The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Friday, March 13, 2009 - 7 Wolverines head south seeking NCAA glory Championships will showcase Blue's top individual efforts By ROGER SAUERHAFT Daily Sports Writer Despite 32 years of coaching track and field, Michigan coach Fred LaPlante doesn't pretend to have a standard training plan for this time of year. LaPlante is preparing athletes for the NCAA Indoor Champion- ships, but after months of heavy training, he said it's extremely dif- ficult to draw the line between too much and too little exercise. Seniors Adam Harris and Justin Switzer and redshirt junior Sean Pruitt are preparing for this week- end's trip to the NCAA Indoor Championships in College Station, Texas. "It's different for each guy," LaPlante said. "It's a psychological thing. It's an art of having a guy fresh for the race. It's how much can you do where they still have confidence, but they're not doing so much that they're exhausted." ADAM HARRIS: 60-METER DASH LaPlante emphasized how important it was for Harris to stay mentally fresh at the Big Ten Championships, where he won the 60-meter (6.62) and 200-meter (20.99) dashes to cap off his late- season surge. Itwas asharpcontrasttohispre- vious meet at the Nebraska Husker Invitational. In the 60-meter dash, the event he is running at nation- als, Harris ran a time of 6.76 sec- onds. "At Nebraska, his mind was so'mewhere else," LaPlante said. "But at the Big Ten meet, you knew it was going to be a long day for everyone else, because he was in that zone, and if you were going to beat him, it was going to be pretty unbelievable." But LaPlante could tell well before the Big Ten meet that Har- ris would be successful. Harris was named Big Ten Track Athlete of the Year and Track Athlete of the Championships. "You could just sense it from about 10 days out from how he was approaching his business," LaPlante said. "I just couldn't see him getting denied at the Big Ten meet. He was just focused and wasn't uptight, either." LaPlante said he also sees the same focus in Harris for the NCAA meet. It also helps that Harris has been at this stage before, finishing fourth (6.62 seconds) in last year's national meet to claim his first All- American honor. "When the lights go on, Adam always knows what to do," LaPlan- te said. "He can get focused the right way. He doesn't get overly up or down." Harris said that with his linger- ing lower back problems mostly cleared up and off his mind, he's readyto unleash his speed in away that he hasn't often done this year. Although Clemson sophomore Jacoby Ford holds the nation's top time at 6.51 seconds, Harris said winning a national championship from the fifth seed was a possibil- ity. JUSTIN SWITZER: MILE RUN Fellow senior Justin Switzer also goes to the NCAA Champion- ship meet to top off his decorated career on the indoor track. Switzer qualified for the NCAA meet as a sophomore, where he 'took All-American honors in the distance medley relay and won the conference title in the 1,500-meter run. According to distance coach Ron Warhurst, Switzer's meet two years ago was mostly a learning experience. Warhurst said this time around, Switzer has a differ- ent game plan going into College Station. "He's got to be able to put him- self in position where he can use his speed," Warhurst said. "Every- body is going to be quick. Every- one will be fast. It's the national championship." Switzer just won the Big Ten title in the mile run two weeks ago and has changed up his normal routine of running 65 miles per week. He's now running just 42 miles per week as he tries to stay fresh before facing the nation's top runners. "It's all mental. You have a men- tal approach and a plan and you have to execute it," said Warhurst, adding that Switzer plans to keep pace with the front four runners going into the final stretch. "I have no question he's got the con- fidence. It's about executing the plan we have." Switzer's 3:58.86 mile time, run on Feb. 6, makes him the eighth seed of 14 runners. He is just a second and a half behind the top seed, Michigan State junior Shane Knoll. SEAN PRUITT: WEIGHT THROW Redshirt junior thrower Sean Pruitt will be making the trek to College Station to participate in the weight throw. Pruitthas neverbefore qualified for the NCAA Championships but has enjoyed a spectacular indoor season, headlined by breaking his own Michigan record in the CHRIS DZOMBAK/Daily Senior Adam Harris will run in the 60-meter dash in this weekend's NCAA Indoor Championships in College Station, Texas. Harris won the 60-meter in the Big Ten Championships earlier this year. weight throw twice. throw of 22.71 meters. ton junior Jake Schmitt, the 14th He also won the Big Ten title seed. in the weight throw, but he main- CLOSE, BUT NOT GOOD ENOUGH The Wolverines have finished tained throughout the year that he struggled with mechanics and his best throws were still ahead of him. His throw of 21.13 meters on Jan. 31 ranks him eighth in a field of 14 competitors. Missouri senior Chris Rohr is the top seed with a Redshirt freshman Craig Forys finished 15th in the nation in the 5,000-meter run, leaving him one spot short of atrip to College Sta- tion. The NCAA takes just 14 com- petitors for the event. Forys's time was .23 seconds behind Washing- in the top-10 in the NCAA Indoor Championships 11 times. They came in 44th place last year, and Harris was the lone Michigan runner to score points. 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Birthdate of: Albert Einstein, physi- cist/mathematician; Billy Crystal, actor/comedian; Grace Park, actress. By COLT ROSENSWEIG Daily Sports Writer A rivalry is about to be revived. When legendary coach Newt Loken first re-established the men's gymnastics program at Michigan, the team's biggest foe was powerhouse Illinois. For years - 11 in a row from IllinoiS at 1950-60, to be exact - the Wol- Michigan verines watched Matchup: as the Fighting lllinois 10-5; Illini grabbed Michigan 10-4 the Big Ten title When: they wanted so Saturday badly. 7 P.M. In recent sea- Where: Clffl sons, the Illini Keen Arena have taken a Stats: backseat to mgoblue.com bigger-name opponents like Oklahoma and Ohio State. But now, No. 5 Michigan and No. 4 Illinois are the top two teams in the Big Ten. And it's Senior Night. Outside of the postseason com- petitions, there are few meets the Wolverines want to win more than this Saturday's. The Illini have just two Big Ten losses so far this season, and both of them came courtesy of the Wolverines. In Michigan's last meet, the Feb. 21 Pacific Coast Classic, it beat Illinois by nearly five points. "That gives us a pretty good edge of confidence going into the meet," said sophomore Ben Bal- dus-Strauss, who will compete on the floor, pommel horse, vault and high bar. "(But the Illini) have so much raw talent. We definitely can't go in there thinking that we're bet- ter than them. We just have to prove it." For Michigan, it will be the first challenging dual meet with another Big Ten team since a nar- row loss to Penn State on Jan. 24. The competition will be the last at Cliff Keen Arena for most of Michigan's seniors. All seven of the healthy seniors are in the starting lineup. "They've been the leaders since I got here," Baldus-Strauss said. "It's going to be sad, because we're going to lose so many of ht features een elite squads them. We definitely want to come out with a victory for their last meet at Keen and send them off in style." The Illini won't make it easy, and neither will injuries. While Michigan just lost freshman Syque Caesar - who has been a major contributor all year - to a torn meniscus, Illinois just regained the services of star sophomore Paul Ruggeri, who is coming back from the same injury. The duo of Ruggeri and fellow sophomore Daniel Ribeiro can add full points to Illinois' team total, not just tenths. When he hits, Ribeiro almost singlehand- edly carries the pommel horse squad. And last weekend, the Illini put up their biggest score of the season at home on their Senior Night. It remains to be seen if they'll get the same big numbers in Ann Arbor, but the Wolverines still aren't taking them lightly. "They can come from not hit- ting too many meets all season to just nailing their sets by the end of the season," Baldus-Strauss said. "They really have that worked out very well. You can never count them out." And with Caesar out of the lineup, Michigan's hit percentage will be that much more impor- tant. During their off weeks, the Wolverines focused on improv- ing their pommel horse routines after they had to count two falls on the event at the Pacific Coast Classic on Feb. 21. On Wednesday, the Wolver- ines held a 12-man pommel horse intrasquad, with seniors Ralph Rosso and Ryan McCarthy lead- ing teams of six. The winning team wasn't the one with the best score but the most hits. The gymnasts also empha- sized perfection work, trying to minimize all possible deductions in their routines. They don't want a repeat of last year's meet in Champaign, where despite a decent showing, the Wolverines fell just short of a win. "Itwasn't like we had the worst meet there, and we didn't do extremely well." Baldus-Strauss said. "We just couldn't keep up with the scoring. Hopefully this year we'll be a little more even. And on our home turf, hopefully that'll help things out. We'll have every- one behind us." 0 2009 King Features Syndicate, lnc.