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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.

