4 8 - Tuesday, October 23, 2007 v - TES MEN'S TENNIS Blue doubles team reaches finals One Michigan doubles team's run at the Wilson/ITA Midwest Regional Championship was almost as long as the event's name. Sophomore Mike Sroczynski and freshman Jason Jung fell in yesterday's doubles final at the University of Minnesota's Base- line Tennis Center. The Wolverine duo fell to the No. 7 Ohio State doubles team of Drew Eberly and Justin Kro- nauge, 8-5, in the final. Prior to that, Scrozynski and Jung had run an impressive streak of five straight victories to reach the finals, including a win over the nation's 25th- ranked doubles team in they country. Jung and Scrozynski also each made it to the third round of the singles draw before fall- ing to top-10 opponents. WOMEN'S TENNIS Semifinal loss similar to last year In the second-to-last weekend of fall play for the Michigan's women's tennis team, sophomore Tania Mahtani dropped just one set en route to the semi- finals of the Wilson/ITA Midwest Regional Champion- shps hosted in Ann Arbor MAHTANI Mahtani defeated her quarterfinal opponent in straight sets yesterday morning, but fell short in the semifinals, losing to the tournament's second seed, 6- 2, 6-1. Last year, then-sophomore Chisako Sugiyama also reached the semifinals of the tournament before falling in consecutive sets. The tournament counts just for individual national rankings and doesn't affect team scoring. The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com 4 4 4 JEREMY CHO/Daily Senior Chad Henne's status is "day-to-day," according to Michigan coach Lloyd Carr. The coach added that Henne's pain, doctors' judgements and his own assessment will determine if Henne plays against Minnesota. Henne back soon? Carr unsure By JACK HERMAN Daily Sports Editor Anyone expecting to learn quar- terback Chad Henne's status for Saturday's game will have NOTEBOOK to wait at least a few more days. Although the senior was listed in the starting spot atop the depth chart, even his coach isn't sure he'll play. "I really have no idea," Michigan coach Lloyd Carr said yesterday when asked if Henne will play this weekend against 1-7 Minnesota. Later, Carr said he viewed Henne's status as "day-to-day." While remaining tight-lipped as usual about the nature of Henne's apparent shoulder injury, Carr did offer some clues about how a deci- sion will be made. Carr hinted it will not be based on X-Rays or MRIs, but rather by Henne's pain and doctors' judgments. And, of course, his own evalua- tion. "As a coach, what you have to do is assess what you think they can do and what gives you the best chance to win," Carr said. Although he may not have liked discussingHenne's injury, Carr was willing to reiterate how impressed he was with Henne's ability to play through it. Henne sat out the third quarter of Saturday's 27-17 win over Illinois, but he returned in the fourth to help the Wolverines put the game away. Henne completed 18-of-26 passes on the day for 201 yards, and, more important, stead- ied a Michigan offense that nearly threw (and fumbled)thegame away under freshman Ryan Mallett. "I know how much pain he was in and somehow he found a way to submerge his pain because of his will to win," Carr said. "There's a lot of different arenas, a lot of dif- ferent types of courage, but on a football field, certainly, what he did was special, and none of us who are part of this team will ever forget what he did." HOW'S THE HART?: Last week, running back Mike Hart's team- mates all seemed certain he would play against Illinois. But as fans found out Saturday, Carr - who was much less optimistic in his comments - might be the better source for injury information. And although the coach raised his expectations for Hart's recovery this week, he still wasn't going to guarantee anything about his star running back's playing chances. "I'm sure Mike is going to be a lot better than he was last week, I think daily he'll improve," Carr said. "But from the time he got hurt, you just don't know. All you do know is he's getting better. We'll have a much better idea tomorrow when he runs." A BUSY MAN: On Saturday night, third-string running back Carlos Brown carried his share of the offense when he ran for 116 yards, while filling in for Hart. But Sunday, he had much more to do. The sophomore said he received about 20 text messages and 25 missed calls of congratulations - and he returned nearly every one of them. "I spent a little time talking to everybody," Brown said. "I talked to everybody that called me back, so not that long." LOL LLOYD: When Carr retires, he might not want another job. But if he does, he might want to send the tape of yesterday's press confer- ence to a few comedy clubs. Carr took the time during his press conference to crack a number of jokes, before telling his own ren- dition of the-tale of the Brown Jug. About Michigan's end-around touchdown? "Well, we love trick plays because it maintains our reputation as a very creative and exciting-type offense." Players say he likes to sing in practice. What are his favorite songs to singto loosen them up? "Don't cry for me, Argentina. I got that down pretty good. What else did they tell you? I'm going to shut them up." On the jug? "That's today now, 104 years later, we're still playing for that coveted jug, the oldest trophy in college football. It has a great tradi- tion, a great meaning here. So, you know, when you lose it, it's a mis- erable experience. When you win it, you get to keep that jug where it belongs. I mean, we bought that jug." 'M' tough, but can improve I Sophomore Kalyn McPherson broke the Traverse City points record in high school, but has struggled to find success scoring at Michigan. Sophomore tries to shed scoring slump By DAN FELDMAN Daily Sports Writer Three-time NBA all-star Dan Majerle, who excelled at Central Michigan, doesn't even hold his hometown Traverse City's scoring record anymore. That honor belongs to a Michi- gan sophomore - on the women's basketball team. Kalyn McPherson, a superb scorer at Traverse City West high school, said she primarily used drives to the basket and mid-range jump shots on her way to totaling 2,012 career points (21.1 per game) - including a record 48 points in a state tournament game in 2005. So when former Michigan coach Cheryl Burnett described each of the team's freshmen before last season, calling McPherson the scorer of the bunch made perfect sense. But the 5-foot-7 guard didn't light it up offensively for the Wol- verines last year. She averaged just 3.3 points per game, yet her play-, ing time was fairly consistent. She did almost everything else well, seemingly doing all the little things right. McPherson was one of just four players, and the lone freshman, to test out of Burnett's summer con- dition program before the season. In the process, she set the all-time team squat record with 361 pounds and benched 145 pounds (fifth all- time). Beyond, she showed tremen- dous leadership. When fellow freshman Krista Phillips teared up during the post- game press conference after a loss at Miami (Ohio) last season, McPherson was at the center's side to console her. When freshman Sireece Bass stood dejectedly on the outskirts of Michigan's post-game mid-court huddle after blowing a late lead to Notre Dame in part because of several Bass miscues, McPherson pulled her in with the rest of the team. "Every now and then, we all need someone to bring us togeth- er," McPherson said. "My team- mates will always bring use back in when Ineed it, too." McPherson's versatility helped contribute on the court in areas other than scoring. "Everybody on her team can go out and play hard, and hustle, and dive, and rebound and play defense," Bass said. And McPherson definitely did all of that. Burnett and her staff kept sta- tistics on categories like blocking out, decision making with the bas- ketball and defensive positioning. McPherson was overwhelmingly on the positive side of all those statistics, Burnett said. Still, McPherson couldn't seem to find shots early in the season. She attempted 16 - and made just four - in her first seven games. But something seemed to click for McPherson once Big Ten play began. She was getting to the hoop off the dribble. In the first nine conference games, McPherson was second on the team in field- goal attempts, many of them off dribble drives. But those shots still weren't falling. She had a dismal .231 field- goal percentage in that span, the lowest on the team. "Her next level, and she's been working really hard, is hitting shots," Phillips said. "We all know she can drive to the basket, but she's workingreally hard to get her shot where it needs to be." Michigan's new coach, Kevin Borseth, thinks if McPherson gets more confident, the shooting prob- lems will disappear. "I sense watching her that she's afraid to make a mistake," Borseth said. "That's what I sense, she feels like she's in prison right now, just locked up." Her Traverse City counterpart Marjerle earned the nickname "Thunder Dan" because of his ability finish his dribble-penetra- tions strongly. If McPherson can invoke her inner Majerle, she could live up to Burnett's other label for her - one of the most underrated recruits in the country - and maybe take on a third title: "Thunder Kalyn." - Alex Prosperi contributed to this report. By COURTNEY RATKOWIAK Daily Sports Writer With a team of hard-hit- ting players, Michigan knew its penalty-killing unit would get a workout this past weekend. And Saturday night, when the Wolverines were a man down for more than 13 minutes, Northern Michigan scored two of its three goals. But even including Saturday's slipups, the Wolverines' penalty- killing unit is statistically stron- ger than last season's. Through four games last year, Michigan allowed five power-play goals in 33 man-down situations. This year, opponents are just 2-for-20. Before allowing its first power- play goal of the season during Saturday's first period, Mich- igan's penalty-killing unit had held opponents scoreless in 14 straight attempts. Whether it was because of the team's youth or the intensity of the CCHA opener, penalties con- stantly disrupted the flow of this weekend's contests. Friday night, Northern Mich- igan's penalty-killing unit was the one at work, and senior Chad Kolarik might as well have fore- shadowed his own team's strug- gle with penalties the following night while describing the Wild- cats' play. "Not staying out of the box (was) a tough sign for them," Kolarik said after Friday's game. "When your best players have to penalty kill, they're working so hard and they're battling through it....I think that gets to you later in the game." For a 6:41 stretch inthe middle of Saturday's first period, the Wolverines were shorthanded. And late inthe period, Michigan's power-play unit gave up its first goal of the season on a slapshot one-timer. The Wolverines success- fully killed three more penalties before giving up their second power-play goal, a shot that went between two Michigan players' legs before being redirected to tie the game with 41 seconds left. "I think our penalty killing was disappointed to give up their first goal against and then anoth- er," Michigan coach Red Beren- son said. "For parts of the game, we were doing well, and then we stumbled at the end." Combined with Northern Michigan penalties that gave Michigan the man advantage, the Wolverines found themselves on the penalty kill or the power play for almost 22 minutes of Satur- day's game. Berenson said the limited time available to playa four-line game got his team "out of sync" during both games. Preshman MatRust called playing a special-teams game "choppy." "A lot of guys on our team had to stay focused with power play and penalty kill playing for probably 50 percent of the game (Saturday)," junior defenseman Mark Mitera said. "It definitely changed the pace of the game up a little bit, with the same guys kind ofgetting out there or sitting on the bench for awhile." The Wolverines' constant penalty killing helped North- ern Michigan tally more than twice as many shots as Michigan through two periods and marked the first time this seasonthe Wol- verines have been outshot. The two goals allowed Satur- day likely mean that the =players on the penalty-killing unit aren't set - but after an otherwise strong start to the season, their strategy with a man down will remain similar. "It's mostly just hard work," senior captain Kevin Porter said. "Our guys are just working hard and puttingpressure ontheirguys to cough up the puck so they don't have time to make many plays. It's been working well so far."