The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Tuesday, April 1, 2014 - 7 Wagner stays focused after flirting with perfection By KELLY HALL That's not to say she can flirted with a no-hitter deep Daily Sports Writer easily be rattled. Pitchers like into the game. Wagner have to stay calm in But, Karlie Habitz, the Haylie Wagner didn't realize any situation same batter she had a perfect game going. that crops up, who ended The junior left-hander had and Wagner's Wagner's thrown six perfect innings and steadfast "She just does no-hitter the was two outs away from the concentration day before, elusive milestone. But someone was only what she does - singled had to tell her that in the paused in through the aftermath. , the seventh nothing more, left side for Wagner's one-hitter was when she hita an RBI to not the third of her career. It batter. nothing less. only break up would've been the first "I have the no-hitter seven-inning perfect game many pitches but also the - - iv - - " - Freshman forward Zak Irvin and the Michigan men's basketball team came just seconds away from the Final Four. A Runfair season for INDIANAPOLIS - It's been 20 minutes since the Michigan men's basketball team lost to Kentucky, 75-72, in the Regional Semifinals - 20 minutes since it was four points from a second straight Final Four. appearance. A 6-foot-8 fifth-year senior is doing everything 1 he can to hold back tears after his final SIMON college KAUFMAN basketball game - and failing to do so. Three sophomores are answering questions about their futures - whether they'll stay another year or not. A senior team manager in khakis and a maize polo is sitting on a water cooler with his head down, trying to hide puffy red eyes. He didn't play, but it was his lastgame, too. It's easy to say they're looking forward to next year. Easy to say how proud they were of this past season. Easy to praise Jordan Morgan, the lone player graduating. It's easy to reflect, easy to compliment the opponent and to try, no matter how hard, to keep their heads up and their emotions back. This isn't your YMCA youth basketball league and not everyone gets a trophy. And that's not easy to accept, because after the year Michigan had, it doesn't seem fair it will leave empty- handed. It's not easy and maybe it's not fair, either. Maybe it's not fair to ask a team that started the season 6-4 to compete for a National Chamnionshin. Not fair to expect that a team that lost two starters to the NBA and an All- American to an injury would win the Big Ten title by three games. Not fair to tella sophomore who still wears braces that he should've played better defense on that last play. Maybe everyone was caught up in the lure of last year. Still replaying Trey's shot, trying to forget Harrison's. Maybe the expectations weren't fair. But, as is said, life is not fair, not easy. And if ever there was a microcosm to emphasize that fact it would be sports. It would be college sports. And it would be March Madness. Because in real life, 18-year- old kids aren't asked tobe perfect or be forgotten. But that happens in college basketball, and it happens every March. And that's OK. It's what makes a stadium of 35,551explode when a Wildcat guard hits a deep 3-pointer with two seconds left, and it's what makes a six-year-oldboywearing a maize Michigan jersey grab his dad's leg and cry when a Nik Stauskas heave misses a minute later. It's the reason Caris LeVert is sitting in a chair in the locker room with his legs sprawled out and his arms crossed. He doesn't look like the player that carried the team many times this season. He looks like a little boy who's been put in timeoutby his mom and told to think about his bad behavior. The sophomore bops his head every couple of seconds, not like he's singing a songbut more like he's replaying the previous 40 minutes - thinking about every play, what he could've done differently so that he wasn't sitting dejected and expressionless after the game. He doesn't deserve that feeling - certainly not after the season he had. But just down the hallway from Michigan's locker room at Lucas Oil Stadium there's a room full of Kentucky players who don't deserve that agony either. And yet that's the reality of it. It's the best time of the year because anyone can take the spotlight and any star can become an afterthought. It's Bowl Week, the Frozen Four and Opening Day all wrapped into one spectacular month. And in reality, it's probably too much emotion squeezed into a four-week stretch highlighted by 40-minute contests than is healthy for us. But we still prescribe it to ourselves. Because no matter how hard, how unfair, that's the fun of it. And just like each champion holds the title temporarily, so too, each loss fades away. Across the locker room from LeVert, Jon Horford playfully flips Max Biefeldt the bird, disapprovingofa quip Bielfeldt made. Theyboth laugh. Morgan talks with family on his way out of the stadium. One fan tells him that she watched every game. He smiles. With a swarm of reporters around him, Michigan coach John Beilein is level-headed. It's hard to tell if his team just lost in the NCAA Tournament or in a preseason exhibition game. He praises, reflects and looks forward. That's the easy part. Taking a team that had no business having such high expectations after roster changes, and bringing it so close to another Final Four, that's the hard part. Kaufman can be reached at sjkauf@urnich.edu or on Twitter @skauf. in Michigan program history since Sara Griffin in 1996. It's not something that happens very often. So how did she not notice? "My whole warm-up preparation, I was very focused and locked in," Wagner said. "I was focusing on the little things. In the past few weeks, that's been a problem - I just haven't been very sharp." Wagner collected four strikeouts and retired 19 batters in a row before she ran into trouble in the bottom of the seventh inning. With one out in the seventh, Wagner hit Penn State's Kasie Hatfield. Up until that point, Wagner's unwavering confidence had allowed her to stay consistent. After she hit Hatfield, though, she allowed a single that consequently ended , her no-hitter. Her steadiness had wavered. that are my strengths, and I also think it's me being able to have a short memory," Wagner said. "If something goes wrong, I'm able to go out there and just forget about it because it's in the past. If I walk a batter or hit a batter or something, I forget about that one and go onto the next because there's nothing I can do about it." Wagner displayed her ability to quickly regain focus with a pair of strikeouts to end the contest, holding the tws baserunners from advancing. The lefty has practiced staying relaxed on the mound, and it paid off. On Saturday, Wagner had the chance to face the Nittany Lions once again (0-6 Big Ten, 6-21 Overall) when she started the final game of the series instead of freshman right-hander Megan Betsa - and again, she shutout. Habitz's single jump-started Penn State and sparked a four- run inning, but it wasn't enough to prevent the mercy rule from being enacted. The Wolverines won their final game of the series 12-4. Wagner's one poor inning out of12 didn't worry Michigan coach Carol Hutchins at all though. "Haylie pitches to her strengths, and her pitching coach calls to her strengths," Hutchins said. "It's not always strikeouts, but the goal is to jam them up and work them on the other side on the plate and mix it up. A good pitcher takes away the batter's (timing). She just does what she does - nothing more, nothing less." Wagner now boasts a 17-0 record. If that doesn't scream consistency, it's tough to find something that does. MICHIGAN BASKETBALL IS HEADED TO THE FINAL FOUR! April Fools Graduate Programs Open House RSVP to attend online or learn more at comminfo.rutgers.edu/michigan. *Ranked sixth in the country by U.S. News & World Report I I