4B — November 12, 2018
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

‘M’ topples Mount St. Mary’s, 88-40

On the first possession of 
the game, freshman guard 
Amy Dilk lobbed a pass from 
the 
right 
wing 
to 
senior 
forward Hallie Thome in the 
paint.
Thome failed to convert, but 
it didn’t matter. Sophomore 
forward Hailey Brown was 
there to grab the rebound and 
get her team on the board.
That opening play was a 
preview of how most of the 
game would turn out. The 
Michigan women’s basketball 
team (1-0) used its physical 
advantage to defeat Mount 
St. Mary’s (1-1), 88-40, Friday 
night at Crisler Center.
Offensively, the Wolverines 
pushed the tempo from the 
start. This sense of urgency 
didn’t 
result 
in 
success 
immediately, though, as the 
team missed quite a few early 
shots.
For instance, Brown had a 
couple unsuccessful attempts 
during the first few minutes. 
However, she kept attacking 
and the persistence paid off as 
she finished with 14 points.
“At the beginning of the 
game, I mean, my shot, it 
wasn’t falling,” Brown said. 
“So, if you’re a shooter and 
your shots aren’t falling, the 
next option is to drive.”
Five minutes into the first 
quarter, Dilk dished another 
effortless lob to Thome. And 
this time around, she scored. 
Thome dominated all night 
with her post play and led the 
team with 25 points and 10 
rebounds.
“She knows the game so 
well. It’s fun to definitely 
play with someone who has 
that much of a basketball 
IQ,” Thome said of Dilk’s 
passing. “So, I know every 
time the guards give me the 
ball, they’re putting me in the 
best position to score. So, the 
credit is all to them.”
Despite 
its 
offensive 
success, Michigan’s defense 
took time to settle in. This 
resulted in wide-open shots 
for the Mountaineers, who 

capitalized to stay in the 
game. The Wolverines led 
12-11 heading into the first 
media timeout.
Freshman 
forward 
Naz 
Hillmon and junior forward 
Kayla Robbins hopped on the 
court after the break. The 
duo gave Michigan the spark 
it needed to start putting the 
game away. The Wolverines 
soon went on a 7-0 run 
extending into the second 
quarter, 
and 
resulted 
in 
Michigan taking a 43-29 edge 
into the locker room.
Mount St. Mary’s defense 
had no answer for the rest 
of 
the 
game. 
At 
6-feet, 
junior Alexis Wooden was 
the 
Mountaineers’ 
tallest 
starter, thus they often had to 
double-team the Wolverines 
to compensate for the height 
disadvantage.
Michigan 
responded 
frequently 
with 
effective 
passing to find whoever was 
was left unguarded. The team’s 
solid 
ball 
movement 
also 
helped it excel in transition. 
In addition to Thome and 
Brown, Hillmon and senior 
guard Nicole Munger reached 
double digits in scoring with 

10 and 12 points, respectively.
The 
height 
mismatch 
significantly 
helped 
the 
Wolverines with rebounding 
as well. Michigan finished the 
game with 46 total rebounds, 
while 
Mount 
St. 
Mary’s 
grabbed 26.
As the lead grew bigger, 
the 
Wolverines 
expanded 
their rotation. Junior guard 
Akienreh Johnson was the 
only Michigan player who 
didn’t get playing time, as she’s 
recovering from an injury.
Even the newcomers found 
time on the court, as freshmen 
made 
fair 
contributions. 
Midway through the third 
frame, Hillmon fought for 
a loose ball near half court, 
pleasing both the crowd and 
Michigan coach Kim Barnes 
Arico.
“How ‘bout the spark she 
brought, huh?” Barnes Arico 
proclaimed. “She just brought 
a level of intensity and just 
dialed it up for us.”
Favored headed into the 
match, the Wolverines were 
expected to win and did just 
that. However, there is still 
an entire season to go for the 
Wolverines.

Michigan falls to Notre Dame, 6-2, in rematch for series split

A 
hockey 
game 
lasts 
60 
minutes.
Three periods of 20, two 
breaks in between.
Sixty minutes is what Michigan 
coach Mel Pearson expected 
from the No. 14 Michigan hockey 
team 
in 
Saturday’s 
matchup 
against No. 6 Notre Dame.
Forty, or two periods, is what 
he got, more or less.
The Wolverines fell to the 
Fighting Irish, 6-2, despite what 
Pearson thought was a good start 
to the game.
“I thought we were really 
ready to play tonight,” Pearson 
said. “I thought great start, one 
of the best starts maybe we had 
this year, we were all over them, 
created 
some 
great 
scoring 
opportunities, didn’t give them 
much.”
There are often question marks 
for a team after a successful bout 
— especially with the Michigan 
hockey team.
Throughout the season, every 
time the Wolverines have started 
to be successful, they have fallen 
under the trap of losing focus and 
taking things for granted.
When 
Michigan 
beat 
St. 
Lawrence on Oct. 26 - 27 for 
its first weekend sweep of the 
season, the team went on to lose, 
5-2, to Lake Superior State the 
following weekend. Sophomore 
Michael Pastujov noted they 
weren’t ready going into that 
matchup.
So the big question for the 
Wolverines was about whether 
Michigan was hungry enough 
to play a full 60 minutes in its 
rematch over Notre Dame, like 
Pearson thought they had during 
Friday’s 2-1 win.
The short answer is no.
To begin the game, however, 
the Wolverines didn’t skip a beat 
from its game the day before, 
going aggressively to the net 
and playing as equally physical. 
Lockwood opened the period 
with a shot on net after initiating 

a well-crafted attack to set the 
tone. The shot didn’t go in, but it 
was a warning for Notre Dame to 
be ready.
And 
soon 
after, 
senior 
defenseman 
Joseph 
Cecconi 
drew 
a 
penalty. 
Michigan 
saw 
success 
on 
the 
power 
play 
Friday, 
converting 
its 
first 
two, 
and 
tonight was no 
different.
In 
the 
dwindling 
stretches 
of 
the power play, 
sophomore 
defenseman 
Quinn 
Hughes 
shot 
a 
pass 
towards traffic. Junior forward 
Will Lockwood, who was in the 
midst of battling for position, 
tipped the puck and created the 
early 1-0 lead.
And the great start Pearson 

saw from the team was nearly 
capped off by a second goal.
Cecconi had wrapped around 
the 
net 
and 
found 
Hughes 
lingering around the crease. 
Hughes then passed the puck 
across ice to Norris, who was 
waiting 
at 
the 
other side of the 
net and tapped 
the puck in.
The 
goal, 
however, 
was 
called back due to 
offsides.
“It’s the right 
call,” 
Pearson 
said. “But if that 
goes in, it’s 2-0, 
and we had them 
on their heels, and that just gives 
you a little more momentum.”
The overturned call marked 
the turning point of not just 
Michigan’s momentum, but its 
efforts as well.
Michigan, who had been so 

stout defensively, began to loosen 
up. Notre Dame found its first 
high-danger 
attempt 
stopped 
by junior goaltender Hayden 
Lavigne, who extended his leg to 
stop the rebound from turning 
into an easy open-net goal.
Then, 
the 
goaltending 
heroics 
ended 
shortly after that.
The 
Fighting 
Irish scored, and 
did it quickly.
“Basically 
a 
couple 
bad 
decisions, 
a 
couple easy goals 
at the end of the 
first 
period,” 
Pearson said. “We go from that 
lead, almost two nothing, it was 
offside, tough break for us, good 
break for them.
“But again, we gave up two 
goals within two minutes to end 
the first, and then we gave up 

three goals in four minutes to 
start the second period. And that 
was the game.”
To put it simply, the Wolverines 
were demoralized after Notre 
Dame’s two goals.
In hopes of turning the tides 
back to how they 
originally were, 
Pearson switched 
goaltenders, 
bringing 
in 
freshman 
goaltender 
Strauss Mann.
Mann 
had 
held Notre Dame 
to 
only 
one 
goal in Friday’s 
matchup, 
and 
in order to weather the storm, 
Pearson hoped he’d replicate his 
performance.
However, a few more bad 
bounces, and the Wolverines 
were only further behind.
“You have to continue to 

stay in the game,” Pearson said. 
“What happens usually when a 
team scores is it give them a lift. 
And that’s what really (ignited) 
Notre Dame.
“Even the third goal, I think 
the third goal was sort of a real 
backbreaker, just an innocent 
shot behind net and they through 
it out front and it goes in. It got 
away from us, in a hurry.”
The best way to get back into 
a game, mentally and literally, 
is to score. And toward the end 
of the second, an opportunity 
presented itself — a five-on-three 
situation. As Cecconi put it, score 
there, and the game changes.
But Michigan couldn’t.
And despite ending the second 
period on a further disheartening 
play, a goal off of a deflection, the 
Wolverines came into the third 
period in full spirit.
“I think we all knew that 
the second period was pretty 
embarrassing,” 
Cecconi 
said. 
“And that’s not Michigan hockey, 
that’s not how we want to play. 
And some of the guys talked in 
the locker room pretty much just 
decided that everyone was going 
to play their game and compete.”
The third period brought a 
familiar look, an aggressive and 
gritty team that was ready to play 
and aiming to win.
Despite 
only 
mustering 
one goal, a shot between the 
goaltender’s leg from freshman 
defenseman Nick Blankenburg, 
the Wolverines outshot Notre 
Dame 15-4 in the final period and 
played a style they thought better 
reflected their quality of hockey.
“We talked about a standard 
of play,” Pearson said. “There’s a 
certain standard of play that we 
need to have each and every night 
here at Michigan and I think they 
just got back to that.
“I think once you chase a 
game and you get behind, you 
have a tendency to get away, try 
to do some things maybe too 
individualistic instead of trying 
to stay within the team concept. 
We just wanted to get back to that 
and just work our defense.”

ROHAN KUMAR
Daily Sports Writer

RYAN MCLOUGHLIN/Daily
Senior defenseman Joseph Cecconi notched an assist in Saturday’s 6-2 loss to Notre Dame on Saturday, putting his season total at nine through nine games.

MIKE ZLONKEVICZ/Daily
Freshman guard Amy Dilk played in her first game as a Wolverine on Friday.

Wolverines beat Holy Cross, 56-37

For 20 minutes, Michigan’s 
offense 
was 
dead 
and 
its 
defense was porous. For 20 
minutes, Holy Cross posed 
questions 
the 
Wolverines 
couldn’t answer.
Then 
the 
second 
half 
happened.
It 
wasn’t 
always 
easy 
— 
the 
Michigan 
men’s 
basketball team (2-0 overall) 
often struggled against the 
Crusaders 
(1-1) 
and 
their 
Princeton 
offense 
and 
matchup-zone defense — but 
the Wolverines pulled away in 
the second half for a 56-37 win.
Both teams traded missed 
shots back and forth to start — 
neither scored until freshman 
forward 
Ignas 
Brazdeikis 
made a free throw with 17:08 
remaining in the first. Then, 
they swapped baskets, with an 
inside jumper from Brazdeikis 
giving Michigan an early 9-5 
advantage.
But the Wolverines didn’t 
score for almost four more 
minutes. To make matters 
worse, defensive lapses led to 
three open treys for Holy Cross 
to put the Crusaders up 18-9 at 
the under-12 timeout.
A few minutes later, redshirt 
junior wing Charles Matthews 
hit a 3-pointer off a turnover 
to narrow Holy Cross’ lead to 
four, but for the rest of the half 
— over 10 minutes — Michigan’s 
only points came off free 
throws from Matthews, Livers 
and sophomore guard Jordan 
Poole. Going into halftime, the 
Crusaders led 24-18.
“(Michigan 
coach 
John 
Beliein) was just telling us 
to be calm, this is what we 
expected,” 
Brazdeikis 
said. 
“We prepared for this team 
very well. We knew they were 
gonna be in a matchup zone. 
And we knew they were gonna 
play a slow-paced game. But 
he was just saying, attack the 
seams, make our shots and 
make good plays.”
And after the half, the 
Wolverines started to make 
those plays. Brazdeikis led the 
charge with two layups, a trey, 

four free throws and a mid-
range jumper in the first five 
minutes. When junior center 
Jon Teske received a pass from 
junior guard Zavier Simpson, 
beat his lone defender to the 
basket and threw down a dunk, 
it felt like the momentum had 
shifted.
“We really changed what we 
were doing offensively,” Beilein 
said. “We were probably trying 
to do too much, trying to create 
leverage, and we just really 
simplified our attack in the 
second half. And just tried to, 
just go off penetration.”
In the second half it was 
Holy Cross that couldn’t buy 
a bucket. The Crusaders went 
seven minutes without scoring 
and struggled to even get a 
shot off due to Michigan’s 
stifling defense. Holy Cross 
scored just 13 points in the half 
and committed nine turnovers.
“(We got) some open shots 
and some easy baskets, and 
they 
were 
missing 
some 
things that maybe normally 
they make in the first half,” 

said Holy Cross coach Bill 
Carmody. “And then the second 
half they just, they turned 
up the heat. … We had some 
empty possessions on offense 
and then we just weren’t able 
to handle anything with the 
pressure.”
It was still ugly at times for 
the Wolverines. But Matthews 
and Brazdeikis took a more 
aggressive approach than they 
had at the beginning and it 
paid off, as they finished with 
20 and 19 points, respectively. 
And even when its shooting 
was 
off, 
Michigan’s 
uncharacteristically 
good 
performance on free throws 
kept the lead comfortable. 
Brazdeikis, 
especially, 
took 
advantage, going 8-for-8 from 
the charity stripe.
For the final 20 minutes, 
Michigan’s defense stole the 
show while the offense did just 
enough to hold up its end of the 
deal.
And for the final 20 minutes, 
it was the Crusaders who 
couldn’t find any answers.

ARIA GERSON
Daily Sports Writer

ALEXIS RANKIN/Daily
Junior guard Zavier Simpson tallied seven assists in Saturday’s win at Crisler.

TIEN LE
Daily Sports Writer

“I thought we 
were really 
ready to play 
tonight.”

“You have to 
continue to 
stay in the 
game.”

