8A - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 T h and The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Hunwick learned from early-season ejection By EVERETT COOK Daily Sports Editor In late October, the Michigan hockey team embarked on its first road trip of the year, traveling up to Marquette - a town that is basically the Great White North - to take on Northern Michigan. It was the first CCHA test for the fifth-ranked Wolverines. In the series opener, fifth-year senior goaltender Shawn Hun- wick was posting a shutout, mak- ing 17 saves through a period and a half. But then a Wildcat forward ran into Hunwick after a shot - Hunwick responded by sending him to the ice with a mean right hook. He was ejected from the game, forcing untested sopho- more Adam Janecyk into the game. Michigan lost 5-3, then fell in a shootout the next night. Michigan took one out of six points in its first CCHA series of the year - and Hunwick was a big reason for that unsuccessful first weekend. On a team with eight fresh- men, it's hard to imagine that the 24-year-old Hunwick would be the poster child for improvement in the maturity department. But Aw,- f times, including a scary moment when he was blindsided and needed a couple minutes to right himself. He stuck to his post. "Before that Northern game, I didn't think something like that was going to happen," Hunwick said. "But after you have that experience in the back of your head, you know that you aren't going to get to that point again." Hunwick has been Michigan's best player this year, earning a spot among the handful of Hobey Baker contenders. When he's on - and he has been for about the last two months - Michigan is one of the best teams in the country. Hunwick keeping his cool and focusing on goaltending * instead of boxing is a major rea- son the Wolverines are within striking distance of first place in the CCHA. "I think he's definitelybeen the difference in a handful of games this year," Berenson said. "He was the reason we won the game on Saturday (against Michigan State). He's having a great year." When the Wildcats visit Ann Arbor this weekend, they will find a different, wiser Hunwick in net --and they only have them- selves to blame. ALDEN REISS/Dal Fifth-year senior goaltender Shawn Hunwick was ejected from a game in Marquette in October for his part in a goal-mouth skirmish with a Wildcat forward. with the regular season wind- ing down, it's become clear how much Hunwick has changed since the tussle in the Berry Cen- ter. "I think he's figured it out," said Michigan coach Red Beren- son. "It's part of the game. We need to protect him, but in the same token, he's got to under- react. It's not his battle. His battle is to stop the puck. "With any goalie, if they get distracted, they aren't the same." The Wolverines have com- pleted their most physical three- series stretch of the season, playing on the road against Notre Dame and Michigan State, and taking on Miami (Ohio) at home. In each of those series, but espe- cially against the Fighting Irish and RedHawks, Hunwick was knocked down, beaten up and battered. In South Bend, there was a scrum near the net after almost every save. Freshman forward Alex Guptill said Notre Dame played dirty to try to incite Hun- wick to repeat his knock-out per- formance. But Hunwick stayed out of the fray, letting the other Wolverines around him deal with the extracurricular activities. "I feel like, in that Notre Dame series, ifI didn't already have that Northern Michigan experience, I would have acted differently," Hunwick said. When the RedHawks visited Yost two weeks later, they seemed to have a similar plan. Hunwick was knocked to the ice several I Blue jams with 'The Rock' WOMEN'S BASKETBALL Week off helps 'M' prep for stretch run By NEAL ROTHSCHILD Daily Sports Editor Not all 30-inch, 21-ounce com- posite orange spheres are made equal. Yes, even in today's progres- sive, 21st-centurysociety, we still see discrimination. Basketball discrimination. Between Nike, Adidas, Wil- son, The Rock, Spalding and even renegade Wisconsin's Sterling ball, college basketball teams are allowed to choose the.type of ball they want going through their nets from a bevy of options. Until postseason play, when the Wil- son Solution is used, each school gets to choose the ball it uses for home games. The preference of Michigan coach John Beilein dates back 20-plus years. "I just have a long association with The Rock," he said. "I used it way back to LeMoyne and also at the Division-I level. I've used The Rock, I think, all the time. They have a good product." Though many teams choose to stick with their school's sponsor for their choice of ball, Michigan passed over Adidas in favor of The Rock - a brand from Ana- conda Sports. "It feels very much like the Wilson, which we use in the NCAA Tournament," Beilein said. "That's why I like it." Beilein also uses the ball for other reasons - to support his moonlighting job asa salesman. "I have a great association with them," he said. "And I also . have my own ball that I sell through The Rock, The Beilein Ball, with the line on it. It's a rela- tionship thing." The Beilein Ball is a train- ing tool with thick black stripes TODD NttDLt/Daily The Beilein Ball was created to aid players with analyzing correct hail rotation. bearing his last name that form like that before," former Michi- a circumference around the ball. gan guard Ron Coleman told The Its function is to help players ana- Michigan Daily in 2007. "But lyze ball rotation on their shots it really helps a lot to get your and to help them position their hands in the seams, because you hands correctly as they prepare do shoot better." to shoot. In short, this training Throughout the year, when mechanism is designed to help Michigan prepares to face its the players put nylon between next road opponent, it practices The Rock and with the same a hard place - ball that team the court. uses. Beilein "I thought it "We have invented the every ball tool years was a joke." that we play ago, by simply against . in drawing lines storage," on the ball Beilein said. with black marker, but he struck "So when we play a Nike school, retail gold, as the ball has gone there will be 12 Nike balls on the mainstream in recent years. rack." "When I first saw the (Beilein Nike seems to be the ball of Ball), I thought it was a joke choice in college basketball, as because I had never seen a ball the majority of major-conference schools play with a ball branded with a swoosh. Seven of the 12 Big Ten schools use Nike, while Wisconsin is the only school in Division-I college basketball to use the Sterling ball. "I think it's fun a lot of times going into a new stadium and playing with a different ball," said senior guard Stu Douglass. "I don't know if 're-focus' is the right word, but you want to shoot well, and it's a big part of getting big road wins." Each ball has its own idiosyn- crasies that can affect a player's comfort level. Though each brand has eight panels to the ball, there are cer- tain discrepancies: the depth of the seams, the toughness of the leather and the stickiness of the ball. "The Adidas ball is different from the Nike balls," Douglass said. "And we play with The Rock, so it's different. Some of the things get a little monoto- nous, so it's fun to kind of mix it up." The road - and foreign balls - haven't been kind to the Wol- verines this season. Michigan, which has gone 5-7 away from Crisler Center, is dominant at home with The Rock, going 14-0. But if Michigan fans are wor- ried about the Wolverines' play without The Rock in the postsea- son, there is good news. On Dec. 10, Michigan put up a season-high 90 points in a vic- tory over Oakland at the Palace at Auburn Hills. The ball? Wilson. The same brand used for March Madness. See more photos of Crisler at MichigasDalycom By COLLEEN THOMAS Daily Sports Writer A couple of weeks ago, the Michi- gan hockeyteam whipped out a tro- phy with a hockey helmet mounted on a slab of wood and played a three-on-three intrasquad match for it. The Michigan women's bas- ketball team had simpler plans for its bye week. "Just working on our plays and defense - normal stuff," said junior guard Nya Jordan. . After the Wolverines upset then- No. 13 Nebraska last Thursday, the team didn't skip abeat going back to its normal routine. "We took Friday off," said Michi- gan coach Kevin Borseth. "Satur- day morning, we practiced, went through a couple things to stay fresh, took Sunday off, and we came back Monday and (started) all over again." Michigan doesn't have much time to relax, as the final push for the postseason has begun. The Wol- verines have fpur games left and will continue their run to March on Thursday against Iowa. And they aren't wasting any of their free time. Senior guard Car- men Reynolds emphasized that though the team has more time to practice, its routine is the same. She said the team focused on strength training and taking advantage of the extra rest this week. With the extra time, Michigan has been able to take a deeper look into its game against the Hawkeyes and take a detailed approach to the gameplan. "(Practice is) really focused," Reynolds said. "Each practice, we focus on defense and offense. You can break everything down and spend more time on it, which really helps." Added fellow senior guard Courtney Boylan: "A lot of the stuff that we do in practice is oriented to who we're playing. (It's) important to look at, having a week to prepare for a team. Maybe you could lose sight of what you're doing, but for us, I think it will be good overall." So far, the Wolverines have kept their eyes on making sure they earn an NCAA Tournament bid. The season has been a tough test for Michigan, but the team has weath- ered the schedule well, sitting at 7-5 in conference play and 18-7 overall. The Wolverines have taken down two ranked teams, Ohio State and Nebraska, and they won 12 of their first 14 games - a program-best. But those games are behind them, and right now, Michigan is just looking to its next opponent. The Wolverines are not looking at Sunday's game in Bloomington, and they haven't even thought aboutthe Big ''en or NCAA tournaments - this short-term focus is something Borseth has been stressing all sea- son. "The job isn't over until the paperwork's done, it's one of those things," Borsethsaid. "We're at that stage right now. We're just plugging away one day, one game at a time, trying to make sure we get what's taken care of out of the way first." And regardless of how much rest 0 they've gotten, Reynolds under- stands that it's what happens on Thursday that matters the most. University of Michigan School of 1LMusicThleatre & Dance . Free Checking with eStatement enrollment . Free Online Banking, Bill Pay and e-Statements . 7 branches, with 3 being on campus . Wire transfer options available . 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