8 — Tuesday, March 14, 2017
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Nagelvoort gives ‘M’ a chance
T
he Michigan hockey team
has found success over its
last few games, and, like
when it had some success early
in the season, it has done so with
goaltending.
Then, the
Wolverines
relied on a
rotation of
goaltenders
— freshman
Hayden
Lavigne
earned two
shutouts in
the first nine
games of the
season, and strong performances
from freshman Jack LaFontaine
and senior Zach Nagelvoort led
Michigan to victories against
Ferris State, Arizona State and
Lake Superior State.
Unfortunately for the
Wolverines, the netminders
could not sustain their level of
play, especially with the volume
of shots they began to face.
Immediately after Michigan’s
series against the Lakers,
it traveled to take on Penn
State, where LaFontaine and
Nagelvoort were peppered with
106 shots over two games and
gave up 11 goals.
It was a series that sent the
goaltending, and the team as a
whole, into a downward spiral,
as the Wolverines gave up two or
more goals in 14 of their next 15
games, accruing a 3-10-2 record
over that span.
Michigan has righted the ship
once again, winning four of its
last five games heading into the
Big Ten Tournament. Saturday,
the Wolverines completed their
first weekend sweep of the
season against the 11th-ranked
Nittany Lions, and the
importance of good goaltending
was never more apparent.
Nagelvoort again faced a bevy
of shots from Penn State, but
this time, he was up to the task.
The senior stuffed all 46 of the
Nittany Lions’ shots, fueling
Michigan’s 4-0 victory.
The shutout was Nagelvoort’s
second of the season and his
third win in his past three
starts. Paired with Lavigne’s
winning effort in net Friday, the
Wolverines turned in perhaps
their most impressive weekend
of the season, and it was fueled,
once again, by their goaltending.
“Yes, it’s the best we’ve played
so far, I think,” Nagelvoort said
after Saturday’s game. “But I
think we’ve played really well in
spurts throughout the season,
and I think we’re figuring out
how to put it together now. And
that’s important now that we’re
going into playoff hockey.
“We’re going to talk about this
Monday when we show up to the
rink; what we played tonight, the
game is going to be so much more
intense than that next Thursday.
It’s just a whole different animal
when you get to the playoffs.
We’ve seen it every year when
we’ve gotten to the Big Ten
(Tournament). So that’s what
we’re looking forward to. Yes,
we’re playing the best hockey,
but we’re going to continue to
grow and play even better hockey
if we want to make it last longer
than a game.”
Nagelvoort is right. If
Michigan doesn’t improve at all
heading into next weekend, it
might be able to beat Penn State
in its first-round matchup. But
then the Wolverines will have
to face No. 5 Minnesota, a team
they have beaten only once in
four tries this season, with the
one win coming as a result of a
late-game, three-goal flurry.
Yet, in playoff hockey,
sometimes all it takes is a
hot goaltender to make the
difference for a team. And with
Nagelvoort’s recent string of
performances, Michigan will
almost surely turn to him again
next weekend.
So the Wolverines will need to
play their best hockey to win the
Big Ten Tournament and move
on to the NCAA Tournament,
and maybe that won’t even be
enough. But if Nagelvoort can
repeat his performance from last
weekend, he will at least give
Michigan a chance.
Persak can be reached by
email at mdpers@umich.edu and
on Twitter @MikeDPersak.
MIKE
PERSAK
Baseball, and optimism, at Ray Fisher this weekend
I
t doesn’t take more than a
couple of seconds for Ako
Thomas to address it. The
question wasn’t even about
it. But to
start an
interview
in the
lobby of
Ray Fisher
Stadium on
Wednesday
afternoon,
asked what
has gone
well as
Thomas
and the Michigan baseball
team have raced out to a 12-3
start this year, the sophomore
second baseman knows just the
answer.
“We felt like we had
something to prove this year,”
Thomas says, “ending the way
we did last year.”
Of course, everyone in the
program remembers that.
Last season, as the Wolverines
were on their way to their best
season in eight years, they
instead sputtered, losing nine of
their last 11 games and missing
the NCAA Tournament for the
seventh time in eight tries.
Twelve months later, last
season’s optimism is back, and
Michigan has the promise to
back it up. The Wolverines’
quest now is to make sure they
don’t repeat 2016.
“I just felt like towards the
end, I feel like we just, I don’t
know, got tired and started to
fall apart towards the end,”
Thomas said. “But with this
year’s group, I just feel like we
all have the same goals. We’ve
all got one thing on our mind,
and that’s winning each game.”
Michigan returns home
to Ray Fisher Stadium as a
ranked team this weekend
for a four-game series against
Northern Illinois. A month
into this season, a 15-game
road swing has gone about as
well as the Wolverines could
have hoped. They have started
12-3 — improving on their
15-game start last season —
including a 7-1 spring break
trip to California in which
they knocked off Southern
California and San Diego,
which doesn’t happen often to
teams from the cold Midwest.
Michigan came back and
drew a No. 24 ranking in the
national poll. The only other
ranked team from north of the
Mason-Dixon Line and east of
the West Coast was No. 19 St.
John’s. And the Wolverines
will likely move up in this
week’s poll after going down
to Nashville and sweeping
Lipscomb this past weekend.
The catch is that all of that
was true at this time last year
— the hot start, the national
ranking and a 5-0 win against
then-No. 10 California.
Last year’s squad started 5-0,
then went to 11-3, then 20-5
after sweeping Northwestern.
Those Wolverines showed a
few signs of letting up, but
they were still 34-12 after
they pounded Rutgers in May.
Most 34-12 teams end up in the
NCAA Tournament.
But Michigan finished 2-9
and lost to Ohio State five times
in the last three weeks — twice
in the Big Ten Tournament.
Had the Wolverines won
any one of those games, they
might have returned to the
postseason. Instead, the
momentum they gained from
a dramatic run to the 2015
conference tournament title
disappeared. Michigan still
finished with its best record
since it won the last of three
straight Big Ten titles in 2008,
but it had nothing to show for it.
So yes, Thomas and coach
Erik Bakich admit, the
Wolverines have the proverbial
“chip on their shoulder” — “if
we said there wasn’t, we’d
be lying to you,” Bakich said
Wednesday. They do not
deny the influence last year’s
collapse had on this season’s
start. They embrace it.
“I think last year and this
year, there was definitely
optimism,” said senior infielder
Michael Brdar. “I think the
difference this year is we’re a
lot more motivated and tough
towards our goals. Not that
we expected to be great last
year, but we kind of just had,
‘we’re going to show up and
we’re going to play well.’ This
year, it’s more like we get to the
ballpark and we’re on a mission
every single game.”
The result is a team that
again looks like it’s ready to
take the next step as a program.
Michigan now ranks tied for
third in the country with
30 stolen bases and has the
pitching, led by ace left-hander
Oliver Jaskie, to compete with
anyone.
The evolution came in the
offseason when Michigan
reevaluated how it approached
games as a program. First,
according to Brdar, that meant
what the team calls “mental
toughness” — or in practice, a
lot of running. The Wolverines
also adopted a more aggressive
mindset (which shows in the
stolen base category) and
discussed as a group what
values were most important to
them.
The beliefs they thought of
as implicit, they made more
specific. The classic ideals of
baseball — every pitch matters
— they have now seen in action.
“You always talk about that,
but we never really saw it until
last year, so now we know that
it’s important to have intent
with everything we do,” Brdar
said. “…I think the end of last
year helped, because there’s
no taking the foot off the gas
pedal.”
In response to a slump in
which the Wolverines could
never manage the win they
needed, they have come back
this year believing they’re never
out of any game.
The intensity has paid off.
Against Creighton last month,
Michigan blew a three-run
lead in the ninth inning and
then rallied to win in the 10th.
At Lipscomb on Friday night,
the Wolverines rallied from
down 4-2 in the ninth and won
5-4. They believe last year’s
sour finish helped build that
resiliency.
“Maybe now more than
ever, we’re going to be able to
embrace, you know, when the
garbage hits the fan,” Bakich
said.
Wednesday, the fifth-year
coach jogged into the Ray
Fisher lobby for a media session
with reporters and took a seat
facing a wall plastered with a
photo of the team celebrating
the 2015 Big Ten Tournament
title.
Looking at that picture,
he reaffirmed that no, this
season’s early success will not
influence his team as it heads
into a promising spring. By now,
Michigan knows the danger of
that already.
Lourim can be reached by
email at jlourim@umich.edu
and on Twitter @jakelourim.
FILE PHOTO/Daily
Michigan coach Erik Bakich and the Wolverines are approaching the 2017 season with a new optimism, determined to keep history from repeating itself.
JAKE
LOURIM
ZOEY HOLMSTROM/Daily
Senior goaltender Zach Nagelvoort led Michigan to its first sweep of the season.