Sports The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com Wednesday, January 13, 2016 — 7A Sam Piazza’s long journey Sophomore D-man earns playing time after years of struggling for it By JUSTIN MEYER Daily Sports Writer In late 2013, Sam Piazza’s college hockey dream was in shambles. A youth hockey star growing up in Darien, Ill., Piazza’s size and aggressive play just didn’t translate to the higher levels. For two years, the defenseman had been shipped across the country in search of a place where he could overcome injuries and his game could flourish once again. Piazza crisscrossed to North Dakota, back to Chicago and finally off to Texas as he bounced around the edges of the junior hockey world. He struggled to make game- day rosters, rode the bench and endured the lonely prospect of being hundreds of miles away from home without a clear plan. The thought of being a healthy scratch was a new challenge, one that led him to almost hang up his skates for good. As a young player, Piazza suited up for the powerhouse Mission AAA program and excelled alongside teammates who are now littered around the NHL and college hockey. He recorded 22 points in the 2008 season and committed to play college hockey elsewhere at the age of 16. “I was all about the puck growing up,” Piazza said. “Once I got to juniors, it was exposed that I was bad defensively. I think I’ve come a long way.” The college offers had long since disappeared, but Piazza finally broke out in the 2014 season, his final year of eligibility, with the Wichita Falls Wildcats. In the NAHL Top Prospects Tournament, he secured a spot at Michigan and another chance to chase his dreams. Those dreams are different today than they might have been back when Piazza was taken 34th overall in the USHL entry draft. In his first season at Michigan, Piazza slumped again, recording only one assist in 10 regular-season appearances. Pursuing a degree in mechanical engineering, he is balancing heavy school demands with the discipline needed to crack the Wolverines’ defensive rotation. But Piazza isn’t new to adversity, and he recommitted himself in the offseason. “Unfortunately, I’ve been scratched a lot in the past couple years,” Piazza said. “I know how to keep my head in it and stay ready and keep my body ready.” Piazza shed 10 pounds in the offseason and started grabbing coaches’ attention in practice. All that effort paid off when he filled in for suspended junior defenseman Michael Downing in the Great Lakes Invitational. Piazza recorded three points in two games and earned a spot in the rotation against Michigan State. There, he picked up minutes on the penalty kill, a testament to his improvement on the defensive end. “He’s smart with the puck, and he’s smart without the puck,” said Michigan coach Red Berenson. “He’s doing now what I was told he would be able to do here. I would call him a good teammate. The other guys are getting to play every night, and he has to do all the extra work to stay ready. “It’s a tough role.” For Piazza, the recent success has certainly been sweet. It’s validation that he can play at the collegiate level and that all the time he poured into the sport was worth it. But he didn’t make it in spite of the trouble in junior hockey — he made it because of that adversity. “(Junior hockey) really impacted me a lot,” Piazza said. “That’s where I learned to be mentally tough. You can’t really complain about other people, you’ve just got to worry about yourself and do your best.” Piazza’s broad shoulders filled the armchair as he talked about his rollercoaster career with a calm, casual air. He’s 5-foot-11 — small for a defenseman — and it shows on the ice. It’s apparent that he isn’t bothered by the trials he has gone through to get here. Instead, the sophomore gives off the aura of a grizzled veteran — aided somewhat by the beard he’s sporting. What’s also clear is that despite Piazza’s success, he isn’t satisfied yet. The 21-year-old has battled across three states in three years to get here. He wants a spot in the rotation, and he has worked too hard to settle now. JAMES COLLER/Daily Sam Piazza is finally breaking into the lineup for the Michigan hockey team. “I’ve been scratched a lot in the past couple years.” Barnes Arico lightens mood, revives season By BRAD WHIPPLE Daily Sports Editor Heading into last Thursday’s game against Iowa, the Michigan women’s basketball team had won only one of its previous six games. Something had gone awry as the Wolverines’ confidence was drastically shaken. No longer was Michigan averaging 88 points, previously good for the third-best scoring offense in the country. At the beginning of December, the string of losses began with a 17-point loss to Princeton. But coach Kim Barnes Arico is a veteran of the game, knowing when changes need to be made and what resources she should use to make those changes. In the course of one month, Barnes Arico helped the Wolverines realize that 17 points was an obstacle they could overcome when they came back from that exact number in the second half against the Hawkeyes. “(Iowa) actually looked how we looked in the two prior games,” Barnes Arico said in her weekly radio show. “This is a team that has been off to a great start, was a ranked team in the country and they got super tight down the stretch.” The Wolverines were anything but tight as they made a miraculous comeback to earn their first conference win this season. It was not only a surprise that Michigan made its largest comeback since 2007, but also that the Wolverines made any sort of last-ditch effort given recent results. The three games leading up to Iowa had been anything but pleasant: a one-point loss against Eastern Michigan, a two-point loss to Purdue and a nine-point lead blown to Indiana in the final quarter for yet another defeat. But Michigan regained its confidence before its big break against Iowa, and it continued that success with a win against Minnesota four days later, evening out its Big Ten record at 2-2. “We did spend a lot of time just trying to rebuild their confidence,” Barnes Arico told WTKA Radio on Tuesday. “We had three devastating losses that came down to the last possession of the game, and in all three of the games, we had the opportunity to win the game and kind of struggled down the stretch. “That really affected our young kids’ confidence. … Even our older kids really didn’t play a ton of minutes last year where they were in those same positions. It was a new experience for all of us.” So what exactly did Barnes Arico need to accomplish in order to turn the season around? Did the Wolverines need to practice their free-throws, considering they had missed 32 points from the charity stripe through six games? Did they need to practice rebounding? Maybe Michigan needed to work on passing? According to Barnes Arico, it was as simple as taking pressure off of her players and lightening the mood. Before Thursday, Michigan’s assistant coaches made a highlight reel of footage from games such as Xavier and UCLA, when the Wolverines looked like they were truly playing Michigan basketball. The assistant coaches held an activity for the players to paint a non-basketball related word that was significant in their lives, which they later hung above their beds. This way, they could be reminded of the activity and its emphasis on taking a step back when the going gets rough. “The kids really began to get confident again and really enjoy the process,” Barnes Arico said. “That’s something that we talk a lot about — enjoying the process. It’s not always just the outcome.” According to Barnes Arico, sharing ideas among the coaching staff is a crucial element of success. The Michigan staff regularly sends e-mails to each other with links from social media or around the Internet, which sometimes include leadership presentations or inspirational talks from coaches around the country. Outside the basketball realm, Barnes Arico has also found guidance. The Wolverines’ student manager, the daughter of Michigan hockey assistant coach Brian Wiseman, asked if her father could attend a practice and see if there were any team- building activities he would find value in. Barnes Arico agreed, knowing Wiseman would do the same for her if she wanted to visit a hockey practice. This collaboration between Michigan coaches is what Barnes Arico referred to as an “open- door policy.” In fact, she has gained plenty of insight from Michigan men’s basketball coach John Beilein through the years. “In our profession, it’s really important that coaches feel like they can lean on other coaches,” Barnes Arico said. “All of us are in the same boat at some point or another. … Sometimes as a coach, what happens is you get so tight, then your players are getting tight (and) sometimes you just need to go to the movies.” In one week, Michigan has loosened up and put the season back on course. SAM MOUSIGIAN/Daily Kim Barnes Arico has her team’s season back on track after three straight losses. “We did spend a lot of time just trying to rebuild their confidence.” Season Review: Defensive Backs Lewis, Peppers led deep group that could get even better in 2016 By ZACH SHAW Daily Sports Editor Editor’s Note: With the Michigan football team’s 2015 regular season in the books, the Daily looks back at the performance of each unit this year and looks ahead to the future in 2016. In this edition: defensive backs. When Michigan emerged from its so-called “submarine” training camp in August, no one was entirely sure what to expect out of its secondary. Most expected redshirt freshman Jabrill Peppers and Stanford transfer Wayne Lyons to be welcome additions, but were not sure how the returning Wolverines would filter out. Michigan was heavy on safeties with Lyons, Peppers, senior Jarrod Wilson and redshirt junior Jeremy Clark. But cornerback was a question mark, as Blake Countess had transferred to Auburn, which meant only redshirt junior Jourdan Lewis and error-prone junior Channing Stribling were bringing back starting experience. The Wolverines — who finished 21st in pass defense in 2014 — were expected to be strong in the secondary once again, but with new faces and a new coaching staff, nothing was certain. With the 2015 season in the books, it’s safe to say that any uncertainty about Michigan’s pass defense was squashed early and often en route to a truly special year. The 12th-ranked Wolverines led the nation in passer rating allowed (95.0) and yards allowed per attempt (5.4), while finishing third in passing yards allowed per game (158.8), total touchdowns allowed (7) and completion percentage (48.0) allowed throughout the season. Individually, Lewis was the star of the defensive backfield, earning first-team All-Big Ten and All-American honors, and forced three turnovers while setting a school record with 21 pass breakups. Peppers was not too far behind, totaling 10 pass breakups, All-American honors and the Big Ten Freshman of the Year award. Beyond Peppers and Lewis, Clark made the journey to cornerback, Stribling tied or set career highs in every category, and Wilson — along with junior safeties Dymonte Thomas and Delano Hill — was so consistent that Lyons barely saw the field. High Point: It’s hard to imagine a secondary at any level having a better five-game stretch than Michigan did from Week 2 to Week 6. Against Oregon State, UNLV, then-No. 22 BYU, then-No. 13 Northwestern and Maryland, the Wolverines allowed just 60 completions on 143 attempts, 483 yards and eight interceptions, compared to just two touchdowns. To put that into a per- game perspective, an average quarterback performance against Michigan in that stretch was 12-of-27 passing for 97 yards, 1-2 interceptions and no guarantee of a touchdown. Perhaps just as notable is that only BYU made it through a game without resorting to a backup quarterback. Low Point: Allowing a touchdown in consecutive weeks usually is not a low point for a team’s secondary, but Michigan’s slip-ups from defensive backs were few and far between. The only time a quarterback seemed in control over the Wolverines occurred when Michigan State’s Connor Cook and Minnesota’s Mitch Leidner combined to throw for 645 yards, including several big plays and two touchdowns in back-to-back weeks. Teams also began to find success on the ground against Michigan late in the season, but it’s hard to pin that on a secondary that took passing almost out of the equation for most offenses. The Future: The future looks bright — maybe even brighter — for Michigan’s secondary next fall. Lewis, Peppers, Stribling, Thomas and Hill will all return next season, and Clark could as well if he chooses. Assuming Clark stays, Wilson is the only departing starter, and Thomas and Hill looked ready to fill his void late in the season. With no high-profile commits at safety or cornerback in the 2016 recruiting class yet, it appears that freshman Keith Washington and sophomore Brandon Watson could be the lone new contributors in the stacked position group next fall. RUBY WALLAU/Daily Junior cornerback Jourdan Lewis and the Michigan secondary capped a standout season with a Citrus Bowl victory. The future looks bright — maybe even brighter — for next fall.