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. COME AND HEAR OUR PEOPLE FROM THE INVESTMENT BANK IN CORPORATE FINANCE AND CLIENT CREDIT MANAGEMENT TALK ABOUT THEIR WORK - WITH NO BORING SLIDES, NO OBSCURE LEAGUE TABLES AND ALMOST NO CORPORATE BALONEY. ASK US ANYTHING YOU LIKE. GRAB A SNACK. FIGURE OUT YOUR FUTURE. September 18, 2006 University of Michigan (Undergraduate) Michigan Union, U Club 6:00 p.m. NEE D TO oE. We'll also be hosting "Office Hours" from 10:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. at the Executive Residence Hall at the Business School. Feel free to stop by. Please follow up with your career center to confirm location and time. An Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Employer M/F/D/V. - 2006 lPMorgan Chase & Co. All rights reserved. d