2B — April 3, 2017w
SportsMonday
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

One final test of will

T

hrough all the smiles and 
joy on the court Saturday 
afternoon, after the 

Michigan 
women’s 
basketball 
team won 
the WNIT, 
it would 
have been 
easy to 
forget 
where the 
team was 
nearly three 
weeks ago.

On that night, a night where 

they expected to break a 
three-year NCAA Tournament 
drought, the Wolverines had 
their hearts ripped out. Sitting 
at Revel and Roll bowling alley, 
the players watched, hopefully, 
as each region was revealed, with 
confidence that the team would 
soon hear its name called.

How sure did the team seem 

that it had earned a place in 
the field? As the final pairing 
in which the Wolverines 
would have fit was about to 
be announced, sophomore 
center Hallie Thome put on a 
wide smile, anticipating the 
good news. Instead, the names 
“Kansas State” and “Drake” 
came through the speakers. Her 
expression turned to shock.

Even after the best regular 

season in program history, 
Michigan would once again be 
relegated to the WNIT.

“The night we didn’t get into 

the NCAA’s I felt heartbroken 
for (seniors Danielle Williams 
and Siera Thompson),” said 
sophomore guard Nicole Munger. 
“But the next day in practice, we 
said we were doing it for them 
and we were winning it for them. 
This is for them.”

It would have been 

understandable if, given that 
heartbreak, Thome and the 
Wolverines hadn’t wanted to play 
at all in the WNIT. It’s possible 

that, in the immediate aftermath, 
they didn’t. It would have even 
been understandable if, after 
the NCAA selection committee 
doubted them, they started to 
doubt themselves. But after the 
way they played their final game, 
through three unprecedented 
championship overtimes, one 
thing was clear: they learned to 
embrace a tournament that they 
didn’t want, and they proved 
they would have belonged in the 
one that didn’t want them.

Looking back, maybe it 

shouldn’t have been much of 
a surprise that Michigan won 
the WNIT Final. It had already 
beaten its opponent, Georgia 
Tech, by a 40-point margin 
earlier this season in Atlanta. 
The Wolverines were probably 
the biggest snub from the Big 
Dance, and their talent made it 

easy enough to pencil them into 
the semifinals, where Barnes 
Arico had led them in each of the 
previous two seasons.

But there was something about 

a deep WNIT run that seemed 
less than inevitable.

In the WNIT, as with most 

tournaments, it takes more than 
talent to win it all. To win six 
straight games against teams of 
relatively comparable skill levels, 
no matter who is on your roster, 
takes will power. There’s little 
room for passivity.

And that’s where the 

uncertainty came in.

There is a reason the NIT and 

WNIT are so hard to predict. 
There is simply no telling how a 
team will respond to letdowns, 
no way to gauge whether a team 
will respond with motivation or 
resignation.

For the Michigan women’s 

basketball team, there must 
have been at least a fair share of 
each. The Wolverines knew they 
were one of the 64 best teams 
in the country — particularly 
considering they were ranked 
in the top 25 just weeks before 
the selection show — and that 
must have made them irate. It 
also could have made them feel 
defeated. All that hard work, all 
those wins, and they’re stuck in 
the same tournament they’ve 
been in both the previous two 
years? It’s not hard to see how 
that might have led to some 
passivity when the tournament 
began.

But whatever their immediate 

reaction, it was clear on Saturday 
afternoon that motivation 
eventually won out.

“They just wanted to prove 

the world that they had made 
a mistake and that Michigan 
basketball is a great team,” 
Barnes Arico said. “They refused 
to go away and it was just 
awesome to watch.”

It was only fitting, though, 

that there was one final test of 
will awaiting the Wolverines, 
even as they climbed through the 
tournament and ended up in the 
finals in nearby Detroit.

Trailing by three points with 

just 10 seconds remaining, junior 
guard Katelynn Flaherty hoisted 
up a prayer that, somehow, went 
answered to tie the game.

Then, the unthinkable. 

Thompson was called for a foul 
while contesting Georgia Tech 
forward Elo Edeferioka’s jump 
shot with 0.6 seconds remaining. 
Seldom, if ever do referees call 
foul in moments in like that, but 

the whistle blew. It looked like 
one more shocking outcome 
awaited the Wolverines.

Instead, Edeferioka missed 

both free throws. Michigan did 
nothing to influence that, and 
no amount of will could have 
induced those misses. But given 
another chance, the Wolverines 
fought like hell. The game went 
into overtime, and then it went 
into another, then another. No 
other WNIT Championship 
had ever even gone to overtime 
before Saturday, but this one just 
wouldn’t end.

By the third overtime, the 

Wolverines had apparently had 
enough of leaving matters to 
chance. They put away the game 
and took home a double-digit win 
in triple overtime. Margins don’t 
usually get that steep in games 
that require so much extra time. 
Fifty-five minute games are rare, 
and the games that do make it 
that long are usually so close that 
they come down to one or two 
small plays.

Overtime is often decided by 

free throws. Triple overtimes are 
decided by will.

And on Saturday, Michigan 

was the team that wouldn’t let 
go. The Wolverines won the 
game, stormed the court and 
won the tournament they hadn’t 
even wanted to be in three 
weeks ago.

There was no way to go 

back and reverse the selection 
committee’s decision, no way to 
unfeel the emotions they felt in 
that bowling alley almost three 
weeks prior.

Instead, they felt something 

new: vindication.

Daily sports editor Sylvanna 

Gross and staff writer Ethan 
Wolfe contributed reporting to this 
column.

Bultman can be reached by email 

at bultmanm@umich.edu and on 

Twitter @m_bultman. Please @ him.

AMELIA CACCHIONE/Daily

Sophomore center Hallie Thome and the Wolverines managed to overcome the disappointment of missing the NCAA Tournament to win the WNIT.

MAX 
BULTMAN

SPORTSMONDAY COLUMN

‘M’ track enjoys success at Battle of the Blues

Last 
year, 
the 
Michigan 

women’s track and field team 
won the Battle of the Blues in 
Durham, N.C. while the men’s 
track and field team took 
second. This year, though, 
the roles reversed, and the 
men came out on top with 
the women following in the 
runner-up position. 

The 
Wolverines 
traveled 

south together to compete 
against 
Duke 
and 
North 

Carolina to open up the outdoor 
season. While the women’s 
competition 
was 
relatively 

close — Michigan’s women 
took second with 62 points, 
just 10 points below Duke and 
six above North Carolina — the 
men’s team claimed victory 
with 101 points with Duke 
trailing by 47 points. 

“It was really fun to be out 

there with all the guys, and the 
women’s team, too,” said senior 
thrower 
Grant 
Cartwright. 

“Something 
about 
outdoor 

season is a lot more fun than 
indoor season.” 

Cartwright, 
along 
with 

fellow All-American thrower 
junior Joe Ellis, contributed 
16 total points to the team’s 
overall score. Ellis claimed 
the hammer title with the 
second-best 
throw of his 
career 
(66.34 

meters) 
and 

Cartwright 
took the discus 
title 
with 
a 

career-best 
throw of 55.40 
meters. 

Michigan 

men’s 
coach 

Jerry Clayton 
was impressed by Cartwright’s 
performance, considering he 
was in three events in one 
day — discus, shot put and 
hammer. Cartwright, however, 
didn’t see that as a “burden” 
and focused instead on finally 
getting outdoors after a long 

indoor season. 

Joining 
the 
impressive 

throwing squad this year is 
freshman Andrew Liskowitz, 
who took the title for shot put. 
Cartwright believes it was the 
“highlight of the weekend” 
and emphasized how much the 
team rallied behind Liskowitz. 

Other notable 

performances 
from the men’s 
side included a 
one-through-
five 
sweep 
in 

the 1,500-meter 
run and the top 
two spots in the 
steeplechase. 
Senior 
sprinter 

Khoury 
Crenshaw 

claimed wins in both the 100-
meter run and 4x100 relay. 
The distance runners took four 
event titles with 11 top-four 
finishes. 

“It was an excellent meet,” 

Clayton said. “We had great 
performances in all the areas. 

Anytime you can win as a 
team, that’s what it was about. 
It was a really good day for the 
team.” 

Though the women didn’t 

fare as well as the men, 
Michigan 
women’s 
coach 

James Henry wasn’t looking 
to win — similar to his attitude 
last year. For him, the meet is 
meant to open the season with 
good competition and scoring 
is the least of his concerns. 

Senior distance runner Gina 

Sereno, though, still pushed 
forward to take first in the 
1,500-meter race with a time 
of 4:21.38 — a full two seconds 
over runner-up and teammate, 
senior 
mid-distance 
athlete 

Jamie 
Morrissey. 
Sereno, 

combined with the rest of 
the distance squad, racked 
up almost half of their team’s 
total. 

Although both Sereno and 

Morrissey don’t run the 1,500 
— it was Sereno’s first time — 
the duo pushed through the 
first 800 meters together. 

“As you’re running together 

you have a sense someone is 
running with you,” Sereno 
said. “It makes it easier to 
know someone else is there. 
(The race) was a product of us 
training together and working 
hard in pushing each other. 
Every race situation lends itself 
to a different outcome. But, 
being able to practice every day 
and knowing how we run led to 
this.”

Like the men’s side, the 

throwers contributed a great 
deal to the overall total. Junior 
Bailey Baker notched three 
points in the hammer throw 
with a distance of 55.17 — a 
full four-and-a-half feet better 
than her throw the previous 
week in the Pac-12 vs. Big Ten 
Challenge. 

“We got eight more meets 

before 
our 
conference 

championship,” Henry said. 
“This is one meet down and 
seven to go. This is a long long 
year, we want to improve and 
stay healthy and come together 
as a team. Those are our goals.” 

Men’s and women’s teams finish first and second, respectively, in Durham

SYLVANNA GROSS

Daily Sports Editor

EMMA RICHTER/Daily

Senior distance runner Gina Sereno managed to take first in the 1,500-meter race with a time of 4:21.38 on Saturday.

“Anytime you 

can win as a 

team, that’s what 

it was about.”

WOMEN’S GYMNASTICS
Michigan wins
NCAA Regional

The 
legendary 
musician 

John Denver once sang, “West 
Virginia, mountain mamma, 
take me home.” 

Though 
the 
Michigan 

women’s gymnastics team was 
350 miles from Ann Arbor, 
the Wolverines felt right at 
home at the NCAA Regional in 
Morgantown, W.Va. Michigan 
scored 197.50 points, which 
was enough to secure its 12th 
NCAA Regional victory. The 
Wolverines won five individual 
titles, tying a school record.

“They’re 

probably 
a 

little 
tired,” 

said Michigan 
coach 
Bev 

Plocki. 
“But 

right after the 
competition, 
they 
were 

definitely 
excited. It was 
a lot of fun.”

Michigan’s 

star 
performer was 
undoubtedly 
junior 
Paige 

Zaziski, 
who 

accounted 
for 
three 
of 

the 
Wolverines’ 
individual 

championships. Zaziski earned 
victories 
in 
the 
all-around 

(39.575 points), vault (9.875) 
and bars (9.950). As if all of 
that wasn’t enough, Zaziski 
was also substituted into the 
floor event at the last minute 
for junior Lauren Marinez, 
and subsequently placed third 
(9.900).

“My teammates talked to 

me before I went on the floor,” 
Zaziski said. “And I think that 
was really helpful. I was just 
ready for whatever happened 
and to do whatever was best for 
the team.”

Added Plocki: “Floor is an 

event that we’ve been trying 
to get (Zaziski) ready on. She’s 
done well at it in practice, but 
we’ve given her a couple of 
opportunities 
in 
exhibitions 

earlier this year and they didn’t 
go so well. So we just kept 
plugging away at it in practice 
and building up her confidence. 
We made a decision that we 
would see how the meet was 
going and where we were 
sitting. If things were looking 
good, we were going to change 
the lineup.”

But 
sophomore 
Emma 

McLean wouldn’t let Zaziski 
have all of Michigan’s glory. 

McLean excelled 
on the vault as 
well, 
tying 
for 

first place with 
Zaziski 
— 
not 

that 
Zaziski 

minded splitting 
a 
championship 

with 
a 
fellow 

Wolverine.

“I’m just glad 

that we all came 
up 
big 
today 

and won (as a 
team),” 
Zaziski 

said. 
“I 
didn’t 

really care about 
the 
individual 

awards.”

Senior 
Nicole 

Artz also earned a victory on 
the beam, tallying a season-high 
score of 9.925. Artz’s win was 
made more impressive by the fact 
that she was the only gymnast at 
the regional to score higher than 
9.900 in the beam event.

Michigan’s 
triumph 
in 

the 
Morgantown 
regional 

secured its spot in the NCAA 
Championships — which will 
be its 23rd appearance — in St. 
Louis, Mo. on April 14.

And 
if 
the 
Wolverines 

perform 
in 
the 
NCAA 

Championships like they did at 
the regional, Michigan will feel 
just as at home in St. Louis as it 
did in West Virginia.

NATHANIEL CLARK

Daily Sports Editor

“I was just 
ready for 
whatever 

happened and 
to do whatever 
was best for the 

team.”

