8 -- Tuesday, February 1, 2011
The Michigan Daily - mchigandaily.corrm
8 - Tuesday, February 1, 2011 The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom
Hunwick's stellar play continues in loss
By MICHAEL FLOREK
Daily Sports Editor
DETROIT - The No. 6 Michi-
gan hockey team's bench was a
little more crowded than usual
Saturday night. Senior goaltender
Bryan Hogan
was in uniform NOTEBOOK
for the first time
since his groin injury on Dec. 11.
While Hogan joined freshman
Adam Janecyk in standing behind
the bench, it was still senior Shawn
Hunwick who was between the
pipes.
He didn't disappoint. Hunwick
made 28 stops in the Wolverines'
2-1 loss to Michigan State, includ-
ing 22 on the Spartans' first 22
shots. The game was scoreless
late into the second period and as
each minute ticked by, Hunwick
matched his counterpart, Michi-
gan State's Will Yanakeff. Each
gave up goals in the final minute,
setting the stage for the third peri-
od.
After a Michigan State goal,
Michigan turned the puck over. A
backhand pass came out from the
boards and Hunwick found him-
self alone with Spartan Kevin Wal-
rod. Hunwick made the pad save,
setting up the rush that led to a
penalty shot on the other end:
"I thinkthe chancesthey had on
Hunwick might have been tougher
than the chances we had at the
other end," Michigan coach Red
Berenson said. "Hunwick gave us a
chance. That's all you can ask."
Despite the loss dropping his
record to 10-5-4, Hunwick also
dropped his goals against average
to 2.33, though he still ranks 27th
in the country.
NO MORE STREAKING: It's
been a long time since sullen faces
emerged from the Michigan dress-
ing room.
The sixth-ranked Wolverines,
a team Michigan State coach Rick
Comley called the "bestteaminthe
country, top to bottom," snapped a
numberstreaks with their loss.
Their five game winning streak
is gone. Senior forward Carl Hage-
lin's nine-game point streak is over.
Michigan's undefeated streak on
Saturday nights, which lasted the
whole season, is over at 13 games.
But according to senior forward
Louie Caporusso, who snapped a
streak of his own when he scored
his first goal in seven games, the
streaks may have been a little mis-
leading.
"We want to be a CCHA playoff
team, CCHA regular season cham-
pionship team, we're going to have
to beat these teams," senior winger
Scooter Vaughan said. "This is a
really big weekend (at Miami).
We're not going in there expecting
anythingless than six points."
The loss that snapped the streak
also dropped Michigan out of first
place. Notre Dame's shootout win
vaulted them over Michigan by one
point. But the Wolverines have two
games in hand on both the Fight-
ing Irish and third-place Miami
(Ohio). Michigan heads to Oxford
next weekend to play the Red-
Hawks while Notre Dame has the
weekend off.
NOTES: The loss evens Michi-
gan's season series with the Spar-
tans at two ... Saturday's game
was likely the last Comely will
have against the Wolverines. He
announced his retirement at the
end of the season this week and
won't play Michigan again in the
regular season ... Kevin Lynch's
penalty shot in the third period
was the first since now-senior
defenseman Chad Langlais had
one last season - 66 games ago.
ERIN KIRKLAND/Daily
Michigan coach Kevin Borseth has led Michigan to a respectable 13-8 record.
Whic teamewilt
showup next?
SAM WOLSON/Daily
Senior goaltender Shawn Hunwick, pictured here duringthe Big Chill at the Big House, has been a solid player for the Wolverines since Bryan Hogan injured hisgroin.
MEN'S BASKETBALL
Vogrich solidifying himself on offense
By ZAK PYZIK surprise that younger players
Daily Sports Editor are expected to contribute a lot.
But it is surprising that one of the
Michigan men's basketball athletes doing so much is the sec-
guard Matt Vogrich is 27 minutes ond-smallest player on the team -
away from doubling the amount of standing at 6-foot-4 and weighing
time he played all last season. 190 pounds.
And the Wolverines still have at "I don't know if you noticed, but
least10 games remaining. I'm not one of the biggest kids out
The sophomore's role in Michi- there," Vogrich said. "So some-
gan coach John Beilein's scheme times I have to getscrappy to get to
has evolved to make him where he the ball or to geta rebound. Those
is one of the team's main contribu- are thetypes of things I work on at
tors off the bench. practice too, just finding the ball."
On a team with no seniors and Vogrich tallied 11 3-pointers for
three freshmen starters, it is no Michigan last year. This season he
has already netted 18 and is shoot-
ing atla consistent 39 percent from
beyond the arc.
With freshman Tim Hardaway
Jr. starting the entire season at the
three-guard position, it has been
Vogrich has come in for Hardaway
Jr. when he's needed rest or is in
foul trouble. Being smaller than a
lot of his defenders, Vogrich sports
a striking resemblance to team-
mate Zack Novak, who had the
same issue playing as the four in
the post last year.
Novak - best known for his
hustle plays that aren't recorded
on the stat sheet - has been one
of the Wolverines' top defenders.
Vogrich has demonstrated the
same type of hustle on the court
as Novak - several times this
season he has dove for loose balls
and fought for possession with
players much larger than him.
"Zack (Novak) is ,just one of
those guys who work hard every
play," Vogrich said earlier in this
season. "How can I not try to
play like him? He put's 110 per-
cent into everything that he does
and I'mjust a lot like him."
This year, Vogrich has eight
steals and a block - already more
than what he had last year in
both categories.
Given Beilein's strategy,
Vogrich is normally on the hard-
wood to take advantage of any
open looks he gets on the perim-
eter - the reason 47 of his 66 field
goal attempts are 3-point shots.
But every now and then you'll see
Vogrich do something out of the
ordinary. He averages about two
rebounds a game. Arguably his
most impressive stunt was against
Northwestern, when he came from
3-point land to tip in a bricked shot
before it rolled off the rim.
"It was just a good bounce so I
just hit it with my righthand and it
rolled off the glass,"he said.
This type of hustle followed
other plays by Vogrich which have
shaped games. Against Penn State,
Vogrich hit a 3-pointer about five
minutes into the second half to tie
the game after the Nittany Lions
led by as many as nine points.Then
Vogrich stole the ball and that pos-
session propelled the Wolverines
to its first lead of the second half.
"It definitely started with Matt
Vogrich," Novak said after the
Wolverines win against Penn
State. "He comes out, we had just
scored a bucket, he comes back,
gets a steal right away. That's the
kind of energy plays we need. Just
huge play fromhim."
The energy that Vogrich brings
to this youthful Wolverine squad
is something that was otherwise
absent last year.
I had it all written in my head.
After the Michigan women's
basketball team upset then-No.
24 Ohio State for the second time
this season and vaulted into a
four-way tie for first place in the
Big Ten on
Thursday, I KEVIN
figured the RAFTERY
Wolverines
wr wel On Women's
were well Baskebl
on their way B
to their first
NCAA tournament berth since
2001 and possibly their first Big
Ten title since ... ever - and I
was goingto let everybody know
about it.
Suddenly, Michigan had the
chance to be a basketball school
again. A women's basketball
school. Okay, maybe that's a little
bit of a stretch, but maybe stu-
dents on campus would recog-
nize the names Veronica Hicks
or Carmen Reynolds as Michigan
basketball players, not just the
girls sitting next to them in class.
I'd present my case of why this
team is worth watching, and the
campus would go into a women's
basketball frenzy (it doesn't hurt
to dream) - the first ever in Ann
Arbor.
But then Sunday rolled around,
and the Wolverines headed to
Minneapolis to take on the Big
Ten bottom-dwelling Golden
Gophers. I was so convinced
they'd win that I already had half
of my story written before tipoff.
As you may have guessed by
now, Minnesota beat Michigan
(6-3 Big Ten, 13-8 overall) hand-
ily, as the Golden Gophers led the
entire game en route to a 60-50
victory.
And just like that, there went
my brilliant idea for a story. How
could I make a plug for a team
that just lost tothe worst team in
the league?
The answer: I couldn't. But I
could do something else.
In my eyes, there are two
women's basketball teams inAnn
Arbor (yes, your dream has come
true).
First, there's the team who
lost to Minnesota on Sunday.
That's the team that turns the
ball over four times before final-
ly converting its first field goal,
the team who gets out-hustled,
out-rebounded, and "out-phys-
icalled," as Michigan coach
Kevin Borseth called it after the
Minnesota game. And it's the
team who simply doesn't have
the resilience to come back when
it's down.
It's the same team who got
smoked at home by Detroit - a
team at the bottom of the Hori-
zon League standings - earlier
in the season.
And then there's the team who
stormed back from a 13-point
halftime deficit last Thursday to
beat Ohio State in Columbus to
complete its first series sweep of
the Buckeyes in programhistory.'
That's the team that has play-
ers who step up in big-time
moments - players like sopho-
more Rachel Sheffer, who scored
acareer-high23 pointsinColum-
bus and nailed two pressure-
packed free throws with under
30 seconds left to give Michigan
the jead.
It's a team with players like
Hicks (I'm convinced her picture
is in the dictionary under "senior
leader"), who led her team to
four straight victories and tothe
top of the conference standings
en route to her first-career Big
Ten Player of the Week award.
It's an undersized team who
annoys the hell out of bigger
opponents, often putting three
or four players on the block;
swatting the ball at every oppor-
tunity. It's the team that held
three-time Big Ten Player of the
Year Jantel Lavender to a career-
low 10 points last Thursday.
It's the team who beat three
ranked teams in consecutive
games in December.
That team is fun to watch. And
for the most part, it's been that
team who has resided in Ann
Arbor so far this year.
But with three of Michigan's
next five games coming against
the Big Ten leaders - start-
ing with Penn State at home
on Thursday - the question
remains.
Do the Wolverines have what
it takes to earn their first NCAA
berth in 10 years?
There's one Michigan wom-
en's basketball team that does.
0
AMERICS FAVOFIE
SANDvWICeI HEVERY aVSr
Wednesday Michigan League Ballroom Gerald R. Ford
February 2,2011 911 N. University Ave. School of Public Policy
4:00-5:30 p.m. UNIVERSITYOFrMItHIGAN
Free and open to the public. Info: 734-615-3893
Reception to follow. fordschoolumich.edu NIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
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