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.”