The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Sports
Thursday, January 18, 2018 — 5A
Freshmen key in Michigan’s win over Ohio State
All athletes dream of rivalry
wins and upsets.
The
freshmen
on
the
Michigan women’s gymnastics
team have had one of each — in
just two meets.
Better yet, two freshmen
—
Lauren
Farley
and
Syd
Townsend — played integral
roles in both those wins. And
they still have potential for
improvement.
Though both suffered falls
last week against then-No. 4
Alabama, their performances
in Saturday’s meet against Ohio
State showed no hints of their
first-meet struggles. And both
were major contributors to the
Wolverines’ final score of 197.55
— the highest in the nation so
far.
Both Townsend and Farley
earned spots in the starting
lineups on two different events
against the Buckeyes. Townsend
competed on vault and bars
while Farley performed on bars
and beam.
And
Sam
Javanbakht
—
a freshman who has yet to
make her collegiate debut —
contributed in a different way,
making sure the team kept up its
energy and focus.
“Everyone’s stepping up, all
the freshmen,” said junior Emma
McLean. “Even if people aren’t
competing, they’re stepping up
and they’re cheering and they’re
contributing … it’s gonna take us
far.”
For
Townsend,
a
former
Canadian national team member,
the team-focused environment
of the NCAA is a stark contrast
to her previous experiences.
“In Canada, we were part
of a team, but everyone kinda
individually wanted what was
best for themselves,” Townsend
said. “Here, everyone genuinely
wants you to do well and wants
you to succeed because it would
benefit the team.”
Michigan’s
camaraderie
helped Townsend bounce back
from a fall on vault last week.
This week, she earned a 9.925,
the second-highest vault score of
the meet.
“Knowing that they actually
do have my back and they can
pull out the score if I mess up …
was awesome,” Townsend said.
Despite leading off on the
uneven bars — a position in the
lineup that often garners lower
scores — Townsend received the
highest score on the event with
a 9.90. Farley’s score wasn’t far
behind with a steady set.
But where she really had
the chance to shine was on
beam. She showcased a unique
beam routine featuring a back-
handspring-layout-stepout-
layout-stepout flight series and a
Gainer pike dismount.
“That
beam
routine
was
great,” said Michigan coach Bev
Plocki. “This is her first time in
the bar lineup, she rocked it, and
she’s right there in the mix on
floor as well, so really proud.”
And though floor was the only
rotation that didn’t feature any
freshmen Saturday night, that
could change soon.
After scoring had concluded,
Townsend
performed
an
exhibition routine on the floor
exercise. It was a test run of
sorts, a chance to practice in
front of the crowd and see how
she would be scored by real
judges, but without the pressure
of having her score count.
Townsend’s score of 9.80
showed an ability to hang
with the team’s veterans — no
easy task on the Wolverines’
historically-strongest event.
“We
were
contemplating
putting her in the lineup,” Plocki
said. “(But) in order to earn your
way, you have to exhibition first.”
Last season, Michigan lost
two of its strongest floor workers
in Talia Chiarelli and Nicole
Artz, leaving big shoes to fill.
So while Townsend’s floor is
currently a depth option, it has
the potential to become much
more than that.
“She’s one that still has a lot
left in the tank,” Plocki said.
“We have a lot I think we can
still improve upon with her.”
In a sport like gymnastics, it’s
often hard to know how much
the freshmen will contribute.
But as their two big wins
demonstrated, the Wolverines
don’t have much to worry about.
Seniors show out in loss
In a head-to-head dual for first
place, Evan White pushed forward
to close the gap of centimeters
between him and the frontrunner,
Indiana’s Vini Lanza. With the
crowd rallying behind White, the
senior gave a last hurrah in the
final lap.
He came up short.
Just as White had, the No. 8
Michigan men’s swimming team
fell to the fourth-ranked Hoosiers
in a close dual meet despite giving
its best efforts. Though the seniors
put the team in a contending
position, the Wolverines couldn’t
come out on top.
Despite the loss, Michigan
rose to the occasion. Coach Mike
Bottom claimed that the team had
“one of their fastest dual meets by
far on the men’s side and women’s
side.” However, rising even higher
was Indiana, who also had one of
its fastest dual meets on both sides.
Other silver linings of the day for
Michigan were key performances
from two of its seniors captains —
PJ Ransford and White.
Putting on a show for the 200-
and 100-yard Butterfly, White
came out on top for one of two
close contests and placed second
on the other. Despite the result of
the 200-yard, he had the claim
to a first-place finish throughout,
falling just short in final moments
of the last lap. He finished with a
1:44.30, just .45 seconds from the
winning time.
However, rather than feeling
down about his flawed finish in the
200-yard Butterfly, he entered his
next event, the 100-yard Butterfly
with a clear mind and intense
focus. Determined to bounce back,
he came from behind to overtake
Lanza in the final lap, finishing
with a 46.47, a tenth of a second
faster than the second-place finish.
Instead of taking in the cheers
or getting distracted by results and
emotions from the first race, White
admitted that only one thought
ran through his mind as he swam:
“Just try hard and score points for
Michigan.”
Likewise,
Ransford
had
a
similar approach to the meet. A
slow starter — Bottom noted that
Ransford “normally kinda sits
back and builds into it” — Ransford
chose to go head first into action in
both his races, claiming the lead
early into the laps.
Knowing that he had to score
points on the distance races,
Ransford took it upon himself to
try and give the Wolverines the
advantage. Keeping scoring on
his mind, he came out fast while
controlling the pace to dominate
the competition.
“What a great swim he had,
both the 500-yard and the mile,”
Bottom said. “Both of those were
great swims. He went out for it,
he didn’t mess around, did he? He
went out for it. This time I think he
wanted it. He wanted it bad.”
His desire to win showed, as he
finished the 1,000-yard freestyle a
near half-lap ahead of any Indiana
swimmer — coming in at 9:01.88.
“First half of the season, it’s
tough because you’re working
really hard,” Ransford said. “The
second half, you start to do a bit
more speedwork. And I was hitting
my stroke count really well. But it
is nice in a race to jump on it and
be able to tell halfway that we’re
going to get first, second for sure.”
Being able to see the surefire
victory provided relief to Ransford
as he witnessed a sweep in the
500-yard freestyle, with Michigan
claiming the top three times. With
a time of 4:23.03, Ransford paved
the way for the underclassmen to
follow.
Despite
their
individual
achievements, the Wolverines were
neither pleased nor disappointed
with their performance.
“It’s always tough to take a loss
at home, but Indiana is a great
team,” White said. “I think all our
guys showed strong mentalities
and no one was down after. It was
in season. It was just good racing
and practice for the end of the
season.”
ARIA GERSON
Daily Sports Writer
ALEC COHEN/Daily
Freshman Syd Townsend — a former Canadian national team member — was a key contributor to Michigan’s final score of 197.55, currently the nation’s best.
TIEN LE
Daily Sports Writer
MEN’S SWIMMING AND DIVE
With road wins, ‘M’ all but seals tournament berth
W
hatever validation
the Michigan wom-
en’s basketball team
needed, it
got — and
then some.
The
Wolverines
went on
the road
this week
with March
hanging
in the bal-
ance. No.
19 Michi-
gan (5-2 Big Ten, 16-4 overall)
had no need to worry about
the NCAA Tournament until
recently. The Wolverines
waltzed through their non-
conference slate, the only slip-
ups coming against Louisville
and Notre Dame, two of the top
five teams in the country.
Big Ten play started well
enough — two easy wins with
a loss at then-No. 23 Iowa
sandwiched between them. But
after dropping a close one to
then-No. 10 Ohio State in Ann
Arbor and narrowly escaping
against unranked Indiana, a
two-game road trip was the
opposite of what Michigan
needed.
Adding to the loss column
against a formidable Nebraska
team and the eighth-ranked
Buckeyes would have put the
Wolverines below .500 in the
Big Ten. The margin for error
would have been all but gone
with just nine games left in the
regular season. And, for a team
that lost out on the Tourna-
ment last season after dropping
three of their last four and
exiting in the first round of the
Big Ten Tournament, familiar
alarm bells would have rang
through Crisler Center.
When Michigan boarded the
plane to Lincoln last Friday, it
was staring down the possibili-
ty of moving to the tournament
bubble and going through the
whole ordeal again.
Down three with eight sec-
onds to go against the Corn-
huskers, that possibility was
inches away from becoming
reality.
After a timeout, Michigan
ran a pick-and-pop with senior
guard Katelynn Flaherty and
freshman forward Hailey
Brown. Nebraska’s Jasmine
Cincore got over the screen and
nothing opened up. The ball
found freshman guard Deja
Church, who had no choice
but to attempt a desperation
3-pointer as the clock reached
its final second. She was fouled
— a lifeline — and sunk all
three free throws to tie it.
“I was almost in disbelief,”
coach Kim Barnes Arico told
WTKA. “I wasn’t sure that
she would be able to do it. But
you know what’s funny about
her is that she made every big
play — like she seems to have a
knack.”
For the rest of the trip, the
Wolverines never looked back.
Michigan ran away with the
game in overtime, then went to
Columbus and came back from
a 10-point first-half deficit
to beat Ohio State on its own
court. It was only the fifth time
the Wolverines have beaten a
top-10 team in program his-
tory.
“We went right to a pick-
and-roll option where we had
a high blast to try to get Hallie
(Thome) the ball inside, and
we were able to do it the first
couple possessions (of the sec-
ond half),” Barnes Arico said.
“Then they tried to pack it in
the paint and once they did
that, we were able to kick and
find Katelynn.”
Thome and Flaherty fin-
ished as Michigan’s leading
scorers, putting up 27 and 21
points, respectively, with 18 of
Flaherty’s total coming in the
second half as the Wolverines
mounted their comeback and
pulled away en route to an
84-75 win.
Instead of the bubble, Michi-
gan returned to Ann Arbor
with a tournament bid all but
official.
Instead of a collapse, the
Wolverines rose to the occa-
sion.
With a signature win under
their belt and the season’s
toughest road trip out of the
way, the rest is simple: Hold
the line and Michigan is in.
Ethan Sears can be reached
at searseth@umich.edu or at
@ethan_sears on Twitter.
AARON BAKER/Daily
Freshman guard Deja Church was clutch for Michigan in its win over Nebraska last week, sinking three free throws to send the game to overtime.
‘M’ a piece away from top
Friday’s wrestling meet was
about as close as you’d ever see,
but you would never know by
looking at the final score.
The score also couldn’t show
you how thunderous the cheers
were throughout Crisler Center,
the
close
matches
against
defending national champions
or the boisterous disapproval of
controversial calls.
No. 1 Penn State (2-0 Big Ten,
6-0 overall) was, in the end,
more aggressive and technically
sound than the eighth-ranked
Michigan wrestling team (2-1,
5-2), eventually topping them,
25-12.
The
Wolverines’
three
wins of the meet came from
freshman Drew Mattin at 125
pounds,
redshirt
sophomore
Stevan Micic at 133 pounds and
fifth-year senior Adam Coon at
heavyweight.
Michigan took the first two
matches of the night with relative
ease as Mattin and Micic each
earned major decisions to put the
Wolverines up 8-0. However, this
was the calm before the storm,
as Michigan went on to drop
the next seven matchups — five
of them to defending national
champions.
The Wolverines did not have
momentum on their side, as it
eluded the team all night despite
the largest home crowd they have
ever seen. The Nittany Lions
consistently began each match
aggressively, as nearly every
Penn State wrestler was able to
secure a takedown early on.
“In every match the guy who
scored the first takedown won
the match,” said Michigan coach
Joe McFarland. “That shows you
how important getting that first
takedown is and getting that
momentum on your side.”
In what may have been the
quintessential match of the night,
redshirt junior Alec Pantaleo fell,
6-4, to Jason Nolf, the defending
national champion and top-
ranked wrestler at 157 pounds.
The match began like any
other that night as Nolf scored
a quick takedown at the start
of the first period. After Nolf’s
escape to start the second period,
Pantaleo started a difficult uphill
climb with a takedown of his
own. Down only a point heading
into the third, Pantaleo elected
to start in the down position, a
decision he would later regret
as Nolf held onto him for the
remainder of the match for a 6-4
win.
“You can say it was a bad
decision all you want,” Pantaleo
said. “But from last year I’ve
made big strides, and I was really
confident when I chose bottom.”
Ultimately, this sentiment may
have been indicative of the match
as a whole: Michigan was on the
cusp but could not match up to
the Nittany Lions’ near-technical
perfection.
Now
that
the
Wolverines
have faced the top team in the
nation and know what it takes
both mentally and physically to
wrestle with the best, they are
optimistic about their chances
the next time they see Penn State
on the mat.
“I’m looking forward to seeing
the video review to see what I did
wrong so I can fix it,” Pantaleo
said. “There’s so much that we
can watch on video to see how
they’re doing it and not let it
happen again.”
All in all, this match was a
gargantuan battle that justified
the switch from the quaint Cliff
Keen Arena to Crisler Center on
Friday. Additionally, while it may
seem fruitless now, the energy in
Crisler undoubtedly galvanized
Michigan
and
instilled
a
previously unknown energy.
“Finally getting in here it was
really exciting,” Coon said. “We
were all just really amped up,
ready to go for a big dual against
the returning national champs,
but there were nerves and
excitement as well — we were just
amped up.”
Added McFarland: “It’s a great
atmosphere in here, you can feel
it — our fans showed up and it
was a great atmosphere. I wish
we could’ve win a few more of
those close ones, but it just wasn’t
in the cards I guess.”
WRESTLING
JACOB KOPNICK
Daily Sports Writer
ETHAN
SEARS