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Bosch: Bad first
round a damper
on madness
SM COLUMN 2B
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Monday, March 19, 2007
michigandaily.com 6
* o for anderkaa
ByCOURTNEYRATKOWIAK firstindividual NCAAtitle, as Mich- On Thursday, the first day of just going as hard as I could,"
Daily Sports Writer igan finished seventh at the NCAA competition, Michigan's most suc- Vanderkaay said. "When I hit the
Championships. cessful event was the 500-yard wall, I kind of assumed that I had
A week before the NCAA Cham- Auburn won its fifth straight freestyle. The team earned 28 of won, but I looked up and I didn't see
pionships, freshman Scott Spann NCAA title, outswimming second- their 58 first-day points with Pat- (during the race) that there was a
made one thing clear: in this sport, place Stanford by 169 points. The ton's fourth-place and Vanderkaay's guy in lane one that was running me
age doesn't matter. Wolverines were the second-high- sixth-place finish. down, and he almost caught me. It
Like it has all season, the under- est scoring team in the Big Ten with The following day, Vanderkaay was still a shock (to win)."
classmen-dominated Michigan 207 points, beating Big Ten Cham- was crowned the NCAA Champion During the meet's final day, Pat-
men's swimming and diving team pion Minnesota by 76, but finishing in the 400-yard individual medley. ton had his second fourth-place
proved him right at this weekend's behind sixth-place Northwestern. He dropped almost four seconds off finish of the competition in the
championship meet. Seven Michigan athletes had at of that morning's preliminary time 1,650-yard freestyle, swimming a
The season that shattered every- least one All-America performance, to finish with a personal-best time personal best time of 14:49.10
one's expectations ended with an with sophomore Matt Patton and of 3:40.89. The Wolverines broke three
equally impressive performance, junior Alex Vanderkaay earning "With 150 yards to go, I knew school records - in the 200-yard
capped by junior Alex Vanderkaay's honors in three events apiece. I was in the lead, and so I was See TANKERS, Page 3B
r
NOTRE DAME 2, MICHIGAN 1
OUT OF LUCK
Icers
drop
title
_.. ByNATE SANDALS
Daily Sports Writer
DETROIT - Notre Dame senior goalie
Avid Brown has been a stalwart all season.
His 1.58 goals against average is far better
than any other goalie.
Michigan goalie Billy Sauer has been
much maligned at times this season. It took
a strong January for the sophomore to pull
his save percentage above .900.
But in Saturday night's CCHA final, it
was Sauer who played like a superstar and
Brown who flew under the radar.
Unfortunately for Sauer, a lone mistake
among many brilliant saves made Notre
Dame the 2-1 winner and conference cham-
pion and Brown the championship MVP.
It's Notre Dame's first ever CCHA-play-
off title.
Spectacular stops were no solace for
Sauer, who was visibly upset following the
game.
"I thought I played fine, but obviously not
good enough," Sauer said.
Notre Dame's game-winner resulted
from Sauer's lone mistake.
Sauer stopped Garrett Regan's initial shot
from just inside the blue line. But he couldn't
stick away the rebound and the puck slipped
to Jason Paige who slid it through Sauer's
five-hole for a 2-1 lead with fewer than nine
... and
head
west
By JAMES VDOWD
Daily Sports Writer
The No. 9 Michigan hockey team
was just a few goalposts away-from
beating the nation's top ranked team
- Notre Dame - Saturday night in the
CCHA Championship game. But Sun-
day afternoon, as the NCAA Tourna-
ment pairings were announced, you
might not have noticed the Wolver-
ines even earned a bid.
Michigan drew a familiar foe in No.
6 North Dakota, whom the Wolver-
ines lost to in the first round last year
on the Fighting Sioux's home ice. This
time around, they will meet on entire-
ly unfamiliar ice at 7:30 p.m. Saturday
at the Pepsi Center in Denver.
In the West Regional, where Michi-
gan is the No.2 seed and North Dakota
No. 3, the winner will face the victor
of the Saturday-afternoon matchup
between top seed Minnesota and the
No. 4 seed Air Porte.
Despite earning the higher seed
against the Fighting Sioux, the Wol-
verines received little attention from
the ESPN2 commentators once the
pairings were announced. Watching
the show from their locker room at
See TOURNAMENT, Page 3B
RODRIGO GAYA/Daily
Notre Dame goalie David Brown held Michigan to just one goal in the CCHA Championship game on Saturday night.
minutes remaining. Jason Dest said. "They can turn the game crease. The puck streaks on his block 'M'
Despite losing, Sauer's teammates were around." acting as undeniable evidence of his master-
more willing than he to 'elaborate on his During a Notre Dame second-period ful goaltending.
impressive showing. power play, Sauer made three impressive Though the onus for the game-winning
"In the first couple periods he had saves on point-blank shots. At the next stop- goal fell on his shoulders, Sauer's effort was
really big saves," senior alternate captain page, Sauer could be seen smiling in his See IRISH, Page3B
i i
Grapplers shine on big stage
By MICHAEL EISENSTEIN
Daily Sports Writer
AUBURN HILLS Michigan
hosted the NCAA Championships
for the first time since 1934 this
past weekend.
It feels like it has been just as
long since they had a strong perfor-
mance this season.
But despite qualifying just five
wrestlers for the tournament,
the Wolverines finished sixth (62 '
points), with each qualifier earning
Al-America honors.
"We really had a good weekend,
there's no doubt about it," Michi-
gan coach Joe McFarland said.
"When you come in here with five
guys and do what we did, it's pretty
hard to do. We didn't come in here
with numbers like some other
teams did."
Wrestling in front of an NCAA
Wrestling Championships single-
session record crowd (17,780 peo-
ple) at the Palace, Michigan didn't
fail to impress.
The five All-America honors
were the most in the tournament JEREMY CHO/Daily
(tied with National Champion Junior Ryan Churella lost in sudden victory to take second in the 149-pound weight class at the NCAA Championships
Minnesota). Each of the Wolver- urday night, Michigan found itself guys that came could place, and we Lance Palmer 5-2 in the semifinals,
ines either tied or set career-bests behind just the nation's top-five knew that if all five of us lived up to Churella faced Edinboro's fifth-
at NCAAs. teams and third among Big Ten our potential, we could place really seeded Gregor Gillepsie, who had
Two weekends ago, Michigan squads. high." upset top-ranked Dustin Schlatter
finished eighth at Big Ten Cham- "I think that it surprised a lot of But one Wolverine stood out in the previous round.
pionships. The team boasted just people that we finished in the top from the rest. ChurellaandGillepsieexchanged
two dual meet wins this season and 10, probably more people outside Third-seed Josh Churella (149 escapes in the second and third
came into Auburn Hills ranked No. of Michigan," sixth-place finisher pounds) battled all the way to the periods before the match went to
15 in the country. Steve Luke (174 pounds) said. "But championship match. a sudden-victory period. Churella
But at the end of Nationals Sat- for us, we knew that these five After defeating Ohio State's See GRAPPLERS, Page 4B
NE.. ;iASKETAL
AD, recruits
look to future
By DANIEL BROMWICH
Daily Sports Editor
The Michigan men's basketball
program is already looking ahead
after coach Tommy Amaker was
fired Saturday.
Amaker had recruited a class
that included two top-40 players,
Alex Legion and Manny Harris.
Many worried that if Amaker was
released, those incoming fresh-
men would no longer come to
Michigan.
"When I heard the news from
him this morning, I was just
shocked and pretty disappointed,
because he was the coach that I
wanted to play for," Legion said
just hours after the announce-
ment. "But I do realize that that's
a part of the business, and I'm still
committed to the University of
Michiganbecause I wantto make
a change and a difference." .
Legion added that he had
talked to Harris, and the Detroit
native would also attend Michi-
gan in the fall.
"We both decided that the
players are the ones that make
the program," Legion said. "So as
long as DeShawn Sims and Ekpe
Udoh are there, they are great
players, and I see no reason why I
shouldn't stay."
Harris refused to comment
when reached by phone on Sat-
urday.
But more recent reports indi-
cate that Legion, Harris and the
team'sthirdrecruit,KelvinGrady,
have not yet made their decision
and are waiting to see who the
new coach will be.
Their decision appears to
depend on whether the other
recruits are coming, so it looks
like it will be an all-or-nothing
conclusion for Michigan.
This raises the stakes for Mich-
igan's coaching search, which
athletic director Bill Martin said
has already begun.
"I want to have a coach in place
by the middle of April, if not soon-
er," Martin said. "We're looking
at both head coaches and veteran
assistant coaches. I want some-
body that's got strong recruit-
ing ties in the Midwest. I think
that's important. And we need to
look very hard at the staff that is
brought in also. I want to play a
very active role in evaluating the
staff because staff is important
from a recruiting perspective, as
well as a coaching and develop-
ment perspective."
See FUTURE, Page 3B