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.