The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Wednesday, December 8, 2010 - 7A
The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Wednesday, December 8, 2D10 - 7A
Wolverines prepare for
Michigan State, Big Chill
TEST SKATE
berenson grew up games. We can start worrying
about it now. It's a reality."
playing on Berenson, who grew up in
western Canada and played "90
percent of (his) hockey outdoors,"
Saskatchewan reminisced about tying his skates
in the fresh air in Regina, Sas-
katchewan.
By MARK BURNS "I remember calling my
Daily Sports Editor friends, 'Come on, get over to the
rink. We've got to shovel it off,'
A week before the Cold War -
the first outdoor college hockey
game, held in
Oct. 2001 in NOTEBOOK
Spartan Stadi-
um - Michigan
junior forward Mike Cammal-
leri wasn't slated to play against
Michigan State due to a hip inju-
ry.
But Cammalleri insisted that
he play against the Spartans, and
Michigan coach Red Berenson
finally gave in to his wishes. And
followinghis two-goal, one-assist
performance, Cammalleri earned
MVP honors for the Wolverines.
The meaning, the magnitude and
the stakes of the matchup made
his injury a non-issue.
And with the Big Chill at the
Big House three days away, this
year's Wolverines (8-3-1-0 CCHA,
9-5-4 overall) are not underesti-
mating the gravity of their date
with the Spartans, a game that
was finalized in January.
"We've been waiting for this,
and now we can say it's our next
game," Berenson said during
Monday's press conference. "We
don't have to keep it off in the
distance and worry about current
" Berenson said. "And there'd be
three feet of snow on the rink.
We'd shovel it off and then play
hockey all day until it was dark,
then we'd go home and do it again
the next day on the weekends."
"We'd shovel
(the snow) off
and then play
until dark."
When he was 19 years old,
Berenson dropped out of school
for a semester to join the Cana-
dian National team in the World
Championships in 1959. Beren-
son described playing in Oslo,
Norway in front of 15,000 fans as
truly "magical."
"Then we did the same thing in
Helsinki and Stockholm in these
huge, outdoor stadium rinks,"
Berenson continued. "Now we get
a chance to play in what are the
biggest games of my recent ten-
ure, and once again, it's a game
that's going to be magical."
BROTHERLY LOVE: Senior for-
ward Louie Caporusso doesn't
mess around when it comes to the
Michigan-Michigan State rivalry.
Throughout the first few
months of the season, Caporus-
so and his friend Derek Grant,
a Spartan sophomore forward,
occasionally texted back and
forth just like any friends would
do.
Just recently, though, Capo-
russo joked that he deleted
Grant's BlackBerry Messenger
PIN number from his cell phone,
explaining he just "didn't want
him on there."
With more than 100,000 peo-
ple projected to be in attendance,
fireworks set to go off after every
Michigan goal, and the less-than-
favorable expected weather con-
ditions, the Big Chill isn't your
run-of-the-mill college hockey
game between Michigan and
Michigan State (3-7-1-0, 6-8-3).
Said senior goaltender Shawn
Hunwick: "This game is with our
arch-rival Michigan State. We're
going to break records. I don't
think anyone has ever played a
game of this magnitude, inside or
outside."
NOTES: Berenson was sick on
Tuesday and watched yesterday's
practice from the MGoBlue.com
web cam. ... There has been no
decision from Berenson and the
coaching staff regarding whether
Bryan Hogan or Shawn Hunwick
will start against Michigan State.
... Hogan has a 7-2 record on the
year while Hunwick is 2-3-4.
ARIEL BOND/Daily
(Top) The Michigan club hockey team played Michigan State's club team in a regular season contest Tuesday night at Michi-
gan Stadium. The varsity hockey team will play its Spartan counterpart Saturday in the Big Chill at the Big House. (Bottom)
Club hockey goaltender Bryan Thomas (35) defends the net located at the north end of the Big House.
Post players learning on
the fly for young squad
Quijano makes comeback,
emerges as leader for Blue
By ZAK PYZIK
Daily Sports Writer
All five forwards on the
Michigan men's basketball team
are either freshmen or redshirt
freshmen.
And anyone familiar with
the Wolverines will vouch that
youthfulness is the team's most
significant problem. Those post
players especially have shown
their inexperience.
Redshirt freshman Jordan
Morgan has been Michigan
coach John Beilein's starting
center/forward in every game
this season. Tied for the Big
Ten's leading offensive rebound-
er, averaging four per game,
Morgan is also the second-lead-
ing scorer on Michigan's squad
- notching about 11 points per
game.
Morgan credits his redshirt
season for his growth.
"Playing against players like
DeShawn (Sims) or Zack (Gib-
son) last year and just going
through practice and every-
thing, I'm a little more com-
fortable with what needs to be
fulfilled through the role of the
five-man," Morgan said after
Saturday's game against Har-
vard. "I definitely feel more com-
fortable, especially as the games
go on, just trying to do my job for
the team."
But in Beilein's offensive
scheme, Morgan is normally
accompanied by four guards,
making him the only threat in
the paint. That role has caused
Morgan to play more aggres-
sively at times, and he has been
whistled for a team-high 24 per-
sonal fouls.
"Morgan has good defense,
but doesn't have really good
defense when he's sitting next
to me," Beilein said last Friday.
"The harmless fouls that he
doesn't have to necessarily com-
mit are huge things that we are
working on."
As a result of these fouls, the
Wolverines (6-2) have have been
forced to dig deep into their line-
up to see how the other forwards
would perform. Redshirt fresh-
i
After being benched little cringe in my knee, and from
then on it put me out for about a
earlier this season, month and a half."
Entering the season, Quijano
senior defender was healthy enough to start the
finds niche team's first two games.
But poor play and a strong
push from freshman defender
ByZACH HELFAND Ezekiel Harris relegated Quijano
Daily Sports Writer to an unfamiliar position: the
bench.
Perhaps it's fitting that senior Initially, he wasn't too recep-
defender Jeff Quijano scored the tive to the change. But with time
goal to put the Michigan men's he grew into his new role.
soccer team on the board against "At first, I really didn't
Maryland on Saturday in the embrace Orange Crush - kind
NCAA quarterfinals. The game, of a pride thing," Quijano said,
after all, seemed to parallel Qui- referring to the nickname given
jano's season - a journey from to the reserve players because
disappointment to determina- of the orange vests they wear.
tion to triumph. "But I realized ... the team is
It was a game filled with bigger than I am, so I became a
almost as many ups and downs as big Crush leader, and a die-hard
Quijano experienced this season. Crush."
In his first three seasons with Added Burns: "It takes a lot
the Wolverines (17-4-3), Quijano of character to be able to deal
totaled 31 starts and saw the field with that kind of environment
in nine other games. He expect- and that type of reality that has
ed to play a major role in his final faced. It would have been very
season with the team. easy for him just to have drifted
"(Quijano) came in as a senior off and kind of gotten upset and
(and) thought he was going to be just acquiesced and dropped
a big-time starter for us," Michi- away from the team."
gan coach Steve Burns said after But Quijano didn't. And as
the game on Saturday. he began to accept his new role,
But this summer, while play- Quijano started to think of ways
ing alongside senior goalkeeper to lead the team from the side-
Chris Blais in a player-develop- lines. During the Wolverines'
ment league in Seattle, Quijano nine-game win streak that ulti-
suffered a setback when he sus- mately propelled them into the
tained a freak injury to the ilio- NCAA semifinals, Quijano began
tibial band in his knee, a new team tradition - he starts
"It was the weirdest thing," each match in the middle of the
Quijano said during a press con- team huddle yelling, heightening
ference on Monday. "I was sitting the pre-game hype.
down one day, I stood up, I felt a According to Quijano, his new
role also helped him on the field.
And the coaches took notice.
Before Michigan's game against
Northwestern on Nov. 6, Burns
spoke privately with Quijano,
letting the defender know that
he was getting the start.
Since then, Quijano has been
one of the team's most important
contributors, giving the Wolver-
ines an infusion of energy and
hustle every game. Of course, the
goal against Maryland and the
subsequent National Team of the
Week honors were pretty impor-
tant, too.
Senior midfielder Alex Wood,
who has lived with Quijano for
three years and has even had him
over for Thanksgiving Dinner
multiple times, described what
Quijano means to the team.
"He's an emotional leader, but
he's also led by example through
these nine (straight wins),"
Wood said on Monday. "He's
been out there fighting. If you
watch the game, the right side is
on fire right now, and Jeff's the
main reason for that."
Quijano returns to his home
state of California for the team's
NCAA semifinal matchup
against No. 2 Akron in Santa Bar-
bara on Friday night.
He will need to stay hot if the
team hopes to contend with the
Zips, who handed the Wolver-
ines their last loss on Oct. 19, 7-1.
"It's a new team compared to
then and now and it's a team that
I think is ready to play Akron,"
Quijano said. "We've definitely
come a long ways since playing
them."
So, too, has Quijano.
iAKc FROMM/Daily
Redshirt freshman forward Jordan Morgan has been Michigan's primaryoption in
the paint early on this season.
man Blake McLimans and fresh-
man Colton Christian have been
Morgan's primary replacements.
In Michigan's 65-56 loss to
the University of Texas-El Paso
on Nov. 27, McLimans replaced
Morgan after four fouls.
The Miners didn't cover McLi-
mans outside the paint, giving
him open looks, but he went
0-for-4 from three-point range.
"It was kind of depressing,"
McLimans said of his shooting
drought against UTEP. "I'm a big
man that can shoot, that's kind
of my M.O., so it's something I'm
going to have to work on."
A week later, McLimans had
to cover Harvard's leading scor-
er, forward Keith Wright, when
Morgan was in foul trouble
again. But this time against the
Crimson, McLimans contrib-
uted on the defensive end in his
seven minutes of play by hold-
ing Wright to just two points.
Wright finished the game with a
total of 18 points.
On offense, McLimans scored
four points, collected one
rebound, and swatted a block in
the brief time that he was on the
floor.
But McLimans isn't the only
big man who takes pride in his
shooting.
Freshman Evan Smotrycz has
turned out to be one of Michi-
gan's go-to guys on the perim-
eter.
Smotrycz scored a career-
high 18 points in the Wolverines'
69-61 win against Clemson on
Nov. 30.
But less than a week later
against Harvard, Smotrycz post-
ed zero points.
That type of inconsistency is
exactly what Beilein attributes
to youth, and something that
Michigan is trying to avoid -
especially from its forwards.
'A;.
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4
Senior defender effrey Quijano scored his first goal in more thas a year on Saturday against Nth. 3 Maryland.