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February 18, 1991 - Image 16

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Publication:
The Michigan Daily, 1991-02-18

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Page 8- The Michigan Daily - Sports Monday - February 18, 1991
Kass, Brakus come
through for netters

'M' gymnasts blown
away in Windy City
by Charlie Wolfes

by Becky WeissT
Daily Sports Writer
As the Michigan and Wisconsin
men's tennis teams lined up on
opposite sides of the court to
watch the deciding match of their
dual meet last Friday, evidence of
the Big Ten rivalry increased with
every point.
"There was even more tension
since (Michigan's) Dan Brakus,
had just defeated Bryan Nelson in
singles," No. 2 doubles player Eric
Grand said of the insults the teams
exchanged during the last two sets
of the match that gave the Wolver-
ines a 5-4 victory.
Even before the doubles
matches began, the teams were
tied, 3-3, and Michigan's David
Kass and Brakus knew that for a
Wolverine victory, they must de-
feat Wisconsin's Joseph Deer and
Bryan Nelson.
"We thought that one of the
doubles teams would win and the
other would lose," Brakus said.
"We just didn't know which one it
would be (that won)."
As predicted, the teams were
tied 4-4 after two doubles matches
as Michigan's No. 2 team of John
Karzen and Eric Grand wastde-
feated while Wolverines Scott

Cuppett and John Lingon were vic-
torious at No. 3. Meanwhile, Kass
and Brakus lost the first set of their
match 7-6 in a 10-8 tiebreaker.
"We knew they (Deer and Nel-
son) were playing the best they
could," Brakus -said of their first
set performance. "It was just a
matter of (our) getting it together."
With all the Michigan and Wis-
consin team members on the
sidelines, Kass and Brakus went on
to win the next two sets handily, 6-3,
6-3. Seven hours after the matches
began, the Wolverines pulled out the
5-4 victory.
The intensity displayed during
the No.1 singles rematch between
Michigan's David Kass and Jack
Waite equalled that of the match
itself. Kass previously suffered a 6-
7, 6-3, 7-6 loss to Waite in the Big
Ten Championships only two
weeks before.
Waite won the first set 6-3, but
Kass battled back to win the sec-
ond 6-2. Waite then broke Kass'
serve at 4-3 in the third, bringing
the score to 4-4. Kass broke back
to 5-4, and served for the match to.
win it 3-6, 6-2, 6-4.

91h

Daily Sports Writer

The Michigan men's gymnas-
tics team went road"tripping" this
weekend, and did the term justice
as they stumbled through the states
of Illinois and Wisconsin.
Friday evening, the University
of Illinois-Chicago played host to
New Mexico and the Wolverines,
and the frigid midwestern metropo-
lis wasn't very accommodating as
the Blue squad finished second out
of three teams. Perennial national
power New Mexico won the meet
with a score of 274.35, followed by
Michigan's 271.4 and Illinois-
Chicago at 269.4. Saturday, the
gymnasts headed north to Badger
country, but didn't fare much bet-
ter as they fell to Wisconsin by a
margin of 279.6- 275.25.
Despite the second-place finish
in Chicago, coach Bob Darden
didn't take much solace in his
team's performance, especially af-
ter scoring a season-high 275.75
only one week ago versus Ohio
State. Though New Mexico was
the top finisher, the coach noted
that everyone at the meet had
agreed that it was a poor exhibi-
tion by all teams involved, as in-
dicated by the low 270 scores.
"It was disappointing, we
started slow on the pommel horse
and then just tried to pick up the
pieces from there," Darden said.
"We had a lot of road time this
weekend, and the problem was,
the team just wasn't focused on
the mental and physical aspects of
the trip."
However, as theredalways are,
there were some individual high
points during the evening. Topping
the list was Glenn Hill on the the
pommel horse, taking first with a
9.55 on his specialty event. Garner-
ing seconds were Royce Toni on
both the vault (9.4) and rings (9.5),
Jim Round on the parallel (9.1)

Michigan men's tennis captain David Kass makes a kill shot in the
second set of his 3-6, 6-2, 6-4 victory over Jack Waite of Wisconsin. The
Wolverine squad went on to defeat the Big Ten rival Badgers 5-4.

-

Women overcome N. Illinois,

Western to go 4-0

by Ryan Herrington
Daily Sports Writer
This weekend the Michigan
women's tennis team continued its
impressive spring start with a 6-0
win against Northern Illinois on
Saturday and a 8-1 victory over
Western Michigan on Sunday.
"We played very well this
weekend," coach Bitsy Ritt said.
"I am very pleased with the out-
come and our team's effort."
The Wolverines, (4-0) looked
sharp on Saturday in their defeat of
a lackluster Northern Illinois squad

(8-7), who showed signs of having
been defeated by Michigan State
earlier in the day. Four of the six
singles matches were lopsided,
straight set victories, including No.
2 seed Stacy Berg's 6-0, 6-1 win
over the Huskies' Hild Anderson.
In the two matches that did ex-
tend to three sets, Michigan was
still firmly in control. Amy Malik,
the No. 5 seed, recovered from a
first set loss to win 11 straight
games en route to her 4-6, 6-0, 6-1
victory over Jamie Cheek. No. 3

seed Kalei Beamon also cruised to
a 6-1, 4-6, 6-2 victory, in what
turned out to be the most entertain-
ing match of the evening.
On Sunday, Michigan's lone
loss came to the No. 1 seeded
doubles team of Berg and an in-
jured Christine Schmeidel. They
were defeated 7-6 (7-4), 3-6, 6-1
by Shannon Condon and Cindy
Turner of Western. Otherwise, the
Wolverines dominated, winning
five of the six singles matches in
straight sets.

Michigan's top performer Sun-
day was Lindsay Aland. The
Wolverines' No. 1 singles player
overpowered the Broncos' Amy
McClure 6-1, 6-0 with a strong
baseline game and a powerful
serve. Fittingly she ended the
match with a ace. Aland also
teamed with Kim Pratt in doubles
where they defeated McClure and
Breita Johnson 6-2, 6-3.

INN
j 4

and high bar (9.45), and Ben VeM
rall in the floor exercise (9.5).
Luis Lopez won the all-around
competition for New Mexico with
a score of 56.2. Round took third
for the Wolverines with a 53.6,
while Verrall locked up fourth at
53.7.
Before heading up to Wisconsin
on Saturday, Darden said the
squad had a very beneficial teal
meeting. One of the biggest things
to come out of the chat was the
fact that Michigan was precisely
at the halfway point of their sea-
son, and if they are to qualify for
regionals, they would need to
gather more high-270 team scores.
The meeting did the trick as the
gymnasts recorded their second-
highest match score this season,
even though it was in a losing ef*
fort.
Once again, in what Darden
deemed a "super effort," Hill was
a spectacle as he set a new career
best with a 9.8 on the pommel
horse. Mike Mott also turned in a
stellar effort in the same event,
taking runner-up honors behind Hill
with a 9.6. Also placing second
were Toni on the vault (9.35), an
Hill on the floor exercise (9.55).
Dave Augustine of the Badgers
won the all-around with a 56.8,
while Michigan's Verrall was
strong as always by accumulating
a 54.05, good for third. The real
story, however, was Toni. The
frosh gymnast shone in all six
events, grabbing second with a
score of 55.3.
"This was the* first time h*
(Toni) has worked all events in his
collegiate career, which is fantas-
tic," Darden said. "There'sa lot of
pressure on Royce to do well for
the good of the team, and he's
coming through.
"Having the guys pull them-
selves back together and have a
much more inspired meet Saturday
makes for a better all-around feel
ing about the weekend. It's great to
see that Michigan athletes are now
finishing in top positions in tough
competitions. Because that forces
other teams to push their scores up
too."
Rocky
road for
women
gymnasts
by Andy Stabile
Daily Sports Writer
After breaking a school record
last week and defeating Ohio Stato@
at home, the Michigan women
gymnastics team was riding an
emotional high. Saturday night, the
Wolverines experienced the emo-
tion on the other end of the spec-
trum.
The gymnasts finished last in a
four-team invitational held in East
Lansing- losing to Florida, West
Virginia, and Michigan State.
"We're trying to get the girls tc
be more competitive on the road."
Michigan coach Bev Fry said.
"We can't go into a meet away
from home and die. They feel real
relaxed at home but we haven't

figured out what it is that causes
us these problems on the road."
Nationally-ranked Florida dom-
inated the meet, followed by West
Virginia and MSU. The Wolver-
ines had hopes of revenge against@
the Mountaineers, who beat
Michigan earlier in the season, but
after all six of Michigan's compet-
ing gymnasts fell off the balance
beam, the Wolverines found them-
selves engaged in a battle with
Big 10 rival Michigan State. The
Spartans ended up beating the
Blue gymnasts by half a point, the
equivalent of one fall from the*
beam.
"We certainly thought we
should have beat MSU," Fry said,
"but they hit everything they did,
and we had some misses. Michi-
gan State did to us what we were
hoping to do to West Virginia."
Although the Michigan gym-
nasts were disappointed with their
finish, they were not totally dissat-
isfied with their performance.

/

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r

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