Sports The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com Friday, January 30, 2015 — 7 Shot put standout has unique path By NATHANIEL CLARK Daily Sports Writer Long before Derek Sievers was a shot put standout for the Michigan men’s track team, he hoped to make a name for himself on the gridiron. He spent three years as a starting fullback on the football team at Byron Center (Michigan) High School. He has won the shot put four times in his collegiate career, including victories at the Simmons-Harvey Invitational on Jan. 17 and against Michigan State on Jan. 24. He also finished 15th at the 2013 NCAA Outdoor Championships and seventh at the 2014 Big Ten Outdoor Championships in the event. “The shot put event happens so fast,” Sievers said. “You have to clear your mind and use the nervous energy to your advantage.” While it sounds funny to call the shot put a fast-paced event, the rapid motions it requires are fitting for Sievers. *** At Byron Center, Sievers amassed 2,212 yards on 340 carries. During his junior year, he notched 769 yards on 133 carries and nine rushing touchdowns despite sharing duties with another running back. But Sievers truly demonstrated his prowess his senior year, when he collected 1,157 yards on 147 carries, equating to 7.9 yards per carry. It was a performance that won him All-Area and All-State honors. Sievers even added 13 rushing touchdowns for good measure while sharing the job yet again. Yet even with his success as a running back, Sievers always considered himself first and foremost an offensive lineman, a position he had played since his pee-wee football years. “If you run the ball, you get hit,” Sievers said. “If you’re blocking someone, you get to hit them.” Perhaps it was a way of bonding with his father, who played football at Southeast Missouri State from 1982 to 1986 as an offensive lineman. “My dad was my pee-wee coach all the way up through eighth grade,” Sievers said. “We’d always practice in the backyard and stuff. He instilled in me that you can either be the hammer or the nail, and you don’t want to be the nail.” Or maybe it was a way of keeping up with his brother, who took delight in pushing him around. The sibling rivalry soon translated into skills as a linebacker. Sievers finished 2009 with 79 tackles, three recovered fumbles and three catches for interceptions. “It was pretty intense between my brother and me until I outgrew him in ninth grade,” Sievers said. Sievers was also the punter for Byron Central for all three seasons of his career, averaging 34.3 yards per punt in that stretch. He even dabbled in the long snapper position for a time as well. As if all of that weren’t enough, Sievers took part in wrestling and bowling during the winter months. “I was just trying to live my high-school sporting career out,” Sievers said. “I didn’t really focus on one thing. Bowling was awesome because I got free bowling all the time.” *** But Sievers’ other sports did not detract from his track and field performance. In both his junior and senior seasons, he earned All-State honors in both the shot put and discus events and won the Division II state championship in the discus. It rubbed off on the rest of the team as Byron Central won the Division II team title in 2010 and 2011. “Track was the best overall experience for me,” Sievers said. “That’s why I continue to do it today.” Even with all of his success, he was largely overlooked on the recruiting trail for both football and track. But once Michigan called, there were no more decisions to make. “No one really recruited me out of high school for track,” Sievers said. “And football was mostly Division II and Division III schools. Michigan came along at the very end of my senior season and my mom said, ‘If you can go to Michigan, you’re gonna go to Michigan.’ ” Still, Sievers gets a kick out of football even though his playing days are done. He is a denizen of Michigan Stadium on football Saturdays and regards those days as some of his best in Ann Arbor. While Sievers may be a shot put star, football will always be a part of him. ‘M’ hopes growth process complete By BRANDON CARNEY Daily Sports Writer The Michigan men’s lacrosse team is entering its fourth year of competition, and its players and coaches believe the program is finally ready to take the step out of infancy. Following a five-win season in 2014, the Wolverines believe the worst of the team’s growing pains are behind them. “This year, we have so many guys that are mature and used to the system,” said senior attacker Will Meter. “I think we’re looking to go full steam ahead and not worry about any growth. We’ve already gone through that.” Top-scoring sophomore attacker Ian King returns for Michigan, and redshirt sophomore goalkeeper Gerald Logan is also back after missing last season with an injury. King, Logan and sophomore midfielder Mikie Schlosser were all named to the Big Ten Players to Watch list. The three will make up the core of the team, and Meter expects them all to improve. “King and Logan have played at an extremely high level,” Meter said. “Even as solid as they’ve played in their first years, there’s always an opportunity to take a step forward, and these two can be elite players. We’re really going to need to rely on them.” Michigan coach John Paul has brought in a highly rated 13-man recruiting class, and he retains eight of his nine point- getters from last year. While youth is still an issue with the Wolverines, the potential for the team is sky-high. With the development of the program coming along nicely, Michigan will turn its attention to the development of its new league. The Wolverines will be a part of the inaugural Big Ten lacrosse season. New arrivals Maryland and Johns Hopkins are expected to rank atop the conference, as both are preseason top-10 teams. Michigan was voted last in the Big Ten preseason poll, but that doesn’t mean the Wolverines won’t be looking to make some noise. With television appearances and national exposure coming with the new conference, the team is excited to show the country where the program is heading. “We know the Big Ten’s going to be tough this first year,” Meter said. “Playing these bigger teams that have won national titles doesn’t seem as daunting of a task now. They’re just going to be regular games.” If there’s one game Michigan has circled on its calendar, it’s the April 5 matchup against Ohio State. The Wolverines have yet to defeat the Buckeyes in three years of competition, something the senior class hopes to change in its final season. “The seniors have had meetings about what we want our legacy to be, and we really want to be the first team to beat Ohio State,” said senior defender Mack Gembis. “That would be the culmination of all the work we put in the past four years.” Whether or not Michigan can defeat Ohio State this season, the seniors are a historic group for the program. The class will be the first that has played all four years, something the seniors know is special. “It wasn’t always easy at times,” Meter said. “But we went through a lot, and that’s why I think this season’s the biggest. If we can come out, do well in the Big Ten and prove ourselves, it’ll show how far we’ve come as a class in leading this team.” Seniors like Meter helped the program take its first step. Now they’re helping it take its first running strides. MEN’S LACROSSE The last moose standing: Max Bielfeldt By LEV FACHER Managing Editor Max Bielfeldt’s lower legs are legendary. But lately, the large- calved forward is seeing less about them on Twitter, and he thinks that’s a good thing. “I was making a joke the other day,” he said. “It’s a good sign that I’m playing better when after a game, back in the day, 80 percent of the Tweets were about my calves and now only 20 percent are about my calves. So I think that means I’m playing a little better.” Known as “Moose” to his coaches and teammates, the 6-foot-7 senior is enjoying a late-career surge. Bielfeldt is averaging just shy of 10 points and 21 minutes per game over the Michigan men’s basketball team’s last three Big Ten contests, on the heels of three seasons in which he barely saw the floor. He’s now known as a key contributor on a Wolverine squad that, as of late, has impressed with its resiliency in the face of injury and inexperience. Following Mitch McGary’s departure for the NBA, Jordan Morgan’s graduation and Jon Horford’s transfer, Bielfeldt found himself the Wolverines’ lone upperclassman big man in 2014-15. With each passing game, it becomes increasingly clear he isn’t taking the responsibility lightly. Rather, Bielfeldt has taken advantage of the role, climbing the depth chart to become — depending on the situation — Michigan’s first big off the bench. Despite their inexperience, it was freshman Ricky Doyle and redshirt freshman Mark Donnal who engaged in a preseason battle to start at the ‘5’ spot, with Bielfeldt viewed as the third horse in a two-lane race. But that didn’t stop him from helping contain Wisconsin’s Frank Kaminsky and his five-inch height advantage in Michigan’s 65-60 overtime loss to the Badgers on Jan. 24, or shooting 6-for-9 from the field to help the Wolverines take down Nebraska on Tuesday. It helps, of course, that Bielfeldt spends the days leading up to games impersonating the very players he’s later assigned to defend. He leads Michigan’s scout team, a role Michigan coach John Beilein says he assigned him “because he’s the brightest of all those guys at knowing college basketball.” “On the scout team, you kind of see what (your opponents’) go-to moves are,” Bielfeldt said. “It expands your game a little bit. If they have a good turnaround jumper or something, and you try to emulate that in practice and it goes down for you, you might try to incorporate that yourself.” While being assigned to the scout team is sometimes viewed as a sign that a player shouldn’t expect to contribute in game situations, it’s much the opposite this year for Bielfeldt. “He’s on that scout team because that’s what the team needs him to do,” Beilein said. Bielfeldt has been one of the scout team’s de facto captains throughout much of his career. But with LeVert out, he and junior guard Spike Albrecht are the only remaining upperclassmen on Michigan’s active roster, creating shortages on the experience and leadership fronts. “Three was already a small number,” Bielfeldt said of the dwindling number of veterans. “Two is even less.” The sheer numbers pose an issue when it comes to simply leading by example. With half a roster’s worth of upperclassmen, it’s easy for experienced players to set the on-court tone. In this particular circumstance, Bielfeldt says the instruction has to be a bit more explicit. “You just have to talk to the guys more,” Bielfeldt said. “Back in high school, they might not have realized that you kind of need to jog the drill, keep the energy of practice up. “When you only have two guys who have been here for more than a year, you have to say it more than do it … you have to instill it in them.” Bielfeldt’s senior status in 2014-15 wasn’t always the plan. Though he has a year of eligibility remaining, Beilein and his staff decided in Summer 2014 that Bielfeldt would be listed as a senior this year. The decision made sense for both parties; it opened up a scholarship for Michigan’s next freshman class, and it allowed Bielfeldt — who had just 38 career points prior to this season — to transfer for a final season elsewhere, should he choose to. Bielfeldt took the news in stride, working to establish himself as a leader and taking advantage of his newfound health. He underwent hip surgery toward the end of Spring 2014, sidelining him for nearly the entire summer but relieving him of a major inhibitor to his play. “Basketball’s a lot more fun when you land and it doesn’t hurt,” Bielfeldt said. “I’m having more fun and playing more, and with the hip surgery I’m just feeling better, so you know, just general cuts and jumps and all that.” While he’s certainly having more fun playing, Bielfeldt is also flourishing in his roles as a mentor and tutor for his younger teammates. From a mentorship perspective, the Wolverines timed their international summer trip well (the program is allowed to take one every four years). Michigan spent 10 days in Italy in the offseason, giving Bielfeldt a chance to get to know a class of freshmen that, mid-summer, would typically be busy throughout the day with practice, summer classes, tutoring and other introduction- to-college activities. “It was nothing crazy,” Bielfeldt told the Daily in Novemeber. “I’d go walk around with (freshman guard Muhammad-Ali Abdur- Rahkman) or somebody, learn more about him, and I think overall we’re closer in that.” It was the details, Bielfeldt said, that made the trip particularly meaningful. “Little things, like me and Muhammad walking into some little shop and looking at some European soccer jersey,” he said. “I never would’ve done that in the past three years with an older player.” While it’s not a yearly occurrence for a player who spent his first three years largely on the bench to emerge as a leader and major contributor in his senior season, Beilein says it’s nothing new. “I’ve seen it before,” Beilein said, “where guys in that senior year all of a sudden are so valuable to you, because they’ve got the experience, that maturity about them, that they’ve been there and done that before. “They’ve been waiting a long time for that opportunity, so that’s been huge.” Bielfeldt, regardless of how he got there, is happy to finally be playing major minutes and contributing as much as he has been lately. “Overall, you just have to be ready,” Bielfeldt said. “Next man up.” Daily Sports Editor Max Bultman contributed reporting. AMANDA ALLEN/Daily Derek Sievers was a football star in high school before beginning his exceptional shot put career at Michigan. ALLISON FARRAND/Daily Max Bielfeldt has recently emerged, averaging just shy of 10 points and 21 minutes over his last three Big Ten games. “They’ve been waiting a long time for that opportunity.”