Thursday, September 28, 2006 - The Michigan Daily - 11A

Broderick's summer work ethic
shows in all-around excellence

By Matt Johnson
For the Daily
Legendary golfer Bobby
Jones once commented that the
game was a mental war played
mainly on a small course inside
the player's mind. Senior golfer
Brianna Broderick has taken
this lesson to heart during her
time at Michigan.
"I've really worked at the
mental aspect of my game," she
said. "Coach (Kathy) Teichert
has done wonders in helping me
with this. I've improved every
aspect of my game since com-
ing to U of M, but especially
the mental aspect."
Teichert agreed.
"Bri is a competitive young
lady," she said. "She strives at
doing her best each day and tries
her hardest on every shot."
Broderick focused on all
areas of her game in the offsea-
son. She traveled to play in sev-
eral tournaments and did cardio
work and stretched to help with
her flexibility.
All the hard work paid big
dividends at the season-open-
ing Lady Northern Invitational
two weeks ago, hosted by Mich-
igan State University. Broder-
ick was tournament runner-up,

recording a one-under-par 71
during the second round, tying
her personal best as a Wolver-
ine. Broderick led Michigan to
a fourth-place finish out of 12
teams in East Lansing, starting
the season on the right note.
Everything seemed to come
together for Broderick at the,
Lady Northern. She has expe-
rienced success at Michigan
State's Forest Akers golf course
in the past, winning the Mary
Fossum Invitational as a sopho-
more in 2004.
"All in all my game was pret-
ty strong," Broderick said. "I've
been working hard on my swing
and I just trusted it. Overall, I
just drove the ball better and
putted better."
Broderick hopes that success
will carry over to Saturday's
Wolverine Invitational in Ann
Arbor.
It should, considering the
team has fared well at home
recently. The Wolverines have
won four team titles and three
individual titles in the last
seven events held there. Last
year, Michigan won the invita-
tional.
"We definitely have a home
course advantage here," Brod-
erick said. "If we perform badly

it adds increased pressure to do
well the rest of the year, but it's
still pretty early in the season.
I feel that we should do pretty
well."
But she isn't taking anything
for granted. The course still
provides a challenge.
"It's pretty hard compared
to the other courses we play
throughout the year," Broderick
said. "Alister MacKenzie, the
designer, put trouble where your
drives would be if you mishit.
The greens are really where
the fun begins, though. They're
huge with a lot of slope, so you
have to use your imagination to
putt well."
But Broderick's short game
and putting have always been
her strengths.
Many golfers struggle with
their chipping around the
greens, but Teichert said that
Broderick's up and down (chip-
ping onto the green and making
the putt) percentage is about 70
percent.
Hitting good tee and approach
shots are important in golf, but
that added touch near the green
is what leads to birdie opportu-
nities and low scores.
Broderick will need to be at
the top of her game on Satur-

day: The Wolverines will face
some tough competition. Big
Ten rivals Michigan State, Ohio
State and Northwestern - the
three teams that finished higher
than the Wolverines at the Lady
Northern - will all be in atten-
dance.
Both Broderick and Teichert
agreed that, along with Pur-
due, those teams are Michigan's
main roadblocks to winning a
Big Ten championship. Purdue
won the conference tournament
last year, followed by Ohio State
and Michigan State. The Wol-
verines finished fourth.
Further down the road, Brod-
erick hopes to follow in the
steps of Amy Schmucker, who
qualified for the NCAA Tour-
nament as a senior last year. She
has some extra incentive to do
so because the central regional
will be held at the U-M golf
course.
Still, she doesn't want to look
too far ahead.
"I would like to represent
our home course, but I want to
watch it so I don't put too much
pressure on myself and the
team," Broderick said.
For now, Broderick will con-
tinue to take it one step at a
time.

FOREST CASEY/Daily
Golfer Brianna Broderick finished second at the Lady Northern Invitational.


Spikers Bower and Miller take
divergent paths to work together

By Dan Feldman
Daily Sports Writer
Michigan volleyball coach
Mark Rosen doesn't like the
NCAA's substitution rules.
He doesn't think the rules
are strict enough, allowing
almost-unlimited substitution.
He thinks the current regula-
tions take away from players
developing their all-around
game and remove a strategic
element of coaching.
But that doesn't mean he
won't take advantage of the
rules.
Rosen has made frequent
substitutions to platoon fresh-
man Megan Bower and junior
Lyndsay Miller, playing Bower
in the back row and Miller in
the front row.
When they sub for each other,
they have a special ritual.
"We always hold up one
finger, and we connect with
our middle fingers because
we always say we're the No. 1
sub," Bower said.

Said Miller: "She rocks it in
the back row, and I rock it in
the front row."
But a couple of years ago, the
tag-team wouldn't have seemed
possible. Miller was poised to
become the offensive player
she is, but so was Bower.
Bower was playing club vol-
leyball for the Circle City team
and was more of an offen-
sive player. Before her junior
year, she decided to change
clubs to Munciana. The club
has a reputation for producing
strong defensive players, and is
coached by former Cincinnati
coach Mike Lingenfelter.
"(The switch of club teams)
had everything in the world
to do with (getting immediate
playing time at Michigan),"
Bower said. " ... I love offense,
but defense is a totally different
thrill, because, instead of start-
ing rallies, you're ending them.
I love to play defense because
it's putting me on the floor
right now. Whatever is going to
help my team win, I'm going to

do. But I think the way things
panned out this year, defense is
my spot."
Rosen envisions Bower
becoming a regular on both
lines. When he first recruited
her, he saw that she had the
physical tools needed to suc-
ceed in college, so Rosen
focused on Bower's mental
game.
She is very competitive, dis-
ciplined, aggressive and has
high self-esteem, Rosen said.
Bower is so intense on the
court that she often looks angry
during matches. But her menac-
ing frown comes through most
prominently during her serves.
"I'm just a very intense per-
son," Bower said. "I'd say I
have a lot of fire and energy in
me, and I'm just very focused
when I go back and serve."
Rosen said that her irate look
is not indicative of her usual
state of mind. If Bower is too
mad, it can actually hurt the
team.
"No matter how intense she

___ ___

FRESHMEN
Continued from page 10A
would have made as much prog-
ress over the summer if I would
have been in a program where I
started off as the best runner on the
team."
McGuire said he's excited about
what lies in the duo's future. He said
that the athletes have bright careers
ahead, both on the track and in the
classroom, based on the outstand-
ing work ethic they provided in the
summer training leading up to this
season. Morgan and Creutz are the
only two of five freshmen to have
seen extensive action this season.
The transition from a high
school sport to college can be
tough. The captains, upperclass-
men and McGuire helped the
freshmen runners become accli-
mated to collegiate running. The
freshmen bonded with the rest of
the team over the summer at camp,
when the whole team spent eight
days together.
"It has been such a smooth tran-
sition thanks to the captains and
other team leaders," Morgan said.
"There were a lot of times this
summer when I was confused and
did not know what to do during
training sessions. The upperclass-
men were very helpful in getting us
adjusted to the practices and every-
thing."
The women's cross-country
team boasts a string of four
consecutive years as winners
of the Leaders and Best award
- the award given to the var-
sity team with the highest grade
point average over the academic
year. Freshmen or not, Mor-
gan, who is a biology major,
and Creutz, who is majoring in
movement science in the School
of Kinesiology, are expected by
their teammates to uphold the
tradition of excellence in both
athletics and academics.