4B — March 6, 2017
SportsMonday
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
WRESTLING
Wolverines finish seventh
at Big Ten Championships
A season that started with
the Michigan wrestling team
redshirting three of its best
athletes began its championship
swing this weekend.
And as they continued to
travel with a young squad,
the
15th-ranked
Wolverines
ended up right in the middle
of the conference, finishing
seventh at the Big Ten meet in
Bloomington. Ohio State won
the team title.
Michigan’s
misfortune
dates back to last fall, when
the program announced that
senior
All-American
Adam
Coon, junior All-American Alec
Pantaleo and senior Big Ten
champion Domenic Abounader
would miss the season with
injuries and redshirt.
The absences of three top
talents spoiled the Wolverines’
depth that could have carried
them to their first Big Ten
title since 1973, but Michigan
managed with a young lineup
and
could
have
laid
the
foundation for a run next year
with three of its best back in
the lineup.
The Wolverines finished the
regular season at 8-7, 4-5 in
the nation’s best conference,
while facing 11 ranked teams.
And when the Big Ten’s best
converged this weekend, three
Michigan redshirt freshmen,
forced into action by injuries,
finished in the top three.
“I thought a lot of our
guys wrestled really hard,”
said
Michigan
coach
Joe
McFarland. “We just don’t have
the horses right now to be able
to compete with the top couple
teams. We finished right in the
middle, and like I said, there
were a lot of top teams in the
country that were here.”
The Wolverines’ best finish
came from Logan Massa, the
runner-up in the 165-pound
class. After earning a first-
round
bye,
Massa
defeated
Nebraska’s
Dustin
Williams
and then Wisconsin’s No. 3
seed Isaac Jordan to reach the
final against No. 1 seed Isaiah
Martinez.
In the final, Massa, ranked
second to Martinez in the
country in his weight class, gave
up a six-point takedown and
ended up losing by six.
“This time, I kind of went
out there and got caught off
the mat,” Massa said. “And
I was down by six points,
and that’s a hard deficit to
overcome in a match against a
high-level opponent. I learned
a lot from the match, and I’m
just going to move forward
and get ready for (the NCAA
Championships).”
Another redshirt freshman
contributor was Myles Amine,
who came in seeded No. 4
in the 174-pound class and
finished third. Amine routed
Maryland’s Josh Ugalde and
Iowa’s
Alex
Meyer
before
losing in the semifinals to Ohio
State’s Bo Jordan, who won the
championship.
“After that match, I had to
realize that I’m right up there,
and I had a bad match, so I
had to shake it off and come
back today and finish strong,”
Amine said. “And that’s kind of
the mindset I went into the day
with. I had a couple minutes to
mope about that, but this sport
is too tough to feel sorry for
yourself.”
With that mindset, Amine
bounced back to win the third-
place match against Illinois’
No. 3 seed Zach Brunson by
technical fall.
Despite
the
seventh-
place team finish, several of
Michigan’s wrestlers finished
better
than
their
seeding
position but still lost to higher
competition. In the 133-pound
class, redshirt freshman Stevan
Micic lost a 6-5 decision to Ohio
State’s undefeated No. 1 seed
Nathan Tomasello. He, too,
recovered to beat an Illinois
wrestler seeded higher than
him, Zane Richards, in the
third-place match.
JAKE LOURIM
Daily Sports Writer
‘M’ loses in Big Ten quarterfinals
When the Michigan women’s
basketball
team
last
met
Michigan State back on Feb.
19,
the
Wolverines
suffered
an
86-68
defeat, junior guard Katelynn
Flaherty
scored
just
four
points and they shot a mere 17.6
percent from 3-point range.
Though Flaherty managed
18 points and Michigan sank
33 percent of its shots from
behind the arc Friday, those
improvements
were
not
enough, as the Spartans came
out on top of the Wolverines,
74-64. Michigan State’s bench
outscored Michigan’s, 22-5, in
the process.
“We got good looks, but
we didn’t make them,” said
Michigan coach Kim Barnes
Arico. “It was a case where
we weren’t really scoring the
basketball, and then we weren’t
getting stops so we couldn’t
really get anything easy in
transition either.”
Despite once again coming
up short against the Spartans,
the Wolverines did not go down
without a fight.
With five minutes to go in
the fourth quarter, Michigan
State held a commanding 68-51
lead and looked to be running
away with the contest. After
trading missed baskets for a
full 1:40, freshman guard Kysre
Gondrezick broke the scoreless
period
with
a
3-pointer.
Twenty-five seconds later, she
forced a turnover and raced
down the court for a layup to
pull the Wolverines within 12.
While
the
Spartans
did
their best to milk the clock,
Michigan trimmed its deficit to
nine with just over a minute left
when sophomore guard Nicole
Munger
found
sophomore
center Hallie Thome for a
layup. The Wolverines still had
faint hope of completing an
improbable comeback.
But shortly thereafter, Thome
was called for her fifth foul,
forcing her to the bench and
extinguishing whatever chance
Michigan
still
had.
Thome
finished Friday’s game with 14
points and nine rebounds while
Gondrezick finished with 23
points.
“I’m
not
going
go
by
individual
performances,”
Gondrezick said. “I think on
both ends it’s a team effort.
We had a game plan and other
players just stepped up with
the personnel they had and
the range with the post players
knocking in. It’s stuff like that
that just gives you kind of like
mental lapses but we just had to
regroup. I know one thing that
Coach talked about was that she
admired the fight in us, and we
just had to play to the end and
we just came up short.”
For much of the first half, it
appeared the Wolverines might
have been on their way to better
fortunes against the Spartans.
The
two
teams
found
themselves
knotted
at
19
points apiece at the start of the
second quarter, and neither
team managed to score for
the first three minutes of the
frame. Michigan State forward
Mardrekia Cook then came
through with a layup to break
the deadlock.
Less than 30 seconds later,
Thome committed her second
foul, forcing her
to the bench for
the remainder of
the half. At first
the
Wolverines
weathered
the
storm
despite
Thome’s absence,
and
even
cut
their deficit to
one
behind
a
3-point shot from
Flaherty
with
5:30 left in the quarter.
But
Thome’s
absence
eventually proved too much for
Michigan, as Michigan State
went on a 9-0 run over the next
two minutes. Only another pair
of long-range baskets from
Flaherty kept the Wolverines at
a 34-28 deficit at halftime.
“I think we got great looks,”
Flaherty
said.
“We
missed
shots.
Sometimes
it
just
happens. Moving forward, we
definitely need
to find a way
to keep scoring
when that does
happen. But I
think
we
got
great looks and
we just couldn’t
knock
them
down today.”
The Spartans
wouldn’t
keep
it close for long,
though, as they opened the third
stanza with a 7-0 run. The squads
traded baskets for the majority
of the quarter until Gondrezick
and Thome made a pair of short-
range jumpers in the final minute
to pull Michigan within single
digits. But eventually, Michigan
State pulled away.
With
Michigan’s
defeat
Friday
night,
it
will
now
have to wait until the NCAA
Tournament
selection
show
Mar. 13 to learn its postseason
fate. Though the Wolverines
will likely be in the NCAA
Tournament field, their 1-4
finish to the season will end up
costing them several seeding
spots if they are selected.
“I know that they’re going to
go out fighting and that we are
going to regroup,” Barnes Arico
said. “And if we get selected,
which we still feel like our
total body of work, which will
get us selected to the NCAA
Tournament, it will be the
first time anyone on our team
has ever been in the NCAA
Tournament. So we still have a
lot to play for.”
NATHANIEL CLARK
Daily Sports Writer
CLAIRE MEINGAST/Daily
Kysre Gondrezick led Michigan with 23 points in a defeat on Friday night.
MICH. ST.
MICHIGAN
74
64
“We got good
looks, but we
didn’t make
them.”
Wolverines suffer second loss to Michigan State, will now await NCAA seeding
Allen finds mojo in final weeks of senior season
The puck slid across the ice,
bouncing off the boards before
being corralled by the stick of
Nolan De Jong. As the senior
defenseman readied for a shot,
Evan Allen found himself in
front of the net between De Jong
and Minnesota goaltender Eric
Schierhorn, looking for a chance
at a deflection.
It was a position that the
senior forward may have found
unfamiliar during his time at
Michigan, in more ways than
one. Allen could have easily been
the one to take the shot — after
all, his trademark characteristic
as
a
player
has
been
his
shot, powerful and accurate
throughout his career. He has
had to work to build the rest of his
game around that one defining
trait, and it certainly hasn’t been
easy: for his first three seasons at
Michigan — perhaps even earlier
this year — Allen wouldn’t even
have been on the ice at all during
such a high-pressure situation
with the game against the fifth-
ranked Golden Gophers hanging
in the balance.
Yet there he was, just outside
the Golden Gophers’ crease in
a tie game with just over two
minutes left in the third period.
Minnesota
defenseman
Ryan Collins — all 6-foot-5 and
220 pounds of him — jostled
Allen, trying to move him out
of position. But Allen stayed in
the thick of things, and when
De Jong’s shot whistled toward
him, he reached his stick out
ever so slightly and deflected it
past Schierhorn for the game-
winning goal.
Allen’s place in that sequence
is a testament of his development
during his final year in Ann
Arbor. Often confined to the
bench as a healthy scratch or
placed upon the fourth line —
known as the ‘checking line’
— Allen spent his days as a bit
player.
His role was far from the
expectations placed upon him
as a recruit. Allen had arrived
at Michigan as a member of
a ballyhooed class, an early
signee alongside players such as
JT Compher, Tyler Motte and
Michael Downing.
Initially, it appeared he would
find success just as quickly
as his peers. Allen began his
freshman year playing on the
same line as Compher and
Motte, colloquially known as
the ‘NTDP line’ after all three
had cut their teeth with the
United States National Team
Development
Program
just
down the road from Yost.
His play and production,
though, lagged behind his two
linemates, and he would later
be taken off the line. As the
years progressed, it seemed
that nearly everyone else in
the class besides Allen would
play larger roles for Michigan.
Compher
and
Motte
were
excellent collegiate players who
formed two-thirds of the most
dangerous line in all of college
hockey last year before leaving
early for the NHL. Forward
Alex Kile and De Jong became
captains, with Kile developing
into an offensive weapon, and
Downing — who also left for
the NHL last spring — was a key
contributor on the blue line.
And through the first half
of this year, it appeared Allen’s
final season at Michigan would
be no different from his first
three. He played in just 11 of his
teams’ first 18 games and turned
in nondescript performances in
each of them, tallying only one
total point.
Then, the proverbial light
turned on. Quite unexpectedly,
Allen became one of his team’s
most consistent contributors.
He has played in every one of
the 14 games after the winter
break and has collected six goals
and five assists in that span,
averaging close to a point per
game.
“I think his confidence and
his maturity (have improved),”
said
Michigan
coach
Red
Berenson. “His preparedness
to be a Division I player was not
there when he first got here.
And it’s here now, finally. So he’s
got to take advantage of it. He’s
running out of games.”
Allen no longer plays on
the fourth line, either. He
has moved up steadily within
the lineup, and for Saturday’s
game, he was placed on the
first line with Kile and senior
forward Max Shuart. Allen’s
late career renaissance has not
come without a learning curve.
Pitted against the fifth-ranked
Golden Gophers’ top line, Allen
struggled on both ends, failing
to make a significant impact
only one night after scoring
the
game-winning
goal.
As
Berenson pointed out after the
game, Allen has yet to capture
the everyday consistency of
being a frontline player.
Saturday’s
shortcomings
aside, Allen’s second half has
still played out in a way that
very few could have imagined.
This has been his first year
playing center, and he has had to
acclimate himself to everything
the position entails, such as
playing
without
the
puck,
taking faceoffs and minding the
defensive zone.
Berenson mentioned that he
has seen plenty of players put
it all together their final years
to have what he deems ‘miracle
seasons.’ In Berenson’s mind,
Allen has not quite had that
type of year. Instead, Berenson
has seen glimpses of the player
he thought he was getting when
he recruited him so long ago.
That, perhaps, is why the
situation is so bittersweet for
both player and coach. Allen has
just three guaranteed games left:
a weekend series at Yost next
weekend against No. 11 Penn
State, and then at least one game
in the Big Ten Tournament.
There will be no opportunity for
him to completely live up to the
expectations placed upon him as a
recruit, to establish the ‘everyday
consistency’ of a frontline player
that his coach sought.
Both Berenson and Allen,
though, have come to terms with
that. After all, the alternative —
of Allen’s career ending quietly
— would have been much worse.
“I think his whole career
has been coming down to these
last
few
weeks,”
Berenson
said on Feb. 24. “He knows it,
and he’s putting his best foot
forward. It’s coming together
for him. He’s always had good
hands. He’s always had a good
shot. He’s always been a smart
player. And now it’s showing
up, and he’s producing. I’m not
surprised, but I wish it would’ve
happened three years ago. But
good for him.”
Added Allen: “... It is kinda
disappointing that it took this
long, but I mean, it could’ve
never have happened, so at
least I got the opportunity and
just gotta make the most out of
it with however many games I
have left.”
CLAIRE MEINGAST/Daily
Senior forward Evan Allen spent the bulk of his Michigan career in a diminished role. But now, as a senior, he has found flashes of the potential he possesses.
ORION SANG
Daily Sports Editor