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Thursday, June 15, 2017
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com SPORTS
Wolverines compete at national meet
The Michigan track and field teams
sent eight athletes in total — five men
and three women — to compete at
the NCAA Outdoor Championships
last week in Eugene, Ore. from
Wednesday to Saturday.
While the Wolverines weren’t as
well-represented as they were last
year, when six men and five women
qualified for the national meet, they
made their presences count with
three All-American honors and an
individual national championship.
The women’s team finished 21st
overall with 10 points, and the men
placed 41st with a score of six.
The highlight of the competition
for Michigan was the performance
of junior Jaimie Phelan, who won
the 1,500-meter run to become the
Wolverines’ first national champion
in that event.
Phelan began the race in last place
out of 12 runners, and spent most of
the race there. But she flew into the
lead with 200 meters to go, and with
a blistering final lap of 61.62 seconds,
she held off Arkansas’s Nikki Hiltz
by two-hundredths of a second —
4:13.78 seconds to 4:13.80 — to win the
second-closest final in NCAA history.
The Ontario native won All-
American honors for a second straight
year after she finished eighth in 2016,
and caps off the year having won the
Big Ten and NCAA championships in
the 1,500 meters.
“(It hasn’t sunk in) yet, honestly,”
Phelan said. “It won’t hit for a while,
for sure. I think there’s still a lot to
accomplish — after this season, the
next big thing is to get ready for (cross-
country). It’s been an unbelievable
year.”
Michigan was also represented
in the 3,000-meter steeplechase
by junior Claire Borchers. After a
second-place finish at the Big Ten
Championships and a victory in
the NCAA Preliminary Round two
weeks ago, Borchers recorded a time
of 10:07.35 in the semifinals Thursday
— good enough for an honorable
mention All-American nod, but not
enough to qualify her for the final.
Senior Gina Sereno, who swept
the 5,000 and 10,000 meter races at
the conference championships last
month, put her undefeated record for
the season on the line Saturday night
in the 5,000 meters. Sereno asserted
herself in the lead pack for the first
half of the race, but with just under a
mile to go, she fell off that pace and
slipped to 15th, with a time of 16:03.55.
The men’s team has been able to
count on its throwing contingent for
consistent results this season, and
the NCAA Championships were no
different. Wednesday, sophomore Joe
Ellis — the 2017 Big Ten champion
and the program record holder in the
hammer throw — placed eighth in
that event with a toss of 70.33 meters
to finish eighth, which marked the
Wolverines’ highest finish in the
hammer throw since 1933.
Ellis had the longest throw of
any eighth-place finisher in history,
a testament to the quality of the
competition.
Ellis was joined in the throwing
events by junior Grant Cartwright and
freshman Andrew Liskowitz, who
finished 22nd and 23rd, respectively,
in the shot put to grab honorable
mention All-American nods.
Senior decathlete Steven Bastien
closed out his Michigan career with
a fourth-place finish in the decathlon.
Powered by five personal-bests, he
recorded a score of 8,015 — breaking
his own program record.
Bastien’s impressive finish may
have been most surprising to Bastien
himself. Injuries early in the year
threatened to derail his season, but he
instead will leave Michigan with All-
American honors to his name, as well
as a Big Ten championship.
“I just want to thank God, because
I didn’t see this happening,” Bastien
said. “I sort of imagined that I could,
but I just feel blessed to be able to
come to this school and have the
people around me that I had around
me to push me to this and to help me
achieve this type of thing.”
Bastien set personal records in
the 110-meter hurdles, 100-meters,
400-meters, high jump and pole
vault. His high jump success might
have been the most unexpected,
and because of this was the most
satisfying for him.
“As far as the whole injury thing
went, that was what was really setting
me back,” Bastien said. “Something
about the way I was taking off was just
really making my knee aggravated.
To have an outdoor PR, wasn’t really
expecting that at all.”
Sophomore Taylor McLaughlin
was the Wolverines’ sole running
representative, in the 400-meter
hurdles. After a first-team All-
American
debut
last
season,
McLaughlin was unable to advance
out of the semifinals, but ran a season-
best time of 50.18 seconds to be named
to the second team.
TRACK AND FIELD
JACOB SHAMES
Summer Managing Sports Editor
AMELIA CACCHIONE/Daily
Jabrill Peppers was announced as Michigan’s 2016-2017 Male Athlete of the Year.
Peppers, Minor named
Athletes of the Year
Monday, the University of
Michigan Athletic Department
announced its 2016-17 male and
female Athletes of the Year:
Jabrill Peppers (football) and
Brienne Minor (women’s tennis).
The honor has not gone to either
sport since Braylon Edwards
won for football in 2005.
The award puts Peppers and
Minor in contention for the Big
Ten Athletes of the Year, the
winners of which are ultimately
determined by a media vote.
The last Michigan athlete to
win was Peter Vanderkaay in
2006 for men’s swimming and
diving.
Peppers was the swiss-army
knife for the nation’s leading
defense, playing 15 different
positions for the Wolverines en
route to becoming a Heisman
award finalist and All-American
candidate.
His
impressive
on-field play and accolades made
him the 25th overall pick in the
2017 NFL Draft to the Cleveland
Browns, where he was drafted as
a safety.
Peppers’
all-around
talent
earned him the Paul Hornung
Award
for
being
the
most
versatile
player
in
college
football, and healso won the
Nagurski-Woodson
Defensive
Player of the Year, the Butkus-
Fitzgerald Linebacker of the
Year and the Rodgers-White
Return Specialist of the Year.
Peppers finished the season
with 72 tackles, four sacks, one
interception
and
one
return
touchdown, and his presence was
a constant threat for opposing
offenses.
Minor made headlines as the
first athlete in the Michigan
women’s
tennis
program’s
history
to
win
a
national
championship, doing so in a
miracle tournament run for the
2017 NCAA singles title over
No. 6 Belinda Woolcock. The
rising junior entered the NCAA
Tournament unseeded, ranked
below fellow Wolverine Kate
Fahey. Minor rallied for six
consecutive wins — dropping
just two sets along the way — to
clinch the title.
Minor ended her championship
season ranked ninth by the ITA
with a 33-6 singles record for
her
second
consecutive
All-
American
honors
in
singles
and a unanimous All-Big Ten
selection. She also finished 19-5
in dual matches.
KATELYN MULCAHY/Daily
Sophomore Brienne Minor was named Michigan’s Female Athlete of the Year.
ETHAN WOLFE
Senior Sports Editor