2B — October 29, 2018
SportsMonday
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

The Rosens’ last job
A

little under 20 years
ago, Mark and Leisa
Rosen
were looking
for their last
job.
The couple
had coached
volleyball
together at
Boise State
in 1998, but
they wanted
to start a
family. So
they needed a stable job to
facilitate a changing home-life
— one that, if all went well,
would be the only job Mark
and Leisa would have for the
rest of their careers.
Michigan fit the bill then,
as Mark joined as the head
coach in 1999, bringing Leisa
along as an assistant before
she became the associate head
coach. Twenty years later, the
Rosens are still here.
Mark is now the winningest
volleyball coach in Wolverines
history, and he has done it all
with Leisa, the associate head
coach, by his side.
The pair has overseen nine
All-Americans and 16 of the 17
NCAA Tournament berths in
Michigan’s history.
“We talk about it now,”
Mark said of the 20-year
benchmark.
“We’re both
very, we don’t
have a lot of
pictures in our
house. We’re
not people
that think a lot
about the past.
We think about
the current, the
present. But,
you know, when
we see (former players) it
makes me think about that.”
On Saturday, the Rosens’
former players were at Crisler
Center in droves. Six of them
stood behind Rosen and a
group of reporters following

the Wolverines’ straight-set
loss to No. 3 Minnesota.
The smiles and laughs the
players were sharing were not
indicative of the result of the
match they had just watched.
Mark and
Leisa’s first
recruit, Erin
Brown was at
Crisler Center
too, though she
wasn’t on the
floor after the
game. Mark says
Brown stays
with the Rosens
“all the time.”
“My sons
think of her as a sister,” Rosen
said.
That is the most prominent
example of tenets Mark and
Leisa have tried to instill in
the program from day one.
“When Leisa and I got here,

we wanted to build a program
based on values,” Rosen said.
“… It is a family, you know,
but it’s not the same. It’s not
the same as blood relatives.
But we wanted an atmosphere
where people
cared about
each other —
where people
were unselfish,
where people,
you know,
they put their
teammates and
their program
ahead of
themselves and
really cared
about each other deeper than,
‘Hey, I played next to you. We
were teammates.’
“And so, when we go to a
wedding, and we see so many
of the players come back and
be there for their teammates,

that makes me really proud,
because it’s like, that’s our
culture.”
Freshman outside hitter
Paige Jones already feels the
family atmosphere in her first
season. She says
it permeates
through the
whole program,
stemming from
the closeness of
the players just
as much as the
Rosens.
But it isn’t
a coincidence
that a team run
by a husband
and wife feels familial to the
players within it.
“Mark and Leisa are
awesome,” Jones said. “They
have our back. They want
the best for us in everything
besides volleyball.

“Leisa is definitely more, I
don’t want to say aggressive —
she’s more fiery,” Jones said.
“She’s the one that will get on
us, because she knows that
that will make us better. She
said yesterday
in the locker
room that she’d
rather beat
up on us than
another team
come out and
beat up on us.
And then Mark
is, I mean, they
both have great
volleyball IQ. So
Mark is the one
that’s just telling us what we
can do better in more of a laid-
back type of way.”
Apparently that mix of
coaching styles has worked.
The Wolverines had a tough
weekend on the court, as

they also lost to Wisconsin
on Friday night, but the two
losses are just Michigan’s
fourth and fifth losses of the
season.
The Wolverines are on track
to make their 17th NCAA
Tournament under the Rosens.
It would have been hard for
anyone to imagine just how
well Mark and Leisa’s hiring
would work out for both them
and Michigan.
“It’s cool to now fast
forward 20 years later and
say, ‘You know what, we
made a really good choice,’ ”
Mark said. “You know, it’s a
great place to be. We love it
here. I love everything about
Michigan, in terms of the
academics, the atmosphere,
the culture. It’s a great place.
So I feel really good that we
ended up here.”
It’s easy to say that with
the success the Wolverines
have had under Rosen, but you
can tell Rosen is talking more
about the non-volleyball parts
of his job and Michigan as a
whole. He speaks most fondly
of the players he has had in his
20 seasons, like the ones who
came back to Ann Arbor this
weekend.
The Rosens have established
themselves as good coaches,
and they have done it by
establishing
their culture.
Everything
has gone well
enough for them
to still be in
Ann Arbor.
In the
middle of their
20th season
at the head
of Michigan,
it seems the
Rosens found their last job
after all.

Persak can be reached at

mdpers@umich.edu or on

Twitter @MikeDPersak

EVAN AARON/Daily
Michigan volleyball coaches Leisa and Mark Rosen have left an undeniable mark on their program in their 20 seasons at the helm together.

Blue line dominates in Michigan’s
3-1 win over St. Lawrence Saturday

When Quinn Hughes went left
against St. Lawrence, he was,
more often than not, right.
In the No. 12 Michigan hockey
team’s 3-1 win over the Saints,
the sophomore defenseman quite
literally found a zone — the left
point. Whether it was his score
or one of his two assists, the
Wolverines relentlessly funneled
their offense to the left point.
Michigan started the game
with a lot of pressure on the
Saints’ back line, dominating the
puck for much of the first period.
While St. Lawrence goaltender
Austin Brey started the game
strong, the Saints’ blue line
didn’t do him any favors.
Although
St.
Lawrence
crowded the center of the ice
near the goal, that left the rest
of the offensive zone free for
Michigan. As a result, each of
the Wolverines’ 13 shots in the
first period went unblocked by
the Saints’ defense, with most of
those coming from the top of the
zone.
“[St. Lawrence] gets a stick
on you or an arm on you, they
really make it difficult for you to
do anything down low and even
on the rush they have people
back,” said MIchigan coach Mel
Pearson. “ … So what that does is
open up the blue
line. You have to
go low to high
and
then
just
get to the next,
and get in traffic
and make things
happen.”
Brey matched
his
Herculean
effort
from
Friday
night
before with 37
saves, and started off by blocking
a slapshot by sophomore forward
Jack Becker from the top-middle
of the zone, then doing the same
minutes later on a shot from
freshman forward Garrett Van
Wyhe.
The
Wolverines,
though,
dialed up the intensity, eventually

finding twine 5:52 into the game
when Norris deflected in a shot
from Hughes with his left skate.
In the third period, Michigan
scored an almost-identical goal,
as Olmstead notched his first
career goal after getting behind
Brey and taking in Hughes’ pass
from the left point.
With the Wolverines bringing
the
heat
at
even
strength,
the
offensive
flow
naturally
transferred over
to the power play
as well. Seven
minutes
after
the
first
goal,
Hughes
found
himself in the
same
spot
as
before, corralled
a cross-ice pass from senior
defenseman
Joseph
Cecconi
and knocked in another score to
increase the Wolverines’ lead to
2-0.
“Their forwards were coming
out really hard so we didn’t have
a lot of time,” Hughes said. “Like
I said before, we have to make a

quick play and fortunately we
had good screens.”
Even while Michigan couldn’t
take advantage of its next three
power-play
opportunities,
its
blue line held strong, though,
holding the Saints to 19 shots
for the game — and only five
shots in the second period. St.
Lawrence’s lone goal came off a
faceoff rebound that careened to
the net — one of just two shots for
the Saints in the period.
And after allowing 11 shot
attempts on the left side of
the ice in the first period, the
Wolverines allowed just two in
the second period. On a Saints
breakaway, freshman goaltender
Strauss Mann deflected a shot
with the outstretched tip of his
right mitt, just barely preventing
a top shelf goal. For the game,
Mann saved 18 shots.
While Michigan won’t always
be able to pick and choose its
spots on either side of the puck as
much as it did Saturday, keeping
that intensity and pressure both
ways will serve them well as they
move on to bigger and better
opponents.

Michigan defense stepping up

Few numbers speak louder for
a defense than a shutout and one-
goal-conceding game.
Over
the
weekend,
the
Michigan hockey team swept
St. Lawrence, winning 3-0 and
3-1 Friday and Saturday night,
respectively. The wins came in
large part due to its resurgent
defense.
“I think the last couple games,
we gave up, I don’t know the
exact number, but I think it was
around 20 goals,” said sophomore
defenseman Quinn Hughes. “So
obviously, it’s not good enough if
we want to win. I think one of the
main focus points coming into
this weekend was cleaning up
our defensive game, and I think
we did a really good job with that
this weekend.”
A good job might be putting it
lightly. Having turned the ship
around, the Wolverines’ united
defense
played
earnestly,
a
welcoming display for fans after
letting five goals in each of the
their first three games.
Shot
blocking,
defensive
hustle and upped physicality
all contributed. A team needs
all three in order to hold the
opposition under 20 shots — as
Michigan did both nights this
weekend. The biggest display
of a defensive team effort is the
discipline.
Previously,
the
Wolverines
committed 15 penalties through
three games. Over the weekend,
they committed only one each
game — coinciding with the best
defensive performances of the
year.
“How many did we take
yesterday, just one? I think that
speaks for itself,” said sophomore
forward Josh Norris. “You know,
(Michigan coach Mel Pearson)
is always preaching about being
the least penalized team in the
country. And, starting yesterday,
for the most part, I think we were
pretty disciplined and especially
against a team like that, that’s
pretty physical and can get
underneath your skin, so I think
we did a good job with that.”
St. Lawrence won’t just get
underneath the opposing team’s

skin. The Saints will get above
it too. As Pearson noted, they
have sticks and arms around
players that make it difficult to
do anything down low — which
is where they focused in return.
“They collapsed down low,”
Pearson said. “They really clog
it up. Even on the rush they have
people back.
“They do a good job. They play
defense first. They really grind.”
Down low is where a lot
of the physical nature of the
game comes into play. Battles
for positions, hard drives and
scruffles for the rebound define
the area of play. So it’s easy to
see how penalties will get called
where sticks, bodies and words
are easily exchanged.
“We’re really trying to up
the ante on physicality in the
d-zone,” said freshman forward
Michael Pastujov. “And anyone
who knows me knows I’m not a
big hitter, but the opportunity
was there so I just took it and
I think it shows that even the
guys who aren’t known to be big
hitters could still play physical.”
But throughout the weekend,
the Wolverines played within the
boundaries of the game except

for two moments.
The only lapse in the first game
came from an unnecessary play.
“I didn’t like the one penalty
we took,” Pearson said. “In the
offensive zone, just jumped up
and hit a guy, and we didn’t need
to.”
The
second?
Just
as
unnecessary — as senior forward
Brendan Warren committed a
minor interference resulting in
a call.
“Hockey
is
a
game
of
mistakes,” Pearson said. “You’re
gonna make mistakes. and you’re
just trying to limit how many
you make and not make them in
critical times.”
And
that’s
part
of
the
discipline that was showed both
nights. Even though the two
penalties were committed, they
were done in times where they
didn’t really attribute to the flow
of the game.
“If we can do that, we continue
to keep it three or under power
plays a game, we’re going to be
in good shape,” Pearson said.
“We have to play disciplined, not
only in penalties but within our
system, and I’m starting to see
more and more of that.”

ALEXIS RANKIN/Daily
Sophomore defenseman Quinn Hughes notched a goal in Saturday’s game.

RIAN RATNAVALE
Daily Sports Writer

“Like I said
before, we have
to make a quick
play.”

TIEN LE
Daily Sports Writer

EVAN AARON/Daily
Sophomore forward Josh Norris tallied a goal and assist on Saturday.

“We’re not
people that
think a lot
about the past.”

“ ‘You know
what, we made
a really good
choice.’ ”

“It is a family,
you know, but
it’s not the
same.”

MIKE
PERSAK