8 - Tuesday, April 12, 2011
The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com 01
8 - Tuesday, April 12, 2011 The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom ~
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Not all goals created equal:
ly iks Yan 'Magic' hits 200 with game winner0
Some goals win games
When Michigan senior Alison
Mantel held the ball with less
than two minutes remaining in
the fourth quarter against Princ-
eton earlier this month, the Wol-
verineswere tied with the Tigers,
10-10.
It wasn't an optimistic tie.
Michigan had blown a 6-2 first-
quarter lead and barely man-
aged to recover from a two-point
deficit. The team had scored just
three goals in the last two-and-a-
half quarters.
Mantel quickly scanned the
pool. The Wolverines were on
the counterattack, and she saw
that her teammates had stayed
true to their lanes. All the Tiger
defenders were occupied, trying
to account for the players clos-
est to the cage, which meant one
thing: she was open.
Mantel took the shot.
Within milliseconds, the ball
struck the back corner of the
cage with a thwock. Point, Michi-
gan. The senior's only goal of
the game would be all the team
needed. While concentrating on
defense and bleeding time off the
clock in the remaining seconds,
the Wolverines would go on to
score once more..
But that goal, as they say, was
only insurance.
Some goals tewrite
the record book
The moment the ball left Man-
tel's hand, it was on its way to
making her just the third player
in Michigan history reach 200
goals in her career, puttingher on
an elite plateau with Shana Welch
and Julie Hyrne. But that wasn't
all. With her 200th goal, Mantel
breached even more exclusive
territory - the 100-200-300
assists-goals-points club.
Current membership: Mantel
and Hyrne.
"I would expect Alison to defi-
nitely be a member of that group,"
Michigan coach Matt Anderson
said several weeks ago when
asked about the record. "She's a
complete offensive player. That
shows how well-rounded you are,
to hit that category in assists and
goals. It's quite an accomplish-
ment."
Career numbers like Mantel's
are different from single-game
records or even single-season
records.
Those are easier to come by,
and the names change every
other season. Anyone can have a
stand-out game. Given the right
role and the right supporting
cast, anyone can have a stand-out
season, too.
But to perform at such a high
level consistently for four years
in a row is another story. In each
of the past three seasons, Man-
tel has broken the top three in
almost every offensive category.
That kind of accomplishment
requires a special kind of athlete.
"I think that a good portion of
(Mantel's) shooting, probably 75
percent, is natural talent, mean-
ing she obviously has a strong
arm and has the flexibility to be
a good shooter," Anderson said.
"Everything else - her mental
composure, her finishing and her
variety of shots - she's worked
for that."
Anderson added that it's not
just effort, either. It's also atti-
tude.
"During practice, when every-
body else is just going through
the motions and warmingup, Ali-
son is working like it's a game,"
Anderson said. "She takes a shot
in practice and she analyzes it
as if it were a sudden death shot
against Indiana.
"A lot of people have talent.
There are people out there more
talented than Alison, but there's
not one person that is more of a
studious worker than she is, and
that's why she's on her way to
being a three-time All-Ameri-
can."
It's also why "Magic," the
nickname Mantel got from assis-
tant coach Katie Card during her
freshman year, is somewhat of a
misnomer.
There's no trick behind all her
success. She earns it the old-fash-
ioned way.
Some goals redeem
struggling players
It's hard to picture the soft-
spoken Mantel, who fidgets shyly
and brushes her bangs out of her
eyes when she talks, without her
characteristic demure smile.
But when Mantel entered the
Princeton game during the sec-
ond half, she was pissed off.
The first half of the game
hadn't gone well for Mantel.
She had missed shots and made
mistakes only an inexperienced
freshman would make - mis-
takes unbefitting of the team's
senior offensive star. She played
so poorly she was pulled from the
game in the second quarter.
Anderson didn't mince words
on deck.
"Matt said some things to
me that kind of got me angry,"
Mantel recalled. "(He said) what
coaches need to say to players to
get them refocused."
Anderson's words hit home.
Driven by a renewed intensity,
Mantel was able to contribute
at her usual high level. With the
help of sophomore Kiki Golden,
she propelled the team back into
the lead.
If there had been a visible
change in the way Mantel played,
however, you probably wouldn't
have spotted it. A quiet player
who Anderson describes as an
implicit leader, Mantel often goes
unnoticed until she scores.
"Alison is not one to draw
attention to herself," Anderson
said. "It goes back to her mental
fortitude. She's not one to lose
focus. She's listening intently to
make sure she hears everything
correctly. She's thinking intent-
ly to see what the next option
should be if what she wants to do
is stopped.
"That's why she's as complete
a player as I'll ever have, because
she's always thinking and always
listening to try and find what the
next thing should be."
Some goals are
cosmically preordained
Sunday was Princeton's Senior
Night, and a large crowd stood
beneath the orange rafters at
Denunzio Pool to cheer on the
Tigers' seniors.
This was a class that had accu-
mulated two 20-win seasons in
2008 and 2010 and was lookingto
repeat as conference champions
in the CWPA Southern Division.
Princeton had crushed Buck-
nell on Saturday, and the team's
emotions ran high as the players
sought to pay tribute to their six
seniors by upsetting the seventh-
ranked Wolverines.
What the Tigers probably
didn't know was that the player
0
Senior Alison Mantel holds she program record for assists at144.
who obliterated their hopes with
her fourth-quarter goal was close
- really close - to being their
seventh senior.
"Alison and Italked about that
last week, about in eight grade,
when I first saw her at a camp,
she was wearing a Princeton
sweatshirt," Anderson recalled.
"I told her then, 'You're not going
to Princeton, so you might want
to get rid of that sweatshirt.'
"It is ironic that her 200th
goal was against the school that
she was mistakenly brainwashed
into wanting to go to when she
was in eighth grade."
Had Anderson not been pres-
ent at the camp, Mantel may have
ended up a Tiger. Or a Stanford
Cardinal.Either way,shecertainly
would not have been a Wolverine.
"I had been to camp at Princ-
eton and Stanford," Mantel said.
"I had never heard of Michigan
water polo before, so (Anderson)
being at the camp was my first
introduction to Michigan."
But some things are just meant
to be. The Florida native even-
tually learned more about Ann
Arbor and fell in love with the
school and the team. She became
the star of a group of seniors that
has never lost to archrival Indi-
ana and is set to become the win-
ningest class in the winningest
water polo program.
And after going scoreless for
three quarters, she scored her
200th goal to secure a comeback
win against the school she nearly
attended.
Some goals are magic.
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