4B — October 29, 2018
SportsMonday
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Skjodt needed now more than ever for ‘M’

A 
sense 
of 
dread 
crept 
through Crisler Center in the 
middle of the first set.
The 
No. 
12 
Michigan 
volleyball team faced a 14-9 
deficit to No. 7 Wisconsin, with 
seemingly no momentum or 
chance to fight back into the 
set. The Badgers had stifled 
the Wolverines’ 
attack 
to 
that 
point, 
denying 
them time and 
time 
again 
as 
they 
attacked 
through the left 
side.
Facing a top-
10 
team 
with 
injuries to two 
key 
members 
of the starting 
lineup, junior outside hitter 
Sydney 
Wetterstrom 
and 
redshirt junior middle blocker 
Cori Crocker, there was a 
feeling this one could get away 
from Michigan early.
Then, senior outside hitter 
Carly Skjodt happened.
Due to a rotation in the lineup, 

Skjodt 
started 
to 
position 
herself in the center of the court 
after beginning the game on the 
left side. This rotation sparked 
an exhilarating 16-4 run, as the 
Wolverines came back from the 
early deficit to take the first set, 
25-18.
“She’s 
been 
our 
most 
dominant player in all aspects 
of the game for honestly the 
entire 
season,” 
said 
senior 
libero 
Jenna 
Lerg. 
“She’s 
done 
a 
great 
job 
recently 
of putting the 
team 
on 
her 
back and I’m 
really honored 
to play next to 
her.”
After 
Michigan 
dropped 
the 
next two sets — 25-16 and 
25-22 — it once again felt like 
Wisconsin was closing in on 
the Wolverines, especially after 
it rallied from a 22-20 deficit 
to claim the third set with five 
straight points in a crucial 
period of the match. 
But late in the fourth set, 

with Michigan facing a 21-18 
deficit and the match on the 
line, Skjodt stepped up to serve. 
All of a sudden, the next seven 
points were in the Wolverines’ 
favor to take the set, 25-21, as 
they tied up the match going 
into the deciding set after yet 
another frantic rally spurred by 
Skjodt.
Michigan ultimately dropped 
a heartbreaker, losing the fifth 
set, 15-1. But it 
was hard to not be 
enthralled 
with 
the performance 
put on by Skjodt, 
who 
is 
coming 
off recent back-
to-back Big Ten 
Player 
of 
the 
Week honors.
Skjodt finished 
the match with 
an astounding 71 
swings on the evening, 25 more 
than the next highest total of 
46 notched by freshman outside 
hitter Paige Jones. She had 27 
kills on those 71 attempts for 
a hitting percentage of .268, 
second-highest on the team 
despite being the primary focus 
of the Badgers’ defense all 

night.
“She’s a warrior right now. 
She’s taking so many swings 
for us, way more than we’d like, 
and way more than she’d like,” 
said Michigan coach Mark 
Rosen. “She’s producing, and 
so we’ve got to get her the ball. 
To beat the elite teams, you 
have to have balance to what 
you do, and I think that Carly 
is doing everything that she can 
do right now. 
She’s a great 
competitor.”
With 
the 
recent injury to 
Wetterstrom 
and 
the 
continued 
absence 
of 
Crocker, 
the 
performance 
of Skjodt has 
allowed 
the 
Wolverines to remain in the heat 
of the Big Ten conference race 
amid a relentless schedule in 
arguably the most competitive 
conference in the NCAA.
Skjodt has been the anchor 
of the offense all season for 
Michigan, leading the team in 
total kills (302), kills per set 
(4.14) and swings attempted 
(823), all while maintaining a 
hitting percentage of .281.
The 
schedule 
only 
gets 
tougher from here on out 
for 
the 
Wolverines, 
with 
upcoming road tests against 
Indiana and No. 7 Wisconsin 
before returning home to face 
Maryland and No. 9 Nebraska.
If she continues along this 
path, Skjodt will remain the 
key for Michigan in holding 
its ground against conference 
rivals.
“She’s a great leader, and a 
great volleyball player,” Rosen 
said. “She’s trying to carry as 
much of a load as she can, and 
she loves being in that role 
because she wants the team to 
win.
“It’s never about Carly, it’s all 
about ‘How can I help the team 
win?’”

DARBY STIPE/Daily
Senior outside hitter Carly Skjodt recorded 71 swings against Wisconsin on Friday with 27 kills for a .268 hit percentage.

“She’s been our 
most dominant 
player in all 
aspects...”

JAKE KARALEXIS
Daily Sports Writer

“She’s 

producing, and 

so we’ve got to 

get her the ball.”

‘M’ utilizes corners in 
win over Northwestern

Senior back Maggie Bettez 
crouched in the back left 
corner of Ocker Field, moving 
the ball into place as she 
prepared to put it in play. Her 
teammates lined up on the 
semicircle surrounding the 
goal as Northwestern’s three 
backs joined their goalkeeper 
in the net to defend against 
the penalty corner.
 
As 
soon 
as 
the 
ball 
left 
Bettez’s 
stick, 
the 
players sprung into action. 
Northwestern’s 
defenders 
flew 
forward, 
covering 
Michigan’s 
attackers, 
who 
quickly 
pulled the ball 
outside 
the 
circle 
before 
moving back in 
to take a shot 
on goal. The 
Wildcats 
not 
lined up in the 
net, who had 
been 
waiting 
at midfield for the ball to be 
put into play, rushed back 
into the fray.
 Penalty corners played a 
major role in the Michigan 
field 
hockey 
team’s 
3-1 
victory over Northwestern 
in the quarterfinals of the 
Big Ten tournament Sunday. 
The Wolverines (13-5 overall, 
7-1 Big Ten) earned five 
corners in each half, helping 
Michigan keep the pressure 
on 
the 
visiting 
Wildcats 
(9-10, 3-5) throughout the 
game. This also resulted in 
the majority of Michigan’s 24 
shots on goal.
 “We feel really confident 
in our offensive corners,” 
Bettez said. “It’s something 
we practice a lot, so when it 
comes time in the game, we 
just fall back on the training 

that we’ve had, and we just 
want to get it right every time. 
It’s kind of muscle memory at 
that point.”
 In field hockey, a team 
receives a penalty corner as 
a result of a foul inside the 
circle. The offensive team 
can line up as many as nine 
players; the defending team 
can only have four plus the 
goalkeeper. One player on 
offense lines up on the corner 
to put the ball in play, known 
as the insertion. Once the 
ball is inserted, it must leave 
the circle before it can be 
shot, and the players on the 
defensive team not lined up 
can run into the 
play.
 Most teams 
practice several 
different 
corners, and the 
coach will call 
a specific play 
for each corner 
depending 
on 
the 
opponent, 
the score of the 
game, the time 
remaining in the game or a 
particular player or defensive 
lineup.
 “We’re always practicing 
every day to be super precise 
with our corner execution,” 
said Michigan coach Marcia 
Pankratz. “We had about four 
or five corners that we had 
planned just for Northwestern 
and we were just trying to 
execute them under pressure, 
and I thought we did a good 
job of that today.”
 
The 
Wolverines’ 
next 
game is the Big Ten semifinal 
against Iowa on Friday in 
Evanston. They will look to 
continue improving on their 
offensive efficiency and on 
capitalizing on their corners 
as they continue into the 
postseason.

ABBY SNYDER
For the Daily

“We feel really 
confident in 
our offensive 
corners.”

Michigan hosts Big Ten Championship

At the Big Ten Singles and 
Doubles Championship over 
the 
weekend, 
expectations 
were high for the Michigan 
men’s 
tennis 
team. Last year’s 
championship 
in East Lansing 
saw the duo of 
then-freshman 
Harrison 
Brown 
and 
now-graduated 
senior 
Davis 
Crocker 
take 
the Big Ten title 
in doubles play. 
At last week’s ITA Midwest 
Regional 
Championships 
in 
South Bend, Ind. the doubles 
pairs of freshmen Andrew 
Fenty and sophomore Mattias 
Siimar, as well as junior Connor 
Johnston 
and 
senior 
Gabe 
Tishman, rode two victories 
each to the quarterfinals, while 
Fenty made the quarterfinals 
again in singles play after 
earning four wins.
“I think the guys are ready 
to go. They are deep into the 
fall now,” said Michigan coach 
Adam 
Steinberg. 
“They’ve 
competed, played and practiced 
for two months so we should be 
playing at a really high level 
right now.”
The 
tournament 
also 
provided 
the 
opportunity 
to 
test 
out 
some 
new 
combinations.
“We 
switched 
up 
our 
doubles teams so that is the one 
unknown area right now,” said 
Steinberg. “They really haven’t 
played together very much so 
that will be interesting to see.”
Both 
doubles 
teams, 
comprised of Tishman and 
sophomore Harrison Brown, as 
well as Johnston and freshman 
Patrick Maloney, earned two 
wins apiece after three rounds 
of round-robin play.
“I haven’t really played with 
(Tishman) too much but that 
was actually a lot of fun out 
there,” Brown said after an 8-2 
win alongside Tishman in the 
first round of doubles play on 

Friday. “We both bring a lot of 
energy. He likes the forehand 
side and I like the backhand 
side, 
so 
it’s 
pretty 
much 
perfect.”
Expectations were similarly 
high for singles play. “We want 
to take home the 
title. We want 
number 
one,” 
Tishman 
said. 
“We had an okay 
tournament last 
weekend but we 
want to come 
back 
to 
our 
home court and 
show 
the 
Big 
Ten what we are 
capable of.”
Despite strong performances 
from each of the four who 
participated 
in 
the 
singles 
tournament, the Wolverines 
ultimately fell short of those 
expectations. 
Tishman, 

Johnston and Maloney each 
made runs to the quarterfinals 
before 
being 
eliminated, 
logging hard-fought wins in the 
rounds of 32 and 16. Harrison 
Brown, who said he had hoped 
to make a deep run after being 
unseeded, 
bowed 
out 
in 
the 
round 
of 16 after a 
loss to Iowa’s 
Will 
Davies. 
Third-seeded 
Dominik 
Stary 
of 
Northwestern 
went on to take 
the 
singles 
title 
Sunday 
afternoon.
Although 
they 
didn’t 
walk away with a title this 
weekend, 
the 
Wolverines, 
especially the underclassmen, 
felt they came away with a 

better understanding of their 
competition. “It’s good for 
them to get this experience 
to play because they haven’t 
seen the conference as much,” 
Steinberg said.
“It’s great for them to see 
what they’ll be 
up against … in 
the 
spring, 
so 
that’s 
what 
I 
like about this 
tournament.”
Added 
Tishman: 
“We 
have 
a 
young 
team, 
with 
(Schalet) 
and 
I as the senior 
captains 
and 
they’re really adapting well … 
This is Michigan, so we’re not 
satisfied with anything but 
a win. We’re really looking 
to become a family and do 
something special this year.”

AIDAN WOUTAS
For the Daily

FILE PHOTO/Daily
Sophomore Harrison Brown and his partner, senior Gabe Tishman, had two wins in three rounds of round-robin play

“We want to 
take home the 
title, we want 
number one.”

“It’s great for 
them to see 
what they’ll be 
up against...”

The Michigan Daily Top 10 Poll 

Each week, Daily sports staffers fill out 
ballots, with first-place votes receiving 10 
points, second-place votes receiving nine 
and so on. 

1. Alabama: Trent Richardson ain’t 
walkin’ through that door.

2. Clemson: Tajh Boyd ain’t walkin’ 
through that door.

3. Notre Dame: Brady Quinn ain’t 
walkin’ through that door.

4. LSU: Odell Beckham Jr. just took the 
door and is headbutting it on the side-
line.

5. Michigan: Blake O’Neill ain’t 
waaAAAAHHH AND THE BALL IS 
FREEEEE!

6. Georgia: Everybody in Athens is too 
drunk to walk through that door.

7. Oklahoma: Sam Bradford’s sleeves 
ain’t fittin’ through that door.

8. Ohio State: Your text messages to 
Urban Meyer ain’t walkin through that 
door.

9. Washington State: Uhhh... that Col-
lege Gameday flag ain’t wavin’ through 
that door...? Or I guess it might?

10. Kentucky: John Calipari is paying 
somebody to walk through that door for 
him.

FIELD HOCKEY

