The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
SportsMonday
Monday, September 17, 2018 — 3B

Two units and two perspectives 
A

s 

Donovan 
Peoples-Jones 
surveys the 
media during 
postgame 
interviews, he 
compliments 
his 
quarterback 
for sparking his collegiate 
breakthrough performance.
Peoples-Jones found the end 
zone three times in Michigan’s 
45-20 victory over SMU, so a little 
praise was warranted. That very 
quarterback, junior Shea Patter-
son, sits beside the wide receiver 
on stage, squeezing his shoulder 
after the shoutout.
“I feel like we’ve been doing 
a heck of a better job,” Peoples-
Jones says of the offense. “Today 
showed improvement, but we’ve 
gotta keep working hard.”
It is a snapshot of a quarterback-
wide receiver duo that has been 
there, done that in the past. They 
see the offense is clicking — it has 
outscored last season’s high of 36 
points in consecutive games.
Shortly after, Chase Winovich 
walks into the room with his 
chest puffed but an expression of 
nonchalance. The fifth-year senior 
defensive end is asked if he thinks 
the defense is as dominant as 
advertised.
“I feel like you’re pigeonholing 
me into a response,” Winovich 
says through a grin.
The answer to the question, for 
those with eyes and a television, 
was a resounding “no.” Allowing 
20 points — 15.7 per game on aver-
age — wouldn’t qualify as domi-
nant, though it’s a far cry from a 
concern.
But giving up 166 yards and 
two touchdowns to the Mustangs’ 
James Proche is. Seven defensive 
penalties — 13 in total — are. Espe-
cially when you are expected to be 
a top-five defense in the country.
“I think we played pretty 
decent and we could do a lot 

better,” said junior safety Josh 
Metellus, who recorded a pivotal 
pick-six on Saturday. “We strive 
on being the best defense in the 
nation.
“Today, we didn’t really look 
like it.”
The dichotomy between the 
offensive excitement and defen-
sive indifference is uncharacteris-
tic, but unsurprising. The stalwart 
defense believes it’s trending in 
the wrong direction, while the 
identity-seeking offense believes 
the opposite. Both could be true, 
but that doesn’t guarantee the 
same results. Problems with pen-
alties and giving up long plays 
— those plaguing the Wolverines 
against SMU — have slowly been 
injected into their character.
Michigan has committed 27 
penalties through three games 
— 113th in the country. A stag-
gering 21 have come on defense, 
12 of which have resulted in first 
downs. Call it early season rust, 
but that time is evaporating. Call 
it a byproduct of Don Brown’s 
aggressive defense — one that’s 
ranked in the top five nationally 
the past three seasons — but you 

must question if it’s worth it, espe-
cially with the toughest games 
ahead.
“How we see ourselves is how 
we performed in the most recent 
game, and I felt like we made a 
lot of mistakes, especially with 
penalties,” Winovich said. “… That 
was not ideal, especially when 
you can’t be extending drives. I 
feel like SMU wasn’t able to take 
advantage of those as other teams 
down the road will.”
Against Western Michigan 
on Sept. 8, penalties and mental 
lapses were excusable — three 
of six defensive flags came in 
garbage time after all. You’d be 
hard-pressed to find a comment 
more boilerplate than “we need to 
improve next week.”
Now, the offense and defense 
combined for another blowout 
against the Mustangs, but with 
incongruent evaluations of their 
respective units. Redshirt junior 
tight end Zach Gentry thought the 
offense was “getting better every 
week” with “a lot more to prove.”
The forthright Winovich was 
hardly as anticipative.
“It seemed like we were a lot 

more confident in the way the 
game went last week, in terms of 
just positivity,” Winovich said, 
“And just, I don’t know — I don’t 
want to say that we were like, ‘Gee, 
oh my god, this is amazing.’ But we 
were definitely more optimistic, 
just the way things had gone.
“... This week, it just felt like we 
had a lot mistakes and stuff that 
we need to address. And that was 
kind of the attitude. Especially in 
our minds, now shifted to Nebras-
ka, Big Ten play. There’s both of 
those coming into play. We’re not 
getting too high on this win.”
The sentiment comes as a reck-
oning for the Wolverines as the Big 
Ten slate commences. The rose-
colored glasses are off on Michi-
gan’s strongest unit, impermeable 
to Jim Harbaugh’s coachspeak.
The Wolverines didn’t look 
like a team that took a uniform 
step forward yesterday. But it just 
depends who you believe, the 
offense or the defense.

Wolfe can be reached at 

eewolfe@umich.edu or on 

Twitter @ethanewolfe.

Youth gets first action at 
the Spartan Invitational

John Tatter was supposed to 
run his first collegiate cross-
country race close to home.
The Winston-Salem, N.C. 
native — along with the rest 
of the Michigan men’s cross 
country team — was originally 
slated to compete in a meet 
hosted 
by 
North 
Carolina 
State. It would have been the 
perfect start to a career, the 
chance to show off his stuff 
to family and friends while 
getting acclimated to the world 
of college cross country.
But sometimes, things don’t 
work out the way they’re 
supposed to, and for Tatter and 
the rest of the team, there was 
a change of plans.
Because 
of 
Hurricane 
Florence, 
Michigan 
coach 
Kevin Sullivan decided he 
didn’t want to risk the safety of 
his team by traveling to North 
Carolina. Soon after that, the 
meet was cancelled and the 
Wolverines were forced to find 
a contingency plan. So instead 
of competing at North Carolina 
State, Michigan sent its young 
runners to the Auto Owners’ 
Spartan Invitational, featuring 
No. 24 Michigan State and 
several local teams — many 
of which compete in Division 
II or the NAIA — while its 
regular top four stayed home 
to train.
The 
Wolverines 
placed 
second as a team — behind the 
Spartans — with a total of 58 
points. Tatter placed sixth with 
a time of 25:21.4 and finished 
as 
Michigan’s 
top-ranked 
individual. It seemed like an 
uninspiring performance for 
a team that last year won the 
Big Ten Championships. But 
in some meets, the total focus 
is on winning while others are 
more for development, and this 
was one of the latter.

“We decided that we would 
leave our top four runners at 
home to train (because) they’d 
get better benefit from training 
through this week than racing 
here 
at 
Michigan 
State,” 
Sullivan said. “ … A lot of it was 
about gaining experience. For 
a lot of these guys, it was their 
first time running 8K and it’s 
a little bit different from what 
they deal with in high school.”
Still, Tatter’s performance 
flashed 
potential. 
Used 
to 
running the 5000-meter race, 
Tatter held his own at the 
longer 
distance 
and 
made 
his case for cracking the 
Wolverines’ lineup later in the 
season.
Redshirt sophomore Joost 
Plaetnick 
also 
impressed, 
finishing ninth with a time of 
25:28.2.
“(He) had probably his best 
competition for us in uniform,” 
Sullivan said.
And despite the lack of 
top finishers, five Michigan 
runners placed in the top 20 
— Tatter, Plaetnick, redshirt 
sophomore 
Jacob 
Branch, 
freshman Gabe Mudel and 
redshirt junior Kevin Hall.
With 
the 
Wolverines’ 
change in plans came a change 
in expectations. Michigan’s 
mindset shifted from that of 
the reigning Big Ten champions 
to a young team looking to get 
early-season experience. And 
in that light, while a second-
place finish and the 29th-best 
score in the country leaves a 
lot of room for improvement, 
it 
also 
demonstrates 
the 
Wolverines’ future potential.
“We all need to make a little 
move forward,” Sullivan said. 
“But the guys that are here 
this year are making a nice 
move towards that. So we have 
depth, we’re really young, 
so there’s definitely a big 
foundation that we’re building 
for the future.”

Wolverines beat Irish to remain undefeated

For 
a 
game 
with 
many 
unexpected turns, there was one 
constant in the No. 19 Michigan 
volleyball team’s matchup against 
Notre Dame.
For Michigan, it has been the 
same story all season long. The 
Wolverines have had a perfect 
season, winning nine straight 
games in sweeps before beating 
the Fighting Irish on Friday in 
three straight sets — 25-22, 25-17 
and 25-18 — to add another to 
the streak. The set streak finally 
came to an end on Sunday, but the 
winning streak stayed alive.
Friday’s 
match, 
though 
it 
appeared otherwise, did not come 
easily for Michigan. In fact, to start 
the match, Notre Dame went on a 
11-4 run to push the Wolverines 
into a calling a timeout in an 
attempt to shift the momentum. 
It was evident Michigan was out 
of sync and sloppy, a moment 
of lapse the Fighting Irish took 
advantage of and played to its 
fullest potential.
“(Notre 
Dame) 
touch 
everything with (its) block. They 
served really aggressively, and 
they’re digging,” said Michigan 
coach Mark Rosen. “Our outside 
hitters hit rockets in the first 
couple sets that got dug, and we’re 
just not used to that. So I think a 
little of that put us on our heels, 
and we had to figure that out.”
And just as Michigan was 
figuring out adjustments, Notre 
Dame found a way to match the 
Wolverines’ efforts. The Fighting 
Irish also grew negligent. Careless 
play came from both sides, with 
Michigan seeing the better end 
of many rallies. Two Notre Dame 
service errors, a floater from 
senior outside hitter Carly Skjodt 
and a Skjodt service ace later, 
momentum shifted in favor of the 
Wolverines to bring them within 
four. As the dust settled, it became 
clear who had the better of whom.
The pressure then started 
mounting for both teams, as they 
battled the remainder of the set, 
tooth and nail. Just when Notre 
Dame reclaimed the lead at 21-20, 
however, errors began to plague 
the Fighting Irish just as they had 

earlier to cost them at the most 
inopportune time — though part 
of it was the Michigan stepping up 
its defensive intensity. A service 
and two attack errors gave the 
Wolverines the chance to put the 
set away, and freshman outside 
hitter Paige Jones did just that.
Jones had a clear view of court 
as she hit a line drive straight into 
the center of court, ending the set 
with two quick kills. Jones, as she 
has with every game, answered 
with the composure and patience 
most veterans learn through 
experience. She ended with a 
game-high 13 kills, adding 10 digs 
for her first career double-double.
The patience and cohesiveness 
that pushed Michigan over the 
edge at the end of the first set 
carried over into the second as the 
Wolverines took the second set in 
a similar fashion, but with much 
less of a scare. Instead of being 
down a large deficit.
In part, it was due to the 
adjustments made by junior setter 
Mackenzi Welsh.
Hesitant to do so in the first set, 
Welsh started back-row setting 
in the second that opened the 
offense to more options previously 
blocked off by the Fighting Irish 
front line. By just opening more of 
the offense to becoming a scoring 

threat, the efficiency of the team’s 
attack increased.
While it only had a slight impact 
in the second, the third benefitted 
far more from the potent threat of 
the balanced offense — Michigan’s 
calling card.
“We need balance,” Rosen 
said. “For us, that’s our style of 
our game. And (the Fighting Irish 
are) a team that tries to take your 
balance away, because they serve 
really tough, so if your pass isn’t 
great, and your setter is on the 
run, she now has one option to 
set so that’s what they’re trying to 
do is make you unbalanced. And 
we’re trying to stay balanced, so 
that’s kind of like the battle within 
the battle.”
Just look at the numbers. The 
first set saw a .119 attack average. 
Well 
below 
average 
initially, 
thanks 
to 
Welsh’s 
previous 
expansion of the offense, there 
was a slight increase to .139 the 
second set before. the third saw 
a significant jump to a .441. The 
only jump more significant would 
be Paige Jones’ after she cut to the 
front center and ended the game 
on an emphatic spike.
What made the game tricky 
for the Wolverines wasn’t just 
the talent of their opponents — 
though it was definitely a factor. It 

was also the unique playstyle, one 
that Rosen could only describe as 
“unorthodox.”
“(The Fighting Irish’s) tempo 
is different,” Rosen said. “Trash 
balls, kinda like junk balls, it’s 
very unorthodox, and it can be 
frustrating for blockers because 
there are a lot of balls that you 
can’t block. You do everything 
right and they just junk it over 
the top, and they make your front 
row, opposite front row players 
play a lot of balls, who stand in 
transition, it’s hard for them to 
hit. They clog up your system a lot 
with what they do.”
But the most Notre Dame 
managed was to stagger — not stop 
— Michigan’s balanced offense. 
Key players such as Jones, Skjodt 
and junior outside hitter Sydney 
Wetterstrom couldn’t be stopped 
once they got into a rhythm. The 
team totalled three hitters with 
double-digit kills and four with 
double-digit digs. Welsh, Jones 
and Skjodt posted double-doubles.
“They threw a lot of things at us 
that we’ve never seen before, just 
kind of got us off balance a bit,” 
said senior libero Jenna Lerg. “So 
being all over the floor just calms 
us a little bit knowing that they 
can throw things at us but we’re 
just going to retaliate.”

‘D’ backs Michigan in 
weekend sweep of ND

The score was 17-17 in the first 
set.
After falling behind, 11-4, early 
to Notre Dame at home, the No. 
19 Michigan volleyball team (11-
0) fought all the way back to tie 
the set. Still struggling to find 
any real momentum to pull away 
from the Fighting Irishww, the 
defense saved four spikes before 
finishing the point off with a kill to 
take a lead that they would never 
surrender, en route to yet another 
straight set victory.
The play in the first set 
continued the trend of dominant 
defense that has been the catalyst 
behind the scorching start to the 
season for the Wolverines. Led 
by junior setter Mackenzi Welsh, 
redshirt junior middle blocker 
Cori Crocker up front and senior 
libero Jenna Lerg patrolling the 
back, Michigan has dominated the 
opposition with commanding play 
at all levels.
“We were able to come up with 
some big defensive plays in that 
first set,” said Michigan coach 
Mark Rosen. “Senior outside hitter 
(Carly Skjodt) came up with a 
couple of big digs, (Welsh) made a 
couple of digs and next thing you 
know we’re on a roll.”
The digs did play an integral part 
in the Wolverines’ victory. Lerg, 
Welsh, Crocker and freshman 
outside hitter Paige Jones all 
finished with double-digit digs in 

the match, as Michigan outdug 
Notre Dame 63 to 46. This was the 
first time since 2016 the Wolverines 
had four players record double-
digit digs in the same match.
“Jenna is a stud at libero. She 
pretty much can pick up any ball, 
which is so awesome playing next 
to her,” Skjodt said. “Our block has 
done a great job, which makes it 
easier for our floor defense at the 
back to read around it and pick up 
balls that we wouldn’t have been 
able to pick up otherwise.
The digs offer arguably the 
biggest evidence towards the 
dominance from Michigan this 
season. It has 497 digs on the 
season compared to 385 from its 
opponents. That averages out to 
16.6 digs per set, compared to 12.8 
from its opponents.
“Digging 3-4 consecutive plays 
in a row, it’s great. It really gets the 
crowd going which gets us going,” 
Lerg said. “It really tires out the 
other team because it’s exhausting 
when they keep swinging and keep 
swinging and don’t get anything in 
return. I think it really puts the 
other team at a disadvantage and 
then once we can finish the point, 
it’s really a momentum swing.”
The defense has kept them in 
control of their matches time and 
time again this season. With Big 
Ten conference play starting, that 
continued dominance could be the 
key for the Wolverines to continue 
to climb the national rankings and 
raise the ceiling for what this team 
can accomplish this year.

ETHAN 
WOLFE

MEN’S CROSS COUNTRY 

VOLLEYBALL

JAKE KARALEXIS
Daily Sports Writer

ARIA GERSON
Daily Sports Editor 

EVAN AARON/Daily
Senior libero Jenna Lerg has backed a stalwart Michigan defense this season.

EVAN AARON/Daily
Freshman outside hitter Paige Jones finished Friday’s match against Notre Dame with 10 digs and 13 kills, a career-high.

EVAN AARON/Daily
Fifth-year senior defensive end Chase Winovich was a part of a defense that received 13 penalties Saturday afternoon.

TIEN LE
Daily Sports Writer