2B - April 7, 2008

The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com4

Blue's win streak
snapped by Illinois

Relax, the Tigers will be fine

Doubles struggles
highlight loss to
Fighting Illini
By MICHAEL BERTENTHAL
Daily Sports Writer
The No. 14 Michigan men's
tennis team had won 10 straight
matches going into Champaign on
Sunday.
By late afternoon, that momen-
tum had sputtered.
With a 5-2 upset loss to No. 17
Illinois, some of Michigan's under-
lying weaknesses may have been
exposed.
For the second time in two days,
the Wolverines failed to gain the
doubles point. Michigan dominat-
ed in doubles early in the season,
winning nine of its first 10 doubles
matches.
"I'm concerned," Michigan
coach Bruce Berque said. "We
were winning basically every dou-
bles match we played early in the
season. Our level has dropped off."
Berque pointed to inconsistency
in doubles serves as an area where
the Wolverines need to return to
their previous form.
In both doubles and singles,
freshman Chris Madden and junior
Andrew Mazlin provided Sunday's
lone bright spots, winning their
doubles match at No. 3 and con-
tinuing their strong play individu-
ally in singles. Madden came back
to win after dropping his first set,
4-6. Mazlin took out Illinois' No.
94 nationally-ranked Billy Heiser,
6-4,7-5.
Michigan (7-1 Big Ten, 16-3

overall) struggled despite playing
at full strength for the first time
in several weeks. Freshman Jason
Jung returned to the lineup this
weekend from a minor wrist injury
that kept him out of the lineup last
week.
As a No. 1 doubles player with
sophomore Mike Sroczynski and a
No. 2 singles player, Jung is a valu-
able force in both components of
dual-match play.
"It's good to have him back,"
Berque said. "He's one of our best
players, and we ask a lot for him as
a freshman."
Aside from a lack of execution,
factors outside Michigan's control
may have contributed to its poor
play on the court.
The team's schedule was diffi-
cult this weekend. The Wolverines
beat Purdue 4-3 in West Lafayette
on Saturday and then traveled
to Champaign for their Sunday
match.
Though Berque wouldn't use
scheduling as an excuse, the
fatigue incurred by back-to-back
matches is difficult to dismiss.
"I don't think we should be
playing back-to-back matches on
the road," Berque said. "Tennis
matches are long and very taxing.
When you have to jump on a bus
and drive a couple hours, it's not
a good situation. But I'm not sure
how much that played into the
result today."
Michigan will have to get com-
fortable with the road because
after next weekend's home match
against Notre Dame, the Wolver-
ines will finish the season with
two straight road matches against
ranked Big Ten foes, Indiana and
Ohio State.

The Detroit Tigers are the
worst team in baseball.
That's what the standings
say, at least. But am I worried?
Have I joined in with the majority
of fair-weathered fans and media
pundits calling for widespread
panic? No. Why am I not worried
when others are already think-
ing about sacrificing their first-
borns in hopes of turning things
around? Am I
smarter than
most? As much
as I'd like to
think that's
the case, it's
probably not.
Instead, I'm
just relying on S'
level-headedSCOTT
rational think- BELL
ing. That's
something I
didn't have before coming to Ann
Arbor.
In my four years at Michigan,
I've learned quite a bit. Deoxy-
ribose is an aldopentose. The
Humiliati had a long struggle to
obtain papal recognition in the
late 12th century. And oh yeah,
fans spaz out a lot.
I know, I know, excessive fan
panic wasn't something I was first
exposed to in college. I'd seen so-
called die-hard fans writing off
teams a couple weeks into the sea-
son long before I ever shotgunned
my first beer across the street
from Yost on my way to a hockey
game. But the absurdity of PFSO
- the Premature Fan Spaz Out
- really became apparent to me
over the past four years.
Matt Gutierrez is injured? The
2004 season must be ruined.
Just don't tell that to any of the
graduating football players who
may happen to be wearing Big Ten
Championship rings.
T.J. Hensick graduates and the
Jack Johnson/Andrew Cogliano
duo goes pro? The hockey pro-
gram will obviously be stuck in
rebuilding mode for the rest of
the decade. Just chalk up the top-
ranked Wolverine hockey team's
trip to Denver as a fluke.
The Michigan basketball team

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The Detroit Tigers are off to an 0-6 start this season, but it's not time for fans to panic.


stumbles at the start of the year ...
OK, bad example.
The point is, so-called lost
seasons are rarely that, especially
when they get that labeled early in
the year, or even before it starts.
And that's especially true in base-
ball.
Last year's World Series pit-
ted two teams against each other
that had more than 100 combined
losses. That's just a few more
losses than the Tigers have accu-
mulated so far in the young 2008
season. Like, by at least 50, maybe
even more.
If this losing streak hap-
pened anywhere in the middle
140 games of the season, nobody

would make a big deal of it at
all. Every team is swept at some
stage in the season. This skid gets
attention because a) it's opening
or closing the season and b) the
Tigers had a ridiculous amount of
hype surrounding them entering
the season. And don't forget, the
hype was there for a reason. This
team is good..
So Tigers fans - and Michigan
fans preparing to jump all over
the football team the first time
Rich Rodriguez's offense has a
hiccup - try something new for
a change. Give rational thinking
a shot. Give it a free 30-day trial,
and if it's not for you, I'll give you
a full refund, including shipping

and handling. And I'll say I'm
wrong and stuff. I'll send you an
e-mail. You can frame it and show
it to your kids - in between criti-
cizing your favorite teams, that is.
I'm sure games are more fun
when you can sit in front of your
television with a beer in one hand
and a Jason Grilli voodoo doll
in the other. But just try watch-
ing and enjoying the game for a
change. Try to avoid cliff jumping,
at least in April.
Try being a fan.
You'll be surprised how fun it
can be.
- Bell can be reached at
scottebumich.edu.

JOIN THE DAILY'S
ONLINE STAFF.
E-mail odonnell@michigandaily.com


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