The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
SportsMonday
December 3, 2018 — 3B

Skjodt, Michigan stun No. 12 Pittsburgh to clinch Sweet Sixteen berth

Carly Skjodt saw her storied 
career flash before her eyes on 
Saturday night.
Michigan’s unanimous All-
Big Ten First Team selection 
was held to just two kills on 
20 attempts in the Wolverines’ 
first-set loss against 12th-seeded 
Pittsburgh (30-2 overall, 17-1 
ACC).
Labeling Skjodt’s opening set 
performance as out of character 
would be an understatement. 
The Panthers came out with a 
well-crafted defensive gameplan 
devoted to hindering Skjodt, 
who averages the second-most 
kills per set in the Big Ten with 
4.20. Unseeded Michigan (24-9 
overall, 11-9 Big Ten) scrambled 
to find other options, and nobody 
took the reigns. Pittsburgh kept 
Skjodt bottled up for a set, but 
Michigan coach Mark Rosen 
knew it wouldn’t last.
Why?
“Because she’s Carly,” Rosen 
said with a chuckle. “She’s such 
an experienced player and she’s 
such a fighter. She’s our go-to kid 
for a reason. When she struggled 
in the first set, I wasn’t worried 
about it because I knew she 
was going to find a way to get it 
going.”
Following the first-set loss, 
Skjodt exploded 
for 18 kills and 
five blocks over 
the next four sets 
while 
guiding 
the 
Wolverines 
to a 19-25, 25-22, 
25-17, 21-25, 15-9 
upset victory in 
front of a hostile 
crowd of 2,405 
at 
Pittsburgh’s 
Petersen Events 
Center in the NCAA Tournament 
round of 32.
“I thought she needed to take 
a little more of an aggressive 
approach to it,” Rosen said. 
“Carly’s default is to be very 
controlled and to try not to make 

errors. Sometimes we have to 
challenge her to really go after 
it a little bit more, and I thought 
she answered that really well 
after the first set.”
Rather than caving in, Skjodt 
answered 
the 
call. She elevated 
her game to the 
next level, and 
her seven kills in 
the second frame 
— one of which 
ignited a three-
point scoring run 
to give Michigan 
a 
permanent 
lead at 22-19 — 
showed just how 
dominant she is at her peak. 
When the Wolverines’ lead was 
trimmed to 22-21 two points 
later, junior setter MacKenzi 
Welsh turned to none other 
that Skjodt. Like clockwork, she 
blasted a ball through the block 

to give Michigan its first set 
point.
The Panthers knew it was 
coming. The Wolverines knew 
it was coming. Everyone in the 
Petersen Center bleachers knew 
it was coming. 
Pittsburgh 
positioned 
a 
daunting double 
block of two All-
ACC First Team 
selections 
— 
6-foot-3 
Layne 
Van Buskirk and 
6-foot-1 
Nika 
Markovic — on 
the outside pin, 
but Skjodt still 
found a way to produce a point 
when she was needed most.
“That was a turning point,” 
Rosen 
said. 
“They 
were 
frustrated. You could just see 
it — they had three or four 
miscommunications and their 

passing started to break down. 
We knew the pressure was on 
them as the host team and the 
higher seed.”
When 
Michigan 
smelled 
blood in the water, it struck.
The 
Wolverines 
raced out to an 
8-3 lead in the 
third 
frame 
behind 
a 
five-
point service run 
by 
sophomore 
defensive 
specialist 
Natalie 
Smith. 
Pittsburgh 
coach 
Dan 
Fisher, who was crowned ACC 
Coach of the Year last week, 
called a timeout to compose his 
Panthers, but nothing could stop 
Michigan’s freight train of an 
offense from clicking. Coming 
out 
of 
the 
timeout, 
Welsh 

continued to pilot an efficient 
offense, and the Wolverines 
registered a staggering .480 
attack percentage en route to 
a convincing 25-17 win in the 
third frame.
With 
its 
season 
hanging 
in the balance, 
Pittsburgh made 
a major change to 
its system in the 
fourth set. Fisher 
opted to use a 
6-2 — a system 
that features two 
setters who take 
turns 
running 
the 
offense 
depending on which one is in 
the back row at a given moment 
— by adding an additional setter 
to the Panthers’ initial offensive 
scheme. By doing so, Fisher gave 
his team an extra attacker on the 
right pin at all times.

The 
adjustment 
caught 
Michigan 
off 
guard 
— 
the 
insertion of a sixth attacker in 
Pittsburgh’s rotation called for 
major changes in the Wolverines’ 
blocking scheme.
Setters 
Kylee 
Levers 
and 
Kamalani 
Akeo 
seized 
an 
opportunity to revive a stagnant 
offense in the Panthers’ new 
system. The tandem recorded 
24 and 28 assists, respectively, 
and navigated Pittsburgh to 
a .275 attack percentage — a 
figure 
which 
comfortably 
trumped Michigan’s .163 clip. 
The Panthers fended off a late 
slew of kills from Skjodt and 
freshman outside hitter Paige 
Jones to take the fourth frame, 
25-21, and force a decisive fifth 
set as the crowd came to its feet 
in a standing ovation.
24 points later, the crowd 
rose once again. This time, they 
bolted for the exits in disbelief.
The only sound in Petersen 
Center 
was 
the 
shouts 
of 

Michigan’s 
enthralling 

celebration after its 15-9 fifth-
set statement sent them to the 
Sweet Sixteen. The Wolverines’ 
dominance — highlighted by 
a season-altering 9-0 run that 
put them up 11-3 — was on full 
display throughout the set as 
they thrashed Pittsburgh by 363 
attack percentage points and 
amassed seven of the their 12 
total blocks.
“One thing we 
talk about in the 
fifth set is being 
the 
aggressive 
team,” 
Rosen 
said. “It’s like a 
sprint. You can’t 
start 
slow 
or 
passively. 
You 
need to get after 
it, and I thought 
the 
blocking 
showed up and we served really 
well.”
Led by Skjodt’s relentless will 
to win, Michigan won the sprint 
by a landslide — stunning the 
ACC champions in the process.
And why? Because she’s Carly.

ALEC COHEN/Daily
Senior outside hitter Carly Skjodt accumulated 18 kills and five blocks in the last four sets of Michigan’s win over Pittsburgh in the NCAA Tournament.

“She’s such an 
experienced 
player and she’s 
such a fighter.”

“We knew the 
pressure was 
on them as the 
host team.”

DANIEL DASH
Daily Sports Writer

“It’s like a 
sprint. You 
can’t start slow 
or passively.”

Wolverines beat WMU, CMU, EMU in Quad Meet

Freshman 
gymnast 
Abby 
Brenner stood at the start of the 
vault runway, saluted the judges 
and took off toward the table.
In 
her 
debut 
for 
the 
Wolverines, Brenner executed 
her Yurchenko one-and-a-half 
with ease. She earned not only 
the highest score of the rotation, 
but the highest score of the entire 
competition on vault, a 9.875. 
The 
Michigan 
women’s 
gymnastics 
team 
led 
the 
competition 
after 
a 
strong 
opening 
rotation 
on 
vault 
in 
a 
quad 
exhibition 
meet 
against 
Central 
Michigan, 
Eastern Michigan and Western 
Michigan. Rotation by rotation, 
the Wolverines extended their 
lead to win by 3.125 points, 
finishing the meet with a final 
score of 195.125.
The exhibition meet offered 
Michigan its first opportunity of 
the season to perform its routines 
in front of judges and a crowd.
“We train and train and train 

in the gym and athletes get into 
a comfort zone,” said Michigan 
coach Bev Plocki. “And this is 
clearly not in a comfort zone for 
them. There’s a lot of things to 
get used to and adjust to. The 
landing surfaces in training are 
a little softer and more forgiving, 
but 
these 
are 
harder.” 
At 
times, 
the 
Wolverines 
struggled. 
Sophomore 
Lauren 
Farley 
fell in the middle 
of 
her 
first 
release move on 
bars during the 
second 
rotation. 
Due 
to 
strong 
performances by the remainder 
of the lineup, her score was 
dropped, and the Wolverines 
stood ahead of the second-place 
Chippewas by just .625 of a point.
Mistakes followed Michigan 
to the balance beam. The third 
rotation was marked by wobbles 
and balance checks and was 
the lowest-scoring rotation of 

the evening for the Wolverines. 
Junior Lexi Funk led off on beam, 
and freshman Natalie Wojcik 
anchored it. Both preformed 
consistent routines and earned 
the two highest scores on the 
event.
Michigan closed the meet on 
floor 
exercise. 
Both 
Wojcik 
and 
Brenner 
performed 
successful, 
high-scoring 
routines to end 
their 
debut 
meet 
for 
the 
Wolverines. 
Wojcik won an 
event title on 
both bars and 
floor, as well as the all around 
title with a score of 39.225.
“Our freshmen were great 
today,” 
said 
senior 
Emma 
McLean. “I’m so proud of them. 
Their training in the gym every 
day is paying off, and I’m excited 
to see what they can do this year.”
In 
addition 
to 
strong 
performances 
by 
the 
two 

freshmen 
in 
the 
lineup, 
Michigan found consistency in 
other gymnasts. Junior Maggie 
O’Hara received a 9.825 for her 
bar routine after a near stick 
on her double layout dismount. 
Senior Olivia Karas, who was 
sidelined 
halfway 
through 
the season last year due to an 
Achilles tendon rupture, had a 
strong first meet back competing 
in three of the four rotations 
for the Wolverines. Her scores 
on vault and bars were second 
only to teammates Brenner and 
Wojcik. 
Michigan hopes to improve 
these performances further, as 
the Wolverines don’t have their 
first scored competition until 
Jan. 4 at the Cancun Classic, 
another quad meet.
“We like to take what we can 
learn from here and apply that 
to practice the next month,” 
said McLean. “So that when we 
really start, we come out of the 
gate strong versus today which 
was putting it together for the 
first time and seeing where 
we’re at.”

KATELYN MULCAHY/Daily
Junior Maggie O’Hara received a 9.825 for her bar routine in Michigan’s exhibition win over Western Michigan, Central Michigan and Easter Michigan.

MOLLY SHEA
For the Daily

“Their training 
in the gym 
every day is 
paying off.”

Polina Shchennikova 
helping ‘M’ as a coach

Shock. 
Disbelief. 
Crushing 
disappointment. Then-sophomore 
gymnast Polina Shchennikova was 
flooded with all of these emotions 
in April when doctors told her that 
her injuries meant she would never 
be able to compete again. 
“This sport was my life. It was 
my passion,” Shchennikova said. 
“And to have it end the way it did 
was definitely very hard —it was 
heartbreaking.” 
Shchennikova was left wanting 
to help her team in any way she 
could. So when she was offered a 
role with the Michigan women’s 
gymnastics team as a student 
assistant coach, she took the job —
and ran with it. 
Since taking on the role, 
Shchennikova has been helping 
the Wolverines with choreography 
and music for their floor routines. 
She has also been assisting with 
coaching efforts for the uneven 
bars, on which she was a “world-
class 
athlete,” 
according 
to 
Michigan coach Bev Plocki.
“She has done a fabulous job for 
us,” Plocki said. “She’s been really 
valuable.”
When working with athletes 
on floor routines, Shchennikova 
tries to tailor each element of 
the performance to the specific 
gymnast, 
focusing 
on 
how 
the 
gymnast’s 
body 
moves, 

how the music can tie in to a 
particular sequence and how the 
performance comes together as a 
whole to make the routines more 
personal. This attention to detail 
has brought new life and energy to 
the floor routines.
“She knows what style we 
like for dancing, and that’s really 
important because we’re able to 
get into it a lot more,” said junior 
gymnast Lexi Funk. 
The improved floor routines 
have already made a difference in 
Michigan’s scores in competitions. 
In their victory in an exhibition 
meet against Eastern, Western 
and Central Michigan on Sunday, 
the floor competition was the 
Wolverines’ 
second-strongest 
event of the day, with the six 
gymnasts who competed in the 
event totaling 49.025 points. 
Working 
with 
her 
former 
teammates 
as 
a 
coach 
and 
watching 
them 
all 
perform 
while 
not 
competing 
herself 
has been a difficult transition 
for Shchennikova, but coaching 
and choreographing has been a 
valuable experience.
“It’s never easy coming back to 
something that you love so much 
that was taken away from you,” 
Shchennikova said. “But when I got 
the opportunity to choreograph 
floor routines here, that was the 
most uplifting thing I could do. 
Since I couldn’t do gymnastics, 
this was the next best thing.”

ABBY SNYDER
For the Daily

KATELYN MULCAHY/Daily
Polina Shchennikova has thrived as an assistant coach for Michigan.

