4B - Monday, March 29, 2010 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com M' obliterates fourth straight WNIT foe WOMEN'S BASKETBALL Blue relishes home-court edge 6 From Page 1A They dominated the first half in every aspect. Michigan forced 13 turnovers and shot 56 percent from behind the arc. And the Wol- verines outrebounded the orange 16-11. Syracuse just couldn't climb out of the massive deficit in the second half. The Wolverines' shooting cooled down but they still seemed to score every time that the Orange rallied. "I told the kids that it will take the last 10 minutes to win this game," Michigan coach Kevin Borseth said. The Wolverines really did put those last 10 minutes together. They finished by taking out their five starters, somethingthat is not expected nor likely in a WNIT quarterfinal matchup. The Wolverines advance to the WNIT semifinal where they will play Miami on Wednesday at Crisler Arena. This is Michigan's first time playing five games at home in the WNIT. As Hicks left the press confer- ence she tilted her head back and looked up. "Thank you lord," she screamed. "Final four." By ALEX HERMANN Daily Sports Writer The Michigan women's basket- ball team has played the first four rounds of the Women's National Invitation Tour- nament (WNIT) NOTEBOOK at home this year. And outside the team's game against Toledo last weekend - for which Rocket fans noticeably out- numbered Michigan fans - play- ing in the confines of Crisler Arena has been a large part of the Wolver- ines' success. Michigan has won by an average of more than 24 points per game - the latest being a 26-point win Sunday over Syracuse. "In this tournament (home court advantage) is big," Syracuse coach Quentin Hillsman said. "I don't know how much home court had to do with the way we per- formed today, but I think it had a lot to do with the way Michigan performed. They were home, they were comfortable." The Wolverines play at home again in the final four of the WNIT on Wednesday against Miami. The Hurricanes made their first road trip yesterday in the postsea- son, defeating Providence 73-65. The host site is determined by a combination of factors, including attendance and crowd atmosphere. And being chosen yet again is undoubtedly a major boost for the Wolverines. "Crowds are everything for us," Michigan coach Kevin Borseth said after the game. "From our per- spective, I hope we're building a fanbase because that's really what this is, postseason play." With yesterday's crowd the best it has been possibly all season, the team hopes that as it gets even deeper into the tournament that the excitement surrounding the program will grow proportion- ately. "I'm hoping Wednesday we can really lure a lot people out here," Borseth said. "It's going to be a great night obviously, because there'll be not alot on TV, not a lot going on. It's a Wednesday, should be a great day for basketball to fill Crisler. I think our record is 5,500, I think we can get 13 grand. I would love to see that." The Wolverines set the record 0 Junior Veronica Hicks finished the afternoon with a career-high 24 points. The junior was a force on defense with tour steals and helped the Wolverines give Syracuse its first non-conference loss this season. Michigan advances to the WNIT semifinals, 39 M0. LEASE 2010 NISSAN ALTIMA DO , 39 MO. LEASE 2010 NISSAN ROGUE IO! ... - 39 MO. LEASE 2010 NISSAN MAXIMA 39 ~~/~LASE for attendance this year against Penn State on Jan. 31 with 5,926 fans. Crisler's current capacity is 13,751. UP-TEMPO SUCCESS: Michigan has had the most success offen- sively throughout the season when it can get out in the open court and run. Against a very long and athletic Syracuse team, the Wolverines converted 23 Orange turnovers into 24 points. "I think we prefer to play at a quicker pace, that's what we're bet- ter at," Borseth said. "We had some nice breaks, nice breakouts and got some transition baskets. But I think for the most part we were very smart, I guess. We made good decisions in transition." The team's ability in the open court is a big factor behind its aver- age of 71 points per game in the WNIT - up about 10 points per game from the conference season. On Wednesday, Michigan may be faced with similar opportuni- ties in the open court, when they take on Miami. "They like to press," Borseth said of the Hurricanes. "They're very pressing, up-tempo, in your face. They press. They come and get you." MAKING HISTORY, LEADING THE BIG TEN: The Wolverines (21- 13) are just two wins shy of tying the program's all-time record for wins in a season. Michigan. BIG TENS From Page 1B was enough for second place out of 19 performers. At the end of the event, she trailed Nittany Lion senior Brandi Personett by .025 of a point. Curtis's usual competitor for the Wolverines' top spot, junior Kylee Botterman, suffered an unchar- acteristic fall on the bars, but her teammates picked up their pace to adjust. Freshman Natalie Beilstein - who was named to the Big Ten Second Team, and was a finalist for Big Ten Freshman of the Year this weekend - continued her dominant season in the champion- ship. "Unbelievable," Plocki said, describing the freshman's perfor- mance. "Natalie has been outstand- ing, and I'm a little disappointed that she wasn't voted freshman of would tie the record if they won the WNIT, which would be the first time the program has won a national tournament. To do that, the Wolverines will need to win on Wednesday and then beat the winner of Califor- nia and Illinois State in the WNIT finals. When the Redbirds defeated Illinois on Sunday, Michigan was left as the last team in the Big Ten still playing. "We just have this fire in us that wants to prove to everybody else that we can compete with any team in the nation," junior guard Veronica Hicks said. "We just want to go out there and prove a point, you know, that we're here to stay." the year, but she is going home with some hardware regardless." Beilstein posted a pair of 9.900 scores on the floor routine and the vault, and took home top laurels on the vault, taking first out of 42 ath- letes. "Coming out on the floor I want- ed to go big, I wanted to go hard, and that's what I did," Beilstein said. "On vault I knew to get that good score you had to stick it, and that's what I went out there and did." Now secured among the nation's best programs, everything will come down to execution as the team gears up for the NCAA Regional finals in two weeks. "We don't really have that much to work on," Curtis said. "We can always work on the little tiny things that need to be fixed, but after this meet and going to region- als we just want to carry on what we've been doing all year and make it to nationals." Freshman Natalie Beilstein was named to the Big Ten second team, and was a finalist for the Big Ten Freshman of the Year Award. BASEBALL Oaks dominates opening-day start 4 By CAITLIN SMITH Daily Sports Writer Senior pitcher Alan Oaks threw the first pitch of the year at the Ray Fisher Stadium on Friday after- noon as the Michigan baseball team kicked off its home opener in Ann Arbor. But Oaks wasn't the only one who kept Indiana University - Purdue University Fort Wayne swinging. Michigan (12-9) swept the three-game series with help from its pitching staff. A total of 10 Wolverines took the mound over the course of the weekend. Oaks earned the 10-2 decision on Fri- day, pitching five innings and striking out five batters. Although he threw a strong 83 pitches, Oaks wasn't as sharp as he has been, allowing both Mastodon runs. "When you leave the ball up in the zone, anyone can hit it," Oaks said. "And to give them credit, I missed a couple spots and they put good swings on it and got hits." But IPFW couldn't defend against the powerful Michigan bats. Back-to-back doubles by senior first baseman Mike Dufek and senior outfielder Nick Urban gave the Wolverines a 2-0 lead in the second inning. Sophomore third baseman John Lorenz then pushed Urban across home plate with a single. Sophomore designated hitter Coley Crank answered an IPFW run in the top of the third by launching a two-run homer - his sixth of the season and the first home run at home. Crank also extended his career-best hitting streak to eight games. Michigan piled up the runs dur- ing the fourth and fifth innings to extend its lead to eight. Crank, Dufek, and senior catcher Chris Berset tallied a combined seven RBIs and four runs. "You've just got to stay with your approach, just looking for good pitches to hit," Berset said. "Luckily, I found some holes on some of them and hit a few balls." The hitting saga continued into Saturday as the Wolverines took 8-0 and 12-3 wins in their dou- ble-header. Freshman outfielder Patrick Biondi led the Michigan batters in game one by hitting a triple in the first inning. The oth- ers followed with four singles and a double by Berset to give the Wol- verines a 4-0 advantage. "I obviously had goals for myself," Biondi said. "First and foremost, it was getting on base and setting the table for some of our bigger hitters. But I've been fortunate to hit some balls hard and get good results and hopefully I'll stay to the plan and it'll keep happening." A home run by Lorenz in the fpurth inning blew the game open, giving Michigan an eight-run lead. Redshirt sophomore pitcher Bobby Brosnahan led the Wolver- ines on the mound by striking out a career-high eight batters while holding the Mastodons scoreless. Junior pitchers Tyler Burgoon and Kolby Wood both came in for relief, striking out five batters each in order to secure the shut- out. The final game of the series turned out to be a comeback win for Michigan. After scoring two runs in the first, the Wolverines had a momentary lapse in the sec- ond. Junior pitcher Matt Miller struggled on the mound, hitting a batter and giving up three runs to the Mastodons - two of which were home runs - giving IPFW a 3-2 lead. Despite a shaky start, Miller gained control and didn't allow any more Mastodon runs., "As far as Miller being where he wants to be or where we'd like him to be at this point, obviously that didn't occur," Maloney said. "But I feel like that before the last few outings he didn't have a true out pitch and I thought he showed it. He struck out five guys, but he struck out three on balls to the dirt - with hard breaking balls to the dirt - which he hadn't been able to earlier." The Wolverines scored one run each in the third and fourth innings, giving them a 4-3 lead. Michigan maintained its advan- tage for the rest of the game, extending the lead with a five-run rally in the end of the eighth. Michigan extended its winning streak to a season-best six games in a row. The Wolverines may have 4 finally found a productive combi- nation of pitching and hitting in the same game. "We only gave up five runs the whole weekend," Michigan coach Rich Maloney said. "We also only made one error all weekend and we had over 5 hits for the whole weekend. That's three parts of the puzzle I think we did pretty well, so it was a solid weekend of baseball."