8 - Friday, January 22, 2010 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com ICE HOCKEY 'M sees similar foe in Bulldogs Ferris State's first line accounts for almost 35 percent of offense By MICHAEL FLOREK Daily Sports Writer When the Michigan hockey team faces off with No. 9 Ferris State thisweekend in a home-and- home series, each team will see a near-reflection of itself. The Wol- verines and Bulldogs are no more than eight places apart Ferris State in every majora statistical cat- a egory nation- Matchup: Ferris ally. State 16-6-2; "I think Michigan 13-l0-1 it helps us," When: Tonight Michigan at 8:05 p.m. coach Red Where: Yost Berenson said. Ice Arena "We don't Live Blog: think of them michigandaily. as similar. We com think of them as being a top team and maybe the best team we've played in recent months." But it goes beyond the numbers. Both teams rely heavily on their top lines to produce much of the offense. Juniors Carl Hagelin and Matt Rust have been the only two con- sistent forwards on the stat sheet for Michigan. All season, the Wol- verines (8-7-1-0 CCHA, 13-10-1 overall) have searched for a right wing to complement the duo and have finally settled $on freshman Kevin Lynch, who has played with the top line since the Great Lakes Invitational. Ferris State's top line of Blair Riley, Cody Chupp, and Casey Haines have scored just under 35 percent of the Bulldogs' total goals. With prolific offensive play- ers all on one line for Ferris State (10-4-2-2, 16-6-2) the, coaching staff will try to match up the top lines as much as possible to limit the Bulldogs offensive chances. "I don't want to put an inexpe- rienced player out there*against the top player in the league and then expect us to win that match- up," Berenson said. "We have to respect who is on the ice for them and who is on the ice for us." While the top lines on both teams highlight the matchup, it's the players behind them that will be the difference this weekend. "You're trying to outscore that line or shut them down," Michi- gan coach Red Berenson said. "But in the meantime, if you do, and tiey're nullifying you at the same time, then it comes down to your next line or your next line and where are you going to get your offense from?" Recently, secondary scoring has been strong for the Wolver- ines. The third and fourth lines contributed three of the Wolver- ines' six even strength goals in last weekend's series against Alas- ka. Two of those came from senior Brian Lebler, who had just five goals coming into last weekend. Despite being on one of the bot- tom lines, freshman Chris Brown is third ontheteamin points while freshman Lindsay Sparks has six points in his last five games. But excluding last weekend's series, Michigan has tallied just two goals from secondary play- ers since the GLI. With Michigan fighting for the fourth spot in the CCHA and the coveted first-round playoff bye, it needs the bottom two lines to score on a consistent basis. "Any line can be the difference in the game," junior forward Ben Winnett said. "I think our line proved that last weekend in being able to get a couple of goals Fri- day night against Alaska. We have to go in with the mentality that every line could be the difference- maker and that's how we're going to tryand play this weekend." If Winnett and the rest of his line can repeat last weekend's performance against Ferris, that's something their reflection on the other side of the ice can't match. Freshman Dayeesha Hollins tallied 11 points in the Wolverines' 58-56 loss to the fifth-ranked Buckeyes yesterday. Hollins is second on the team in scoring this season. Blue- drops another close battle to No-. 5 Ohio State By ALEX HERMANN Daily Sports Writer For the Wolverines, last night's matchup against No. 5 Ohio State could have been the game to silence their doubters, OHIO STATE 58 take the MICHIGAN 56 pressure off themselves and move past the demons that have haunted them in Big Ten play the past two years. Instead, the Michigan women's basketball team's contest with the Buckeyes ended as another close loss, 58-56. But the Wolverines kept it close throughout, making their biggest push at the start of the second half. After the Buckeyes extended their five-point halftime lead to 10 on a pair of quick baskets, Michigan kept composed and began to chip away at its biggest deficit of the game. And it didn't take the Wolver- ines long to mount their comeback. A 19-2 run propelled Michigan to a seven-point lead with over 11 min- utes remaining in the game. Sopho- more forward Carmen Reynolds sparked the run with seven quick points, including her second triple of the game. Reynolds led the Wolverines on their scoring flurryto take the lead, just as she did throughout the night, scoring a game-high 20 points. The sophomore also hit a number of crucial 3-pointers down the stretch as the game slowed down into the half court. Much of Reynolds' success came against Ohio State's Jantel Laven- der, the Buckeyes' leading scorer and rebounder. Lavender, who has a significant height advantage over Reynolds, is widely thought to be in contention for national awards this season. "I'm not used to being guarded by somebody that big," Reynolds said. "So my focus had to change a little bit than what I'm used to." Reynolds couldn't come through in the game's waning moments. After she took an out-of-bounds pass with less than 10 seconds remaining, she drove from the top of the key and tripped over an Ohio State player's foot, turning the ball over. The turnover ultimately sealed the defeat for Michigan (2-6 Big Ten, 10-8 overall); The game was close throughout despite the fact that the Buckeyes attempted 10 more free throws. In the first half, foul trouble sidelined freshman guard Dayeesha Hollins and 6-foot-6 senior center Krista Phillips. This only compounded Ohio State's noticeable size advan- tage. Despite this, Michigan out- rebounded the Buckeyes 43-39, including Phillips' game-high 13. In their previous matchup against Ohio State (8-0, 20-1), the Wolverines lost in yet another nail- biter, 59-56 in Columbus. Though both games resulted in losses, the closeness of defeat in both cases against the best team in the con- ference represents a major step forward for a team that was often blown out by teams of a similar cali- ber a year ago. "We were one play away from putting the game into overtime or winning the game," Michigan coach Kevin Borseth said. "We're right there. We're playing our tail off. That's encouraging." The loss gives the team its fifth Big Ten loss in its last six chances, an especially disappointing sta- tistic for the Wolverines after the team started the season 9-2 before conference play began. "I just feel like we need to win," freshman forward Nya Jordan said. "We should've won thatgame, we should've won every game we lost." S V POLO H 01 SEASON PREVIEW Robertson key to'M' success Wolverines hope to remain best in East ByAMY PARLAPIANO Daily Sports Writer Leah Robertson was going about practice as usual at New- port Harbor High School in Newport Beach, California when her coach told her to get out of the pool. There was some- one he wanted her to meet. That someone was Michigan water polo coach Matt Ander- son. Anderson talked to her about the opportunity to come to Ann Arbor and compete for the Wolverines. Until that point, she had never really thought about leaving always-sunny, California for the unpredictable (and often miserable) weather of Michigan. But Robertson agreed to try. Now, it's been four years, and Robertson - who has cemented herself as the face of the Michi- gan water polo program - will enter the pool for her last sea- son as a Wolverine on Saturday. Robertson holds the single- season record for steals as a freshman, sophomore, and junior. She needs only 72 to break the senior record, a seem- ingly easy task considering she has averaged nearly 100 steals per season. These kinds of sta- tistics prove what her coach firmly believes - that she's one of the best players in the nation. "To be a great defensive play- er in any sport, it's just a matter of effort," Anderson said. "It's not skill, it's effort, and that's what Leah brings. She brings the effort to want to steal the ball, to want to shut down the other player that she's guarding. And that will be her legacy." Despite all of her accomplish- ments, Robertson maintains a humble demeanor. After find- ing out she is currently one steal away from 300, she asked if that was really true. "I didn't know that," she said. "That's pretty cool." But don't be fooled - Robert- COURTESY OF U-M PHOTO SERVICES Senior Leah Robertson holds the single-season Michigan record for steals as a freshman, sophomore and junior. She only needs 72 steals this season to break the senior record as well. By AMY PARLAPIANO Daily Sports Writer. There's only one team at Michigan that has only been a varsity sport for a decade, but has piled up four confer- ence titles, eight consecutive division championships, and was been voted Team of the Decade in December by the visitors to the College Water Polo Association's website. It's a team with a 248-105-1 record throughout nine seasons. It's a team with a four-time division Coach of the Year, and one that's coming off its second consecu- tive visit to the NCAA Championship. It's the Michigan women's water polo team, and it's ready to dive into another season. The Wolverines will commence its 2010 season this weekend at the annual Michigan Kickoff, and head coach Matt Anderson says their goal is to discover who they are asa team. "We don'tknowexactlywho we are yet," Anderson said. "Like any team that loses a good amount of seniors, we have the potential to be good, but we're not going to be where we want to be right away until everybody fig- ures out their role and what we need to do to get where we wantto go." The 10th-ranked Wolverines will be going for their third straight con- ference championship this year, some would say a reasonable goal consid- ering the veterans that make up the roster. The leadership of senior Leah Rob- ertson, who holds the programrecord for steals with 299, will be crucial for success, as will that of fellow captains senior Casie Kelly and junior Cara Reitz. . The Wolverines possess extraor- dinary defensive talents, but also high-charged and nuanced offen- sive weapons. Redshirt senior goal- keeper Brittany May ranks third on Michigan's career saves list, with 409, while last year, junior Alison Mantel, became only the third player in pro- gram history to reach 50 goals in one season. "We have the confidence to want to score the ball and play aggressively," Anderson said. "Every year we seem to score more goals than the year before." The Wolverines graduated seven seniors after last season's 35-9 cam- paign, one that saw Michigan finish in fifth place at the NCAA Champion- ship. But don't be fooled by their youth - Anderson expects to see an immense amount of talent in all of the fresh- men. He said that Kiki Golden, a three-time team MVP at Monte Vista High School, has the ability to be "out- standing" from day one. It's not the most popular sport in Ann Arbor, but the water polo team, with its consistent success, is certain- ly one of the most captivating. Some call it basketball in water, but Anderson described it also as a fast-paced sport that's more similar to hockey. "There's always an opportunity every time down to get a shot oppor- tunity," Anderson said. "And it's phys- ical. You're not just swimming away from the person, you're physically trying to move them out of the way andtryingto out-strength them to get the ball into the net." Anderson knows how sports.fans love to see action and offense, and the Wolverines were certainly high scor- ing lastyear. Michigan scored 10 plus markers in 25 of 44 games last ea- son. "It incorporates everything people tend to like; the physicality, the ath- leticism and the offense is all there," Anderson said. "And you can get some pretty good defensive plays also. I think everyone will walk away from watching the sport saying 'That's a very tough sport to play.' And that's why I think it appeals to people once they go watch it" So for those who didn't bother to make New Years resolutionsthis year, here's a belated one: Go see a game of women's water polothisyear. The first chance is this Saturday at 1:15 PM, as the Wolverines play host to UC San Diego at the Canham Natatorium. son isn't limited to making stel- lar defensive plays. She's on the top of her game on the offensive side as well. "Leah is by far the best defensive player we've ever had," Anderson said. "And she is going to be at the top of most of our offensive categories as well. You have your defensive stoppers and then you have your offensive talents. But when you're able to get someone that you can say both of those things about, that's a special player." But it's a sheer love of the game that has kept her in the pool. When she was seven, her dad, who played water polo in high school, introduced the same to her. And her water polo- playing babysitter who brought a ball every time she came over made Robertson love the sport that much more. When Robertson thinks about her most memorable moment playing water polo, it's not about the records she set or the steals she made. It's about the people she's with. Robertson said it was hard to say goodbye to the seven seniors who graduated last year. "We had this huge cry ses- sion," Robertson said. "That was the closest that I've ever been with a group of girls. They really took me under their wing and helped me make it through my entire college career." It's that kind of emotion that makes this water polo team so special and truly compelling to watch. Yes, statistics matter, and yes, winning is what they'll be remembered for. But first and foremost, they're friends. And when she discussed her most memorable moment outside of water polo, the only thing that made it distinct from a "water polo" moment was that it was her and her teammates on a football field rather than a swimming pool. When Leah Robertson emerged from her high school pool to have a conversation with Anderson years ago, she prob- ably never imagined that one day, her greatest memory would be helping him propose to his then-fiancee. "When I told them what I was going to do, they basically said, 'we're going to be involved,' " Anderson said. "We were on the football field and they unrav- eled the banner that asked my wife to marry me while I was on my knee on the other side of the field. They were very involved. And it obviously turned out well." Just one more accomplish- ment Robertson can add to the list.