4B — Monday, March 12, 2018
SportsMonday
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Michigan falls to Ohio State, 3-2, in overtime thriller
COLUMBUS — The Big Ten
semifinal had all of the ingredients
for a classic showdown. There
was an NHL arena, a streaking
Michigan team and a consistently
powerful Buckeye offense that
has managed to prevail in all
four of the teams’ matchups this
season.
The No. 11 Wolverines (11-
11-3 Big Ten, 20-14-3 overall)
— coming off a late-season push
— had the chance to claim a win
over the only Big Ten team they
hadn’t been able to topple to date.
With neither team finding the
advantage in regulation, it would
take a wrist shot from Ohio State
center Matthew Weis in overtime
to lock the win, 3-2.
“We won’t find many teams
better than Ohio State,” said
Michigan coach Mel Pearson. “So,
I think we can really take some
positives from this game. We’re
not happy about the outcome,
but we’re happy with some of the
things we did in the game.”
At the outset of the game’s
highly-anticipated
faceoff,
it
wasn’t entirely clear which team
would assert the upper hand.
“We knew what we had to do
coming in,” said senior right wing
Tony Calderone. “We had to get
pucks behind them and get their
defensemen working.”
The Wolverines let loose the
first six shots of the game, and
while they successfully claimed
the momentum early, it would
be the sixth-ranked Buckeyes
(15-8-2, 24-8-5) that would go
on to counter those early efforts,
outshooting Michigan 35-31.
After a called-off goal due to
a delayed penalty around seven
minutes into play that saw Ohio
State
forward
John
Wiitala
punch the puck past sophomore
goaltender Hayden Lavigne, it
was evident that Ohio State was
starting to flex its touted high-
output offense.
Buckeye
forwards
Mason
Jobst — who has a team-leading
41 points — Brendon Kearney
and Wiitala spearheaded the
aforementioned early pressure,
producing numerous gasps from
the crowd as Lavigne’s saves were
seemingly too close for comfort.
And
with
3:58
remaining
in the first period, Ohio State
defenseman Gordi Myer blasted
the puck up and over Lavigne’s
glove on the man advantage to
take first blood, showing off
why the Buckeyes’ power play is
ranked eighth in the nation.
But while their stat sheet at
the end of the first would suggest
complete dominance, freshman
defenseman Quinn Hughes drove
down the ice halfway through
the period and loosed a wristshot
that ricocheted off the post,
proving that the Wolverines were
within reach of slipping one past
Sean Romero.
Michigan spent the first ten
minutes of the second period
relentlessly chipping away at the
Ohio State defense, and its efforts
finally yielded fruit thanks to
a diving Cooper Marody who
patted a loose puck down and
flipped it past Romero.
The junior center’s equalizer
clearly helped change the tide of
the game, completely reversing
the trend in momentum that was
formerly in the Buckeyes’ favor.
But just as the Wolverines
could have ridden a scoring wave
to take the upper hand, Calderone
committed a holding penalty
that saw a subsequent onslaught
of shots from Jobst and others,
which Lavigne barely staved off.
Hughes, along with senior left
wing Dexter Dancs and the rest
of the Wolverines’ attacking arm,
continued applying pressure to
the stalwart Buckeye defense at
the outset of the third period, but
Romero and his back line kept
shrugging off shots and cross-ice
passes with ease.
“(Hughes is) worth the price
of admission,” Pearson said. “It
was one of those games, he had
a couple post, crossbar, one of
those goes in it could change the
outcome of the game because it
came down to one shot.”
And with four penalties to
Ohio State’s one — the most recent
being a holding-the-stick call on
Hughes — Buckeye center Dakota
Joshua made Michigan pay on the
power play with a deflection over
Lavigne’s head to give them a 2-1
lead.
Ohio State’s euphoria was
short-lived, though, as Marody
graciously spun through the slot
on the man advantage, slipping
the puck right past Romero’s left
blocker to tie the game at two
apiece.
But in the end, Weis found the
back of the net for the Buckeyes.
They
upheld
their
winning
streak against the Wolverines
and earned a place in the Big Ten
Tournament final.
MAX KUANG/Daily
Junior forward Cooper Marody tied the game at two with a goal in the second period of Michigan’s 3-2 overtime loss to Ohio State this past weekend.
ROBERT HEFTER
Daily Sports Editor
Wolverines learn from loss, prepare for NCAA Tournament
COLUMBUS
—
Barring
unforeseen circumstances, the
No. 11 Michigan hockey team has
punched its ticket to the NCAA
Tournament.
The
berth
comes
despite
a 3-2 overtime loss to No. 6
Ohio State in Saturday’s Big
Ten
Tournament
semifinals.
The Wolverines (20-14-3) fell
just three spots to No. 10 in the
PairWise rankings, still safely
within the top 16 teams to receive
at-large bids to the postseason
tournament.
A
victory
in
Columbus
would’ve added to Michigan’s
seven-game winning streak and
a chance at the conference title.
It also would have elevated the
team’s pride for defeating its
rival after bowing in all four
regular-season showdowns.
The first single-elimination
loss of the season sent the
Wolverines home for an idle
week before learning about their
tournament fate. But Michigan
experienced
the
perfect
precursor to playoff hockey
against a Buckeyes team (24-
8-5) with the nation’s fourth-
best offense and power play and
college hockey’s best penalty
kill.
Now, Michigan coach Mel
Pearson’s squad has time to iron
out the kinks.
“I’ve liked the growth of our
team,” he said after the game. “If
we’re fortunate to get into that
(NCAA) Tournament, this is a
good warmup for that because
you won’t find many teams
better than Ohio State.
“We’re not happy about the
outcome, but we’re happy with
some of the things we did in the
game. Things to build on and
improve on.”
First, the positives.
Outscored 15-6 in the first
four duels against the Buckeyes,
the Wolverines were one shot
away from tying — or upsetting
— the host team. The first two
Ohio State goals were answered
by Michigan, both off the stick of
junior forward Cooper Marody.
After allowing a power play
goal late in the
first
period,
the
Wolverines
responded
halfway through
the
second
to
momentarily
silence
Nationwide
Arena.
They
maintained
pressure in the
zone with three
shots on net in a minute, before
a loose rebound batted around
in the crease. Finding the puck
in front of him, Marody grabbed
it in the air, placed it at his feet
and, while falling, flipped a
wobbler past Buckeye goaltender
Sean Romero to tie the game at
one apiece.
Early in the third frame,
Ohio State would regain the
one-goal
lead
— again on the
man
advantage
— when a shot
from the point
was
redirected
off three skaters
and crept past
sophomore
goaltender
Hayden Lavigne.
But
Marody
was back at it
again just three minutes later.
Seven seconds into a Wolverines’
power play, he produced another
highlight goal. Entering the
slot, his body spun toward the
goal, and he ripped the puck
past Romero’s left pad for the
equalizer with 12:33 remaining.
Despite generating both goals,
Marody instead credited his
teammates.
“That was just showing how
great (freshman defenseman)
Quinn Hughes is,” Marody said.
“He was weaving inside, outside
and all over the zone. We had
(senior forwards Dexter Dancs
and Tony Calderone) working
really hard, and I just tried to
bang it in. It shows you how good
my linemates are.”
Hughes also added three shots,
two assists and two clean looks
at the net that blitzed Romero,
but both were stopped by the
post. The youngest player in
college hockey evaded defenders
with
wizardly
stickhandling
to
establish
quality
scoring
chances.
But there were also negatives.
It
started
with
untimely
and avoidable penalties. Four
shorthanded sequences against
a
destructive
power
play
spelled
disaster
for
Michigan’s
penalty kill, the
nation’s
fourth-
worst with just
a 75.34 percent
success
rate.
After outplaying
Ohio
State
at
even
strength,
the
Buckeyes
would convert on
two of four man
advantages.
Pearson also cited faceoffs
as an area to be stressed in
preparation
for
the
NCAA
Tournament.
The
Buckeyes
won a lopsided 35 draws to the
Wolverines’ 22.
“That’s just an indication of
the urgency and the desperation,
and the will and the want and
the intensity,” Pearson said.
“We’ve got to be better there.”
With
16
players
on
the
Wolverine
roster
without
NCAA Tournament experience,
Pearson is hyper-focused on
injecting an extreme desire to
fend elimination.
“You have to make sure you’re
absolutely ready, do everything
in your power to be ready to play,”
Pearson said. “I’ve been through
it for 22 years at Michigan, and
I’ve been through a couple of
last years in other schools so I
get it, I’ve seen it and I think I’ve
got a good idea of what it takes
to prepare. But our players, you
can’t give them that experience.”
Going into Saturday night’s
contest, Pearson told his skaters
they weren’t attending a ballet,
but instead a boxing match.
The same mantra applies to
the rest of the postseason.
During the second half of the
season, Michigan went 7-0-1 in
its last eight entering Saturday
and 8-3-1-1 to end the conference
season. It gracefully leapt from
win to win down the stretch —
save three losses to Ohio State
and one to Wisconsin — but is
resolute to exchange slippers for
boxing gloves to stand a chance
in the ring against hockey’s best
teams ahead.
No matter its
status
as
one
of
the
hottest
teams, Michigan
learned Saturday
night that one
loss in a single-
elimination
scenario
brings the end
to
its
come-
from-behind,
storybook season. And Pearson
knows it.
“The next time we won’t get a
next time,” he said. “You can call
that pressure or you can call it
opportunity, but you can’t hide
from it.”
Uden’s hard work pays off
The work done by athletes
behind the scenes and in the
offseason
pays
dividends
throughout the course of a
season for both the player and
the team. The latest example
of this for the No. 22 Michigan
softball team took place in the
bottom of the seventh inning
against Ball State this past
Saturday.
The bases were loaded with
two outs in a game tied at two.
Sophomore infielder Madison
Uden stepped up to the plate —
hitless on the day.
In the game’s key at-bat,
Uden focused on remaining
relaxed, looking for a good
pitch to hit. She didn’t get the
pitch she was looking for, but
instead drew the count full
before watching ball four miss
the zone.
The
final
play
of
the
game was by no means a
glamorous walk-off. However,
it demonstrated the progress
Uden has made since last
season and earned the win for
her team.
“I commended her after
that Ball State walk-off walk
because last year’s (Uden)
might have torn herself out
of the at-bat,” said Michigan
coach
Carol
Hutchins.
“I
think
she’s
matured.”
Last
year,
Uden
was
a
.255 hitter who
appeared
in
fewer than half
of
the
team’s
games.
This
year,
she
is
hitting a team-
high .396 over 48 at-bats and
has played in 19 of 24 games
thus far. Over the weekend, she
tallied nine hits in five games
and has recorded a hit in six
of the last seven games. Her
recent hot streak, however,
didn’t come overnight.
“I did a lot of vision training
in the offseason,” Uden said.
“Just focusing on getting better
pitches and being consistent
with my mechanics and really
working on my timing.”
Her offseason focus on a
more patient approach and the
emphasis on vision training
clearly showed in the victory
over the Cardinals. In the
biggest at-bat of the game,
Uden
remained
cool
and
collected, unfazed by the heat
of the moment — a testament to
her offseason training.
The work put in throughout
the
offseason
paid
off,
resulting in a win for the team
and more playing time at third
base for Uden.
“I think she’s done a nice
job of staying within herself,”
Hutchins
said.
“We’re
not
asking her to do any more
than she’s ever been capable
of doing. I’m pleased with the
progress, and we’re giving her
some looks at third base.”
Uden’s emergence as an
offensive threat was a big part
of the Wolverines’ perfect
weekend and current 12-game
winning streak. With Big Ten
play less than two weeks away,
Uden is hitting her stride right
in time as her
confidence and
focus is at a
season-high.
“We’re
trying to find
who’s
gonna
lead
us
and
who’s
gonna
step up when
we need them,”
Hutchins said.
“Who can we
count on to get things done for
us and ultimately, we’re just
trying to create a trust within
the entire unit and it takes all
of them to win.”
SOFTBALL
JORGE CAZARES
Daily Sports Writer
“I think she’s
done a nice
job of staying
within herself.”
MAX KUANG/Daily
Freshman defenseman Quinn Hughes drew praise from his teammate, senior forward Cooper Marody, for his play against Ohio State.
BENJAMIN KATZ
Daily Sports Writer
Now, Mel
Pearson’s squad
has time to iron
out the kinks.
“The next
time we
won’t get
a next time.”
Michigan looks forward after a 3-2 overtime loss to Ohio State on Saturday eliminated it from the Big Ten Tournament