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Thursday, May 3, 2018
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
SPORTS
‘M’ falls in Big
Ten Tournament
By BAILEY JOHNSON
Daily Sports Writer
Mattias Siimar was down 5-3 in the
second set of his singles match, and the
No. 3 seed Michigan men’s tennis team
needed him to win to move ahead of
No. 6 seed Wisconsin in the quarterfi-
nals of the Big Ten Tournament.
The freshman battled back and
won four straight games on his way to
a 6-4, 7-5 match win in the fourth spot
of the singles lineup. The victory pro-
pelled the Wolverines to a 4-1 win over
the Badgers to advance to Saturday’s
semifinal, where they fell to No. 2 seed
Illinois, 1-4.
“That was a big win for (Siimar),
winning that match on Friday,” said
Michigan coach Adam Steinberg. “It
was great for his confidence. He lost
to that guy pretty badly a week before,
two weeks before, so that was huge for
him and the team.”
Friday’s quarterfinal began with
Michigan’s No. 2 and No. 3 doubles
pairs winning their matches — senior
Alex Knight and freshman Harrison
Brown by a score of 6-2 and the nation’s
72nd-ranked pair senior Runhao Hua
and Siimar 6-3. The wins secured the
doubles point for the Wolverines, put-
ting them at a 1-0 advantage early.
“We’ve won, I think, seven or eight
doubles points in a row now,” Stein-
berg said. “It’s been a big boost for us.
Obviously on Friday — the first round
of the Big Ten tournament for us — it
was really important.”
Senior Carter Lin notched the first
singles win of the day for Michigan
with a straight-set win at the No. 5
singles spot. His match was close —
6-4, 6-4 was the final score — and
foreshadowed a tight day for the Wol-
verines.
Junior Myles Schalet lost his match
in three sets, giving up the only point
of the day for Wisconsin. Knight, Hua
and senior Davis Crocker all took their
first sets to tiebreakers, but all three
won those tiebreakers to go up a set on
their opponents.
Michigan’s best chance to advance
to the semifinals rested on the shoul-
ders of Knight. After winning his tie-
breaker, Knight fought for a 6-4 win in
the second set to earn the individual
match victory and secure a win that
would not have come without strong
play from the bottom half of the lineup.
“I think we have some of the best,
if not the best depth of any team in the
country,” Steinberg said. “The bottom
of the lineup is so strong that we have a
lot of confidence in those guys. .”
Saturday’s competition began with
Michigan winning the doubles point
once again. But another day of tight
matches in the singles play came just
after that, and this time, things didn’t
go the Wolverines’ way. They didn’t
win a first set in the singles play, set-
ting them up for a long day.
Schalet lost a lopsided singles match
1-6, 0-6 — by far the most unbalanced
loss of the competition for Michigan —
and that quick loss allowed the Illini
to tie the match early. Knight lost in
straight sets as well to give Illinois a
lead that the Wolverines were unable
to overcome.
Lin lost a quick first set 2-6, then
came back to win the second set, 6-2,
and give Michigan an opportunity at
its first singles win of the day. But Lin
dropped the third set 3-6, and the Wol-
verines were in trouble.
Both Hua and Siimar got up 4-1 in
their first sets, but neither could main-
tain the lead and lost the set, Hua 5-7
and Siimar in a tiebreaker. Hua recov-
ered to win the second set, 6-4, but his
match went unfinished in the third
set when Siimar lost his match to end
Michigan’s day.
Siimar once again found himself
down 3-5 in the second set, but his
comeback to tie the set at 5 games
apiece fell short as he lost his match
6-7 (2-7), 5-7.
“We were up in a couple of them big
and losing those first sets after win-
ning the doubles point was not how we
planned it, that’s for sure,” Steinberg
said. “It hurt us. We couldn’t recover,
and we tried to come back, and we did,
you know, Davis came back, and (Hua)
came back, and Carter came back, but
it was just a little too late. We needed
to grab a couple of those first sets and
really put pressure on Illinois, and we
couldn’t close it out, and that’s why we
went home early.”
Closing out tight matches will
become even more important for the
Wolverines with the NCAA Tourna-
ment coming as the next — and final
— event of their season.
“We need a little more belief when
those moments come,” Steinberg said.
“There’s going to be adversity, espe-
cially in the NCAA Tournament when
it’s win or go home, so we have to stick
together and play the Michigan way,
no matter if we’re up or down.”
Wolverines shatter records
MEN’S TENNIS
By JACOB KOPNICK
Summer Managing Sports Editor
In a sport designed to highlight
individual achievement, teamwork
and camaraderie are often over-
shadowed.
For the Michigan men’s throw-
ing unit, the opposite is true. The
tightly bound crew together soars
through the highest of highs and
suffers through the lowest of lows,
constantly feeding off the success of
their teammates.
Perhaps the most apt display of
this unit cohesion occurred this
past weekend at the National Relay
Championships at Arkansas.
The relay meet — the ultimate
test of togetherness — scored only
the running relay events with all
other athletes essentially compet-
ing in open competition.
Heading into the meet, the
throwing unit was completely
aware that every throw through-
out the day would not be counted
towards the team’s score and would
only serve as a testament to its com-
mitment to the sport.
In light of this, the throwers
delivered their greatest perfor-
mance of the season and shattered
the Wolverine record book.
Leading “The Meat Factory,” as
they have so fittingly dubbed them-
selves, was senior Joe Ellis who
shattered his own school record in
the hammer throw twice and ended
the weekend with a winning bomb
of 72.16 meters. In his conquest,
Ellis also humbled a pair of top-
ranked throwers from Florida.
“It’s all about competing,” Ellis
said. “Those guys have a lot of years
under their belts. They’re both from
Europe and started from a young
age and had a significantly higher
PR than me, so it’s one of those
things where you never like not
being the top-ranked guy going into
a meet, so both of those guys had a
bulls-eye on their backs.”
One of the Florida throwers,
Anders Eriksson, took the lead
heading into the event’s finals. Ever
a flare for the dramatic, Ellis over-
came him with the record-shatter-
ing throw.
Setting a record of his own and
contributing to the ethos of “The
Meat Factory” was junior Andrew
Liskowitz.
Not to be outdone by his team-
mate, Liskowitz delivered two
back-to-back
record-breaking
throws in the shot put to not only
win the event, but move within four
centimeters of the 2018 national-
leading throw. Liskowitz finished
with a throw of 20.28-meters and
a statement to the collegiate throw-
ing community.
While not setting a school
record, senior Grant Cartwright set
a personal record with a 67.12 meter
hammer throw to add an exclama-
tion point on his unit’s weekend.
“The Meat Factory’s” success
could be attributable to an entire
season of hard work and training,
the energy that the squad gives
each other—or a mix of both. What-
ever it was, there is no denying the
chemistry between the teammates
and how the athletes feed off it.
“We’re pretty much just always
in each other’s corner and it’s a very
special relationship,” Ellis said.
“It’s definitely something that I’ve
never been a part of in sport before
coming to this school and it’s defi-
nitely boosted me to do better than
I would’ve thought possible, espe-
cially considering the small amount
of time we’ve actually been train-
ing.”
Beyond training, the group of
throwers all live together to create
the ultimate culture of brotherhood
and success. This particular type
of bonding has clearly produced
promising results and is something
Michigan coach Jerry Clayton
hopes to distribute to other event
areas.
“They push each other both in
practice and in the weight room,
but they all live together too, so
they’re all focused and the culture’s
there,” Clayton said. “So the whole
team needs to do that and that’s
what we’re looking to do in other
event areas as well.”
From here, the throwing squad
appears to be in an ideal condition
entering the big postseason meets
beginning with the Big Ten Cham-
pionships in two weeks.
“Tomorrow’s gonna be a super
heavy lift,” Ellis said. “You gotta set
your nervous system back so you
can be super prepared for when our
conference meet is, and then it’s just
finalizing technique, working on
the rhythm of the throw. You can’t
make many too many major chang-
es two weeks out, so you just gotta
get ready for the event and then go
in with a very expectant attitude
and just do what your training has
taught you to do and just compete.”
Granted that they stick to what
they’ve been doing, “The Meat Fac-
tory” will stake their claim not only
in Michigan history, but in NCAA
throwing history as well.
FILE PHOTO / DAILY
The Michigan men’s throwing team shattered school records over the weekend event as testament to its commitment.