Monday, May 14,2007 1 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com BASEBALL 'M'-Nine suffers setback in Big Ten race By ANDY REID heals." Daily Sports Writer Michigan struggled in large part to a slew of injuries to starters, most The Michigan baseball team's notably seniors Andrew Hess, Brad weekend was filled with frustration, Roblin and Eric Rose. pain and Earlyinthe first game of Sunday's heartbreak PENN STATE 15 doubleheader, Rose chased a pop fly - themes MICHIGAN 5 to the warning track from his posi- that PENN STATE 9 tion in centerfield, crashing into the haven't MICHIGAN 3 wall in the process. The Blissfield filtered native came back to the dugout, into the Wolverines' locker room coughing up blood and was taken to many times this season. The tough the University Hospital. Michigan weekend included three losses in a coach Rich Maloney said he didn't four-game series with Penn State. It know the official diagnosis. marked the first time that Michigan Rose is just another player in a lost a Big Ten series in its last 13 tries, string of bruised-and-battered Wol- a streak dating back to April 2,2006. verines. Roblin, who sustained and The Wolverines entered the forearm injury against Michigan weekend with a two-game lead in State two weeks ago that requires the Big Ten, but they lost ground to a light cast, and Hess, a pitcher second-place Minnesota, who split who has a sore throwing arm, both a four-game series with Ohio State missed the weekend series as well. over the weekend. All three players could be back The conference regular-season next weekend. championship will come down to "We don't have a lot of time to the last weekend of Big Ten play. get healthy," Pickens said. "Guys Michigan faces off against fourth- are probably going to have to play a place Iowa and Minnesota plays little hurt." perennial bottom dweller Indiana. Hess was sorely missed as the "We're going to go win (at Iowa). Wolverines had to reach deep into That has to be our mentality going their bullpen to try and replace in,"junior Doug Pickens said. him. The Nittany Lions scorched Earlier this season, the series the Michigan pitching rotation between the Wolverines and the throughout the entire weekend. Golden Gophers was cancelled due "(Hess) is an outstanding pitch- to poor weather conditions. er," Maloney said. "He's having a big "They're an outstanding team," year. It certainly hurt us (to lose him sophomore Zach Putnam said. "It for the weekend), but we have other would have been nice to get to play guys that need to step up. Obviously the guys that are nipping at our that didn't happen this weekend." Michigan (18-6 Big Ten, 36-13 overall) could have all but wrapped up a Big Ten title with a strong per- formance against Penn State, but the Wolverines struggled through most of the series. In the fourth inning of the first game of Sunday's doubleheader, the Nittany Lions (17-9,25-23) put on an offensive clinic: A triple, two dou- bles, a single and a two-run homer gave Penn State a comfortable five- run advantage over Michigan. The usually high-powered Wol- verine offense had been silenced throughout most of the afternoon, and Penn State's big inning seemed to awaken the Michigan dugout. A solid stream of expletives, words of encouragement and challenges flowed from the maize and blue bench after the Wolverines trot- ted off the field in the middle of the fourth inning. The confrontation seemed to fire up the Michigan lineup, when Pickens drove in the first run of the game. The Wolverines eventually loaded the bases before sophomore Jason Christian, one of Michigan's best power hitters, stepped up to the plate with a chance to tie the game. But Christian was unable to answer the call, popping out to right field to end the inning. "Beingdown a couple runs puts a lot of pressure on the batters," Pick- ens said. "I think we pressed a little bit, and that was our fault. But you have to give (Penn State's) pitchers a lot of credit. They threw well." straight sets. Freshman Mike Sroczynski was up two breaks over Illinois's GD Jones in the second set, Jones's experience as a senior and his abil- ity to slow down the game extend- ed the match to a third set. Despite the exit from the tour- nament, the Wolverines have proven they can compete with the nation's top teams. With the nation's fourth-ranked incoming class, it wouldn't be surprising if Michigan has a greater impact in next year's tournament. But all the success this season just makes it harder to endure the season-ending loss. "I would trade [my singles win] for a team win," Heller said of his career's final match. "I know that I'm leaving at least knowing I did what I can do. I guess that's some- thing that eases the pain." The Nittany Lion pitchers threw well enough to preserve a 9-3 win. Although Sunday's doublehead- er was marked with misfortune, Michigan started the series on a hot streak, taking the first contest 11-5 and holding a 4-0 lead heading into the sixth inning ofgame two. Sophomore Mike Wilson, who had pitched brilliantly to that point, looked tired in the sixth. The Nit- tany Lions took advantage and crushed two home runs, a solo and a three-run shot, which tied the game at four, eventually sending it into extra innings. Penn State notched a 5-4 come-from-behind win. "It's too bad that we let that one get away from us," Maloney said. "The wind just blew that, and their guys took it out for a three-runjack and that was the difference. That's about all you can say about it; you're not goingto win them all." I I 810 S State Street 222-4822 - 1906 Packard 995-9940 - btbburrito.com TENNIS From page 13 square one. Unlike the service duel earlier in the match, the winner would be determined by who found his serve first. Unfortunately for Michigan, Rowe beat Maravic to take the lead at 4-3. Rowe then delivered the final blow, breaking Maravic in four straight points to close out the next game and the victory for the Illini. In his final three service games, Maravic won just two points. And as Michigan did back in Ann Arbor in April, Illinois celebrated on its home court. "Bruce said this moment would come some point this year," Mara- vic said. "I wouldn't think we would win the national champion- ship, but we definitely believed we could beat Illinois today." Illinois stormed out of the gate in singles, breaking Michigan's first service game in four of six matches. Senior captain Brian Hung, sopho- more Andrew Mazlin and fresh- man George Navas didn't have any answers. All three Wolverines were taken out in straight sets. "When you're playing a great team, you're not going to win them all, but you still want to put your best tennis out on the court," Michigan coach Bruce Berque said. "Unfortunately, we had three courts that didn't play well." Even with the three losses, the Wolverines had chances to take out Illinois for the second time in three matches this season by claiming three of six first sets. But Heller was the only one to take advantage, beating his opponent in L,. . ,- a ; ZY.A T . k. { +i'') ": y p ;J' :';emu ? i' , 3d : p F: