The Michigan Daily - Friday, January 11, 1991 - Page 11

Blue-NU theme:
R-E -S-P-E-C-T
Aby Matthew Dodge

No

Contest?

Last-place Redskins (2-13-3) skate into Yost
by Jeni Durst

Wfaily Basketball Writer

On the wall of Michigan coach
Bud VanDeWege's office is a framed
copy of former UCLA coach John
Wooden's famed Pyramid of
Success. As Wooden recounts the
essential steps to winning, he is
fond of saying that an athlete should
Zalways respect, yet never fear an
t 'oponent.
The Michigan women's basket-
ball team is in danger of breaking
"this cardinal rule as it takes on 11th-
*"' nked Northwestern tonight at
°'rrisler Arena (7:30 p.m.). The
'"Wildcats (8-2 overall, 1-0 in the Big
Ten) are strong enough to strike fear
Afl the hearts of most opponents, and
, .Xspecially the inconsistent Wolver-
, ;es (7-4, 0-1).
The respect between VanDeWege
and Northwestern coach Don Perrelli
emis genuine.
. "He's somebody that I enjoy
,playing against and hate playing
,;.4gainst at the same time,"
YanDeWege said. "I like the way he
evxecutes. His team is always so
y tpolished, so fudamentally sound, and
disciplined. That's also the reason
:,;ou hate to play them. They're not
going to beat themselves, I
guarantee it."
women gyr
%by Jeff Cameron
and R.C. Heaton
$; Paily Sports Writers
While it is unlikely that any
Inembers of the women's gymnas-
tics team will compete this season
twearing glass slippers, the team still
hopes to write its own Cinderella
4story.
, Entering Saturday's competition
> at Wisconsin, the team looks to gain
the respect of its opponents and
move up in the standings after con-
+Men gymno
>yby Caryn Seidman
Since September, the Michigan
' omen's gymnastics team has been
toiling in the Intramural Building
under plaques and banners reminding
them of past Wolverine champions.
Co-captains Jim Round and Matt
OtHarrison feel the team's motivation
Lwill help improve last season's
seventh-place finish in the Big Ten.
The Wolverines will need to
bring this motivation to Minnea-
polis this Sunday as they begin their
season against Minnesota,
Although the Gophers' top
gymnast, John Roethlisberger, is
t sidelined with a broken foot, they
remain a huge threat. "They have
GET INVOLVED IN MSA
The Michigan Student
Assembly's Budget Priorities
Committee is now accepting
app ications:
Pick one up at the Michigan
Union-Third Floor, Office 3909
Application Deadline:
January 17, 5 p.m.
Questions?
763-3241
RESERVE OFF

4y
a
i;I
FF
I,.. . . ,"-.
iiV,

The admiration is mutual: "We
respect Michigan a lot," Perrelli
said. "They have quality players and
a quality coach. They will certainly
be well-equipped to play us."
In the preseason Big Ten polls,
the Wildcats were a concensus choice
to successfully defend the conference
crown which they won last season,
and the Wolverines were picked to
finish sixth.
The confidence of the off-and-on
Michigan squad is hanging by a
thread, but a win over LaSalle last
Sunday may have given Michigan
just enough self-esteem to survive.
"That win will really help against
Northwestern," VanDeWege said.
"Our confidence is up right now."
This Wildcat team is very similar
to the successful senior-dominated
Michigan squad of last year. All five
NU starters have returned from the
championship club of a year ago.
"We have all our starters back,
and are very happy about that,"
Perrelli said. "This is a veteran
group. Hopefully we will be able to
handle anything that happens on the
floor. We won't even give out a
scouting report (on Michigan). We
just have to play our game."
The Wolverines will follow up

Perrelli

the Northwestern bout with a tough
home matchup against a surprising
Wisconsin team. The Badgers (7-4,
2-0) will enter Crisler Sunday
afternoon (2 p.m.) in possession of
the Big Ten lead.
Wisconsin is a guard-dominated
squad led by Robin Threatt (18.8
points per game) and Amy Bauer
(13.3 ppg). But the game will likely
be decided in the paint. The Badgers
are the No.1 rebounding (47.2 rpg)
squad in the conference, while
Michigan (41.0) is No. 5.
VanDeWege will also need a
strong performance from his start-
ing center Michelle Hall to contain
Wisconsin's Michele Kozelka,
currently the Big Ten's leading
rebounder.

Daily Hockey Writer
Unlike the many boxes of gifts
doled out over the past few weeks,
the events of this weekend shouldn't
hold too many surprises.
The Miami of Ohio hockey pro-
gram (2-13-3 Central Collegiate
Hockey Association, 4-16-3 overall)
rambles into Yost Ice Arena this
weekend, struggling to climb out of
the basement position in the league,
to combat Michigan (13-4-3 CCHA,
16-5-3 overall).
When the two teams met earlier
this season in Oxford, the
Wolverines crushed the Redskins,
11-1 and 9-3. Looking at the statis-
tics, it's easy to predict what the
outcome should be after the wrap-
ping paper of this series is ripped
away.
"When you look at the two
teams that are competing this week-
end, one is on the top of their game
and one is really struggling," Miami
coach George Gwozdecky said.
"(Michigan) is a team that is very
fast, they've got great strength,

they've got people who can shoot
the puck. We're going to hopefully
not allow that to happen as much as
we did in the fall.
"I don't know if there are many
teams in the country that can stop
Michigan for 60 minutes."
One way Miami could look to
end the Wolverines' domination is
with special teams. The first time
these two teams met, Michigan capi-
talized heavily on their power play,
scoring five times with the advan-
tage in the first game, destroying
Miami's penalty-killing unit. The
Redskins are now 7th in the league
in penalty killing (.732), improving
only slightly on their performance
from the start of the season.
But Michigan has also experi-
enced lapses in their penalty killing.
The Wolverines ranked third in the
league in this area toward the end of
the first half of the season, but
struggled against Lake Superior and
last weekend versus UIC and have
dropped to fifth in the CCHA (.763).
"Our goals-against have to come


down and I think our penalty killing
definitely has to be stronger than it
was last weekend," Michigan coach
Red Berenson said. "We know the
penalty killing has to be better as
does our overall game defense."
With the penalty killing of both
teams in question, much of the se-
ries may ride on the power plays.
Michigan demoralized Miami back
in October with their outstanding
power plays and continue to lead the
league in that area, capitalizing on
40 of 130 attempts (.308).
Miami, on the other hand, ranks
sixth in the league with 17 goals on
76 opportunities and continues to
strive for potency in this area.
"The special teams are a big fac-
tor," Gwozdecky said. "Hopefully,
we've improved significantly enough
so that we can be a little more effec-
tive at killing some penalties off and
at the same point in time, when we
have a power play, we can be a little
more effective in scoring some more
goals."

i, __

Welcome Back!

.%


nnasts face early test


secutive seasons of finishing last and
next to last in the Big Ten.
Michigan competes against
Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Arizona
on Saturday. Wisconsin and Min-
nesota are the teams to beat in the
Big Ten while Arizona is ranked in
the top ten in the country.
"If we have a good meet and hit
all our routines, we can beat
Minnesota and Wisconsin," coach
Beverly Fry said. "Arizona is going
to be really tough to beat."

Nagging injuries have already
taken their toll on the Wolverines,
with the most serious belonging to
rookie Nicole Simpson. Simpson,
expected to be one of the team's top
three all-around competitors, will
not travel to Madison because of an
ankle injury. Sophomore Julie
Hofmeister and junior Kim Crocker
will perform in Simpson's place.
"We have a lot of depth this
year," Hofmeister said. "We are
young, but experienced."

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I

sts spring ii
depth, and so we need consistency
and strong performances from return-
ing gymnasts in order to make a
major impact," Michigan coach Bob
Darden said.
"When all the chalk settled at last

nto season
season's end, we got our highest
score in eight years," Darden said.
When the chalk settles this year
Darden hopes his team will be at
Michigan State for this years NCAA
Championship.

and Receive
20% Off Everything

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