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2B — Monday, October 23, 2017
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
SportsMonday

‘M’ wins Big Ten championship 
in 1-0 victory over Northwestern

For the first time since 2011, 

the Michigan field hockey team 
is the outright regular season Big 
Ten champion.

Friday afternoon, the fourth-

ranked 
Wolverines 
(8-0 
Big 

Ten, 14-2 overall) took on No. 
8 Northwestern (5-2, 12-5) and 
earned a hard-fought 1-0 victory.

In the first half, Michigan 

outshot the Wildcats 8-3 and 
notched three penalty corners 
to 
Northwestern’s 
one. 
The 

Wolverines, 
however, 
were 

unable to convert their chances, 
and the two teams entered 
halftime in a scoreless tie.

The second frame, though, 

told a different story, with the 
Wildcats determined to increase 
their offensive aggressiveness.

Northwestern’s 
pressure 

resulted in two green cards for 
Michigan just two minutes into 
the second half. The Wolverines 
struggled to maintain possession, 
only worsening the situation.

But senior goalkeeper Sam 

Swenson came up big — as she 
has throughout her career — 
and saved the Wildcats’ three 
shot attempts. And as the half 
continued, the Wolverines began 
to find their footing. Around 20 
minutes in, Michigan flipped the 
script and put Northwestern on 
the defensive.

The Wolverines earned six 

penalty corners in the second 
half. 
They 
converted 
those 

into only one shot on goal. But 
that one shot proved to be the 
difference.

Just 10 minutes remained in 

regulation when junior defender 
Maggie Bettez pushed the ball 
out to sophomore midfielder 
Guadalupe Fernandez Lacort, 
who laid the ball off to senior 
midfielder 
Katie 
Trombetta. 

Trombetta’s shot was low and 
powerful, 
but 
a 
deflection 

sent 
it 
over 
the 
sprawling 

Northwestern goalkeeper to give 
the Wolverines the lead.

“Northwestern’s 
a 
great 

team and has a great defense,” 

said Michigan coach Marcia 
Pankratz. “We had a couple 
of opportunities, and we were 
just trying to stay patient and 
execute under pressure the best 
we can and it worked out.”

It was a dream finish to 

her regular season career for 
Trombetta, as her goal proved to 
be the decisive blow that pushed 
Michigan to the conference title.

“I mean, there are really no 

words to describe it,” Trombetta 
said. “We were just giving 
everything we got and to finish 
it off was just truly an incredible 
feeling. It just really amped us 
to finish those last nine minutes 
and not give them anything.”

The 
Wolverines 
controlled 

possession 
after 
they 
took 

the lead, but as time expired, 
Northwestern 
had 
one 
last 

chance off a penalty corner. Still, 
Michigan’s players held off their 
celebration and stayed composed 
in order to prevent a game-tying 
goal. 

“Don’t let them score, don’t let 

them get anything,” Trombetta 

said, 
describing 
her 
team’s 

mentality. “Just get it out and 
just give it all you goalkeeper 
your head down and keep your 
feet out the way.”

The Wolverines had clinched 

a share of the title last weekend 
with wins over Iowa and Indiana, 
but they maintained their focus 
on Friday and were able to win 
the conference outright.

“It’s a lot of pressure and they 

just stayed poised and tried to 
execute the gameplan,” Pankratz 
said. “They played as hard as 
they could, and I was just really 
proud of them.”

The 
Wolverines 
celebrated 

their championship at Ocker 
Field on Friday evening, but 
the team knows its season 
is far from over with the Big 
Ten Tournament coming up 
next weekend, and the NCAA 
Tournament soon thereafter.

“We want to work harder, 

and we want to win another 
championship,” Trombetta said. 
“It’s just going to keep pushing 
us to work as hard as we can.”

No surprise

This should come as no 

surprise.

As Saturday’s 42-13 blowout 

loss demonstrated, the 
Wolverines are not in the same 
league as No. 2 Penn State. And 
they never were.

Though Michigan’s 4-0 start 

planted seeds of optimism 
that the 
Wolverines 
could be 
better 
than what 
they were 
projected 
to be, it’s 
time for the 
harvest and 
the crops 
haven’t 
grown.

Michigan is no longer in the 

Associated Press Top-25 poll. 
That’s a long fall from grace for 
what was once considered the 
seventh-best team in the country.

Maybe that ranking made 

sense at the time. It doesn’t now.

To put it in perspective, Penn 

State was ranked No. 7 at the 
end of last season. That came 
after a year in which the Nittany 
Lions won the Big Ten and would 
have won the Rose Bowl over 
Southern California if not a last-
second field goal.

Of the five opponents 

Michigan has defeated this 
season, not one currently owns 
a winning record. The best of 
the five — then-No. 17 Florida — 
might have been blown out 33-17 
in the season opener, but seven 
weeks later, the Gators are just 
3-3.

Saturday night, while sitting 

in the visiting media room, fifth-
year senior quarterback John 
O’Korn tried to take a positive 
spin on the outlook of the 
Wolverines’ season.

“We can be as good as we 

want to be,” he said. “We’re 
gonna need some help now to 

accomplish all of our goals but … 
it’s up to us to make a decision to 
make this season what we want it 
to be.”

Before the 

year began, 
Michigan 
insisted that its 
goals centered 
on winning 
a Big Ten 
championship 
and contending 
for the College 
Football Playoff. 
Even though 
the Wolverines lost the majority 
of their starters on both offense 
and defense, they asserted that 
they were still capable of putting 
together that kind of season.

But maybe those shouldn’t 

have been the goals for a 
Michigan team with so much 
roster turnover. Even those 

Wolverines — the 
team with the 
most players 
selected in the 
NFL Draft last 
April — blew out 
the mediocre 
competition before 
falling short 
when faced with 
more challenging 
opposition 
courtesy of Iowa, 

Ohio State and Florida State at 
the end of the year.

At the start of this season, 

Michigan may have surpassed 
some of its expectations, thanks 
in large part to its No. 1 overall 

defense. Maybe before season-
ending injuries to redshirt junior 
quarterback Wilton Speight 
and freshman 
receiver Tarik 
Black, its 
offense would 
have had a 
better shot of 
doing the same.

But at this 

point, with 
contests 
against No. 
5 Wisconsin 
and No. 6 Ohio 
State still to come at the end of 
the year, an 8-4 season seems to 
be the most likely outcome for 
the Wolverines.

After the game, O’Korn was 

asked what message Michigan 

coach Jim Harbaugh had for 
his team given that strong 
possibility.

“The fake 

love’s gone,” he 
recalled. “There’s 
no bandwagon. It’s 
us. ”

Fifth-year senior 

linebacker Mike 
McCray backed him 
up, maintaining 
the belief that 
Michigan’s goal is 
to win out. 

As important as 

a confident mentality is, so is a 
firm grip of reality.

Just two weeks ago, the 

Wolverines said the same after 
an unexpected loss to Michigan 
State. They argued that one loss 

wouldn’t change their course of 
their season. But it essentially 
did.

Coming into the year, it was 

expected that Michigan would 
have to beat either Penn State, 
Wisconsin or Ohio State in order 
to prevent a step backward for 
the program. Not many people 
accounted for an additional loss, 
especially to a Spartan team 
coming off a 3-9 season.

Now, with two losses already, 

it would be bold to predict that 
the Wolverines will finish with 
fewer than four.

For Harbaugh, it would be the 

most losses of his tenure. After 
the game, he insisted that the 
Wolverines’ problems can be 
solved.

“We’re gonna do better. We’re 

gonna regroup, come back,” he 
said. “ ... We solve it with our 
team, and nobody can help us but 
us. We put our best people on it — 
our players and our coaches.”

When asked if they can be 

solved this season, his answer 
was a blunt: “Yes.”

I’m not so sure. Most of 

Michigan’s problems have 
to do with their youth and 
inexperience, important factors 
that somehow disappeared 
from the public consciousness 
after victories over teams that 
now look headed straight for 
nowhere.

Even those wins, from 

turnovers and penalties to bad 
decisions and halftime deficits, 
showed that the Wolverines 
have a lot of room to grow. Those 
games should have been the 
warning signs. 

While the experiences will be 

helpful for the future, that future 
involves buying a 2018 calendar.

That should come as no 

surprise.

Ashame can be reached at 

ashabete@umich.edu or on 

Twitter @betelhem_ashame.

ARNOLD ZHOU/Daily

Senior midfielder Katie Trombetta scored the goal that won the game and title.

AMIR ALI
For the Daily

SPORTSMONDAY COLUMN

AMELIA CACCHIONE/Daily

Fifth-year senior linebacker Mike McCray maintains that Michigan’s goal is to win out, but that’s easier said than done with Wisconsin and Ohio State left to play.

BETELHEM 
ASHAME

The fake love’s 
gone. There’s 
no bandwagon. 

It’s us

We’re gonna do 

better. We’re 
gonna regroup, 

come back

