:54), junior Alyson Kohl- Wolverines.
score of 27 points. None of the other 13 meier at fifth (20:58) and fifth-year "Fortunately, we're deep enough that
teams came close, with second-place senior Arianne Field at eighth (21:13). we can withstand having someone of
Club Northwest notching 69 points. The race was Kohlmeier's first of the Katie's outstanding abilities out of the
Redshirt junior Erin Webster won season, after she sat out last weekend lineup for right now," McGuire said.
her second-straight race with a six- for rest. With Gwyther and her teammates
kilometer time of 20:17. And like last Though Michigan had more runners all back in Ann Arbor, the Wolverines
weekend, when she finished 26 seconds finish in the top 10 last weekend in Indi- are gearing for two weeks of training
ahead of her closest competitor at the ana, McGuire thought Saturday's per- before heading to South Bend for the
Indiana Open, Webster made a point of formance proved better for the team. Notre Dame Invitational. Until then,
separating herself from the pack. "It was actually perfect," McGuire Michigan will take its win in Seattle
The newly crowned Big Ten Runner said. "Beautiful day, no humidity, no and try to build on it.
of the Week hovered close to the leaders wind. The course was very good, a lot "This was a good barometer of our
for most of the race, but broke out in the faster type course than what we ran training fitness at this point," McGuire
last four minutes to take a command- on last weekend. We're a week fitter. said. "Obviously we have some con-
ing lead. The 14-second gap between Everything lent itself to running pretty fidence, yet at the same time, as well
Webster and runner-up Haley Paul fast today." as we're running, we always feel that
- who finished 14th in the NCAA last The ideal conditions especially we're a work in progress. You can't get
season - made Michigan coach Mike helped freshman Jenny Morgan. The complacent in any venue of athletics,
McGuire optimistic for the future. Clarkston native ran her first collegiate or somebody will come out and knock
"She's training well; she's obviously six-kilometer race, finishing in 14th your head off the next time out."
'M' dominates at Michigan State
By Mirgim Jusufi
For the Daily
EAST LANSING - Michigan decid-
ed to put on an impromptu running clinic
for the rest of the state at the Spartan Invi-
tational.
Wolverine runners dominated the field,
with four runners placing in the top five.
The Wolverines placed first in the 11-team
field.
Sophomore Lex Williams finished sec-
ond (25:09) 1-1 seconds behind Michi-
gan State sophomore Stephan Shay - to
lead Michigan Redshirt freshman Bran-
don Fellows followed up his impressive
first-place showing two weeks ago in the
Michigan Open with a third-place finish
on Friday.
By sticking close together, the Wolver-
ines' top four runners managed to finish
within 18 seconds of one another.
"We ran in a pack for the first three
and a half miles," Williams said. "We had
a nice pack up front, and then it started
to spread out a little bit, and myself and
Stephan Shay pulled away in the end. We
were neck and neck, and then at the four-
mile mark he started to pull away."
Fifth-year seniorcaptain Andrew Bauer
and redshirt freshman Sean McNamara
rounded out the top five.
The Wolverines' strong showing can
also be credited to a new strategy.
"We went out pretty quick in the first
mile, but that's our goal, to learn to go out
fast in the beginning," Bauer said.
But the captain has a different tactic in
mind.
"This year my goal is not to go out as
hard," Bauer said. "I like to go out with
my teammates. I stayed back a little bit,
but then halfway through the race I turned
it on and said I have to go pass some guys.
I took my time and was patient for the first
time in a long time, and it paid off."
Junior Seth Thibodeau crossed the
line in 10th (25:52), giving Michigan half
of the top 10 finishers. Freshman Mike
Dobmeier ran his first race as a Wolverine
- and finished with a time of 26:06 (13th
place).
"It felt pretty good," Dobmeier said.
"It was my first time running an (eight-
kilometer), soI really didn't know what to
expect. I just went out with a couple team-
mates and tried to pick off guys during the
mid-course of the race."
This was the second straight win for
Michigan after last week's victory at the
Michigan Open. Next week, the Wolver-
ines travel to South Bend for the Notre
Dame Invitational.
"We've had a really good first part of
the season;' Bauer said. "Everyone is
clicking and getting along great as a team.
(The Notre Dame Invitational) is another
fast course, like this one. (It's) better com-
petition, a lot more teams, and a lot of top-
25 teams. So we'll get used to the feeling
of running in a bigger race."
Even with the good performances so
far, the team knows there's still a lot of
training to be done.
"It's so early; the season is basically
just getting started;' said Fred LaPlante,
Michigan associate head track and field
coach. "If you do great right now and
don't do well two months from now, it
doesn't mean anything."
LaPlante filled in for cross country
coach Ron Warhurst, who was in Athens
coaching the United States Track & Field
distance team in the World Cup.
ignation.
Irish fans, put the canonization of Weis on
hold.
Brady Quinn, start filling up the space on.
the mantle formerly reserved for your in-the-
- Herman apologizes to anyone who
thinks he cursed it, but knows everyone
is thinking the same thing. He can be
reached at jaherman@umich.edu.
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September 18, 2006
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