The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
SportsWednesday
January 9, 2019 — 3B
Michigan falls to Merrimack, 4-2
After 40 minutes of play,
Michigan (7-8-6) and Merrimack
(6-15-1) were deadlocked at one
goal apiece. Forward Derek Petti
was able to break the stalemate
with a goal just seconds into the
third period that allowed the
Warriors to take the lead and
eventually the victory, 4-2.
Entering
the
final
period,
Merrimack was on the power
play
as
a
result
of
senior
defenseman Nick Boka taking an
unsportsmanlike conduct penalty
at the end of the second period.
And just 17 seconds into the man
advantage, Petti skated into the
slot untouched and fired a shot
past freshman goaltender Strauss
Mann to put the Warriors up by a
goal.
“The second goal, we take a bad
penalty at the end of the period,”
said Michigan coach Mel Pearson.
“A real bad penalty, and they
convert on it. A real soft goal.”
Merrimack added another tally
moments later to stretch its lead to
two.
Michigan struck back just over
two minutes later, when freshman
defenseman Jack Summers’s shot
was tipped into the net by junior
forward Adam Winborg, but the
late-game goal proved to be not
enough for the Wolverines. They
fell to Merrimack, which entered
the game ranked 52nd in Pairwise
— out of 60 teams — and have
now won just one of their last five
games.
“(The
Warriors)
played
desperate, and that was the
difference,” Pearson said. “They
played desperate, they played like
their life depended on it. We played
like it was just another game. We’re
not good enough to just show up
and think we’re just going to come
out and play … We’re going to have
to play a lot harder.”
The matchup was rife with
odd-man rushes and breakaway
chances,
but
neither
team
consistently capitalized on those
chances.
Just over two minutes into the
game, forwards Jordan Seyfert and
Patrick Kramer found themselves
in a two-on-zero breakaway ahead
of Michigan’s defense. Mann had
little hope of stopping Kramer’s
shot, and Merrimack took the early
lead.
But after that, the Warriors’
odd-man chances frequently found
the end boards, not the back of the
net.
Early in the second period,
freshman
defenseman
Nick
Blankenburg nearly ended up on
the wrong side of a one-on-zero
breakaway, but he used his skating
to force the Merrimack player to
the side of the net and prevent a
goal.
For
Michigan,
breakaway
chances were no more fruitful.
“We missed the net a lot,”
Pearson
said.
“(Merrimack)
blocked a lot of shots, but we missed
the net a lot. Over the net, wide on
grade-A
scoring
opportunities.
We’re not a gifted team as far as
scoring goes. We have to really
work for our goals and tonight we
had to really work for our goals.”
Minutes after the Warriors
found twine, freshman forward
Garrett van Wyhe and sophomore
forward Dakota Raabe came close
to an odd-man rush of their own,
though goaltender Drew Vogler
was able to make a straightforward
save on Van Wyhe’s shot.
It took more than a period
for the Wolverines to equal the
score. In the second period, junior
forward Jake Slaker fired a shot
from just outside the right circle.
Goaltender Drew Vogler tried to
make the save, but Slaker’s shot
tucked underneath the top of the
net for his eighth goal of the season.
“(Junior
defenseman
Luke
Martin) made a nice play to me out
wide,” Slaker said. “I thought I had
a step on their defenseman. I was
getting a lot of shots all night and
I finally saw an opportunity to get
a good shot and luckily, it went in.”
Just three days before the loss to
Merrimack, Michigan defeated No.
9 Notre Dame 4-2 — in South Bend.
And three days after the loss to
the Warriors, the Wolverines will
face No. 4 Ohio State in Columbus.
Last season, Michigan fell to the
Buckeyes all five times the two
teams met.
The seven teams of the Big Ten
are separated by just 10 points,
with three teams tied in the middle
at 15 points each — including the
Wolverines.
Michigan now has just three
days to bounce back from the loss
and get ready for a trip to Ohio
State.
Its performance in Columbus
could set the course of the rest of
its season.
One step forward, two steps back
At the final buzzer, Jake
Slaker could only slam his stick
down at the ice in frustration,
shattering it in two.
The junior forward recorded
six shots on net and a goal in
the Michigan hockey team’s
4-2 loss to Merrimack Tuesday
night. His efforts helped give
his team a chance to win the
game. The defense, however,
lost it.
The play that preceded the
stick break wasn’t necessarily
either
one’s
fault.
Who
could see a game-clinching
empty-net goal, as freshman
goaltender
Strauss
Mann
skated away from the post,
coming? But it was a situation
the Wolverines should have
avoided in the first place.
Throughout
the
game,
defensive struggles, ones that
Michigan coach Mel Pearson
thought had ceased coming
out of Saturday’s game at
Notre
Dame,
reappeared.
Breakaways,
unmarked
attackers and easy shots on
goals — all things that the
opposing team shouldn’t have
had. Yet, the Warriors had
it all. On the flip side, the
Wolverines had to scrape by for
every chance they generated,
and even more so on the ones
they converted.
“You can’t give up the easy
goals like that,” Pearson said.
“Especially when you have to
struggle so hard to score, like
we do right now, but you can
just tell, it’s just a little bit
intensity. We’re not a gifted
team as far as scoring goes.
We have to really work for our
goals and tonight we had to
really work for our goals.”
As the team tried to take a
step forward after its match
up with the Fighting Irish, the
defense took two steps back.
The
play
that
best
exemplified
this
happened
close
to
puck
drop.
A
Merrimack skater flipped the
puck away from the defensive
zone and into neutral ice.
It dropped between senior
defenseman
Nicholas
Boka
and junior defenseman Griffin
Luce. Neither made the push
for the puck, and an easy
possession turned into a sprint
to stop the breakaway attempt
for the Warriors.
The
defensive
regression
proved costly minutes after
when Merrimack scored the
first goal on a breakaway.
It all began when freshman
defenseman Nick Blankenberg
left his assignment to make an
on-puck play.
The switch up left Warrior
Patrick
Kramer
open,
and
senior
defenseman
Joseph
Cecconi couldn’t rotate in time.
Merrimack’s Jordan Seyfert,
who
broke
from
pressure,
found him, and he scored.
“We just had a defenseman
leave the middle of the ice and
come all the way across the ice
to try and make the play and
they got a breakaway,” Pearson
said. “They got a (two-on-one),
it should’ve been a two-on-four
the way it was shaping up, but
because we left an area.
“Never should have done
that. That’s not a good play. And
now it gives the momentum. It
gives them some energy.”
Added Slaker: “Once we
go down, we know that their
goal was probably a defensive
let-down and we were making
mistakes in the D-zone.”
But Michigan cleaned up.
With Slaker’s top-shelf goal
and tightened-up defense, it
tied the game at one apiece.
An unnecessary play by Boka,
however, turned the tides. Boka
got into a scuffle at the end of
the second period, committing
an unsportsmanlike penalty
in the act and putting the
Wolverines at a disadvantage
coming out from the final
intermission.
“We take a bad penalty at
the end of the period, a real bad
penalty, and they convert on it,
a real soft goal,” Pearson said.
“We didn’t give them much,
but we made some key errors
at critical times, and that cost
us.”
The special team defense
had committed too many men
to the battle near the boards.
The puck was lodged against
it, and three of the four skaters
for Michigan were actively
trying to poke it away. While
the Wolverines were pursuing
the puck, an unmarked Warrior
skater curled away from the
battle and stationed himself
in front of the net. As the puck
leaked out toward him, there
was nothing between him and
the goal besides Mann, and a
simple shot through Mann’s
legs created the late deficit.
“Not prepared to play, and
that’s up to each player to be
ready to play,” Pearson said
on Michigan’s performance.
“Couple comments from our
team, ‘We didn’t take them
serious’ or whatever. I don’t
know how you can because
we’re not that good. We have to
take every team serious to have
a chance to win.
“I thought we made some
progress at Notre Dame, you
know, and I thought we took a
step back tonight.”
ATLANTA — Chase Winov-
ich took a deep breath and
thought.
Really, truly
thought.
He had
been asked by
a reporter —
shortly after
Michigan was
dismantled by
Florida, 41-15,
in the Peach
Bowl — to
assess the state of the program.
A fifth-year senior, Winovich
is often pegged to speak to these
types of big-picture questions,
both because he understands
the program better than just
about anybody and because Jim
Harbaugh, the man at the top,
won’t engage them.
So they get thrown on Win-
ovich. All year. And to his
credit, less than an hour after
his college career ended in a
distasteful crescendo, the de
facto spokesman obliged. Just
weeks prior, Winovich chose to
describe the loss at Ohio State
as a “mirage” and, well, that
explanation was no longer on
the table. Where does that leave
this program now?
“I caught a lot of flak a couple
weeks ago because I said ‘We’re
building a powerhouse.’ I used
some pretty heavy words,”
Winovich said, striking an
uncharacteristically tepid tone.
“My motivation behind that was
really trying to get a recruit that
decommitted to come back. So,
it worked. I meant what I said,
just not—we’re building a great
team. This thing takes time. In
hindsight, coming to Michi-
gan, I maybe underestimated
the amount of time and effort
it would take to get over that
hump. We’ve been chasing this
for quite some time.”
Then a sigh.
“We’re close. We’re clawing
at it.”
Then a question brings Win-
ovich back to the present. The
Gators posted 427 total yards
— 257 on the ground — outscor-
ing Michigan 35-5 after the first
quarter. What surprised him
about the 26-point loss?
“I’m kinda stoic in the sense
that a lot of this stuff, especially
playing as many years as I have,
kinda stoic in the sense that a lot
of this stuff is already accounted
for,” he said. “I’ve already
accounted in my head that cer-
tain things might happen.”
His response was in the con-
text of what the Gators did on
the field Dec. 29. But it’s hard
not to extrapolate that to the
bigger picture. Chase Winovich
played at Michigan five years,
and in that span experienced
more highs and lows than
most programs go through in a
decade.
His first year on campus,
as a tight end, Michigan went
5-7 and fired the coach that
recruited him. Then the Savior
Of The Program came in and
turned the place upside down.
In Harbaugh’s first year, the
Wolverines won 10 games. The
next year, inches of JT Barrett’s
extended arm separated Michi-
gan from a Big Ten title game.
All the while, Winovich
somehow blossomed into an
All-Big Ten defensive end. Then,
slowly but surely, the outward
face of the team. He came back
to school unabashedly clear
about his Big Ten title and Col-
lege Football Playoff goals.
He coined the now-infamous
Revenge Tour.
Which brings us to the Peach
Bowl — an unceremonious end
to a one-of-a-kind career, and
the unequivocal plateau of a
program seemingly incapable of
climbing higher.
Just minutes prior, a couple
hundred feet down the hallway,
Harbaugh had expounded the
obvious.
“My feeling about the team
is we’re right there to the top,
but we have to put it over the
top,” the coach who has lost his
final two games each of the last
three seasons said. “Especially
in the big games at the end of
the year.”
He’s not wrong, of course.
Michigan under Harbaugh has
the seventh most wins in that
span in the country. Prior to his
arrival, the Wolverines had just
four seasons with double-digit
wins since the turn of the cen-
tury. Under Harbaugh, Michi-
gan now has three in the last
four years.
But after the undressing
that has been the last month of
Michigan football, those win
totals ring hollow. Michigan
hasn’t won a game later than
Nov. 19 since the Citrus Bowl
after the 2015 season. Its signa-
ture win of the last 4 years is …
Wisconsin in 2016? Penn State
this year? Bueller?
“Next year, we’re not going to
try to go backwards,” Winovich
said, speaking of the program
he’s now leaving.
While Winovich might be
correct that regression seems
unlikely, the Harbaugh era has
become increasingly defined
by one question: Is progression
really any more likely?
Wolverines squeak out win, 79-78
For the second game in a
row, the Michigan women’s
basketball team watched as a
potential game-winning shot
pinballed around the rim at the
final buzzer.
This time, the bounce went
in its favor.
After rallying from an eight-
point fourth-quarter deficit,
the Wolverines (11-5 overall,
2-2 Big Ten) clinched a 79-78
win
against
Northwestern
(9-6, 2-1) in overtime after
Wildcats
sophomore
guard
Jordan
Hamilton’s
shot
ricocheted off the rim three
times before harmlessly falling
into the hands of freshman
forward Naz Hillmon as the
buzzer sounded.
Senior guard Nicole Munger
hit two free throws with 51.8
seconds to go to put Michigan
ahead for good, maintaining
her
perfect
shooting
percentage from the line.
“It was great to be on the
winning side,“ said head coach
Kim Barnes Arico.
The first half was tightly
contested, with the Wolverines
trailing, 40-38, at intermission.
However, scoring woes in the
first quarter prevented the
team from entering the locker
room ahead. Michigan went
on
a
three-minute scoring
drought,
and
found
itself
clinging to a slim 16-14 edge at
the end of the quarter despite
Northwestern’s
inability
to
make a field goal for three and
a half minutes.
Down 56-50 entering the
fourth
quarter,
Michigan
got big plays from Munger,
Hillmon and senior forward
Hallie Thome to salvage what
had been one of the team’s
sloppier efforts of the season.
Thome
opened
the
period
with an open layup, and two
possessions later saved a loose
ball from going out of bounds
to set up a 3-pointer from
sophomore
forward
Hailey
Brown. Munger added a big
bucket of her own when she
knocked down a corner triple
to cut the Wildcats’ lead to
63-60.
Hillmon
outmuscled
defenders
off
her
missed
free throw to draw a foul on
a putback attempt, causing
Pallas
Kunaiui-Akpanah
to
foul out. A play later, Munger
found Thome on a gorgeous
bounce pass inside to cut the
lead to two. Hillmon knotted
the score at 67 apiece on the
next
possession,
supplying
the
Wolverines
with
the
spark that they had been
searching for the entire half.
When discussing her 21-point
performance, which included
a whopping seven offensive
rebounds, Hillmon said that
her mindset never changed,
even during some of the game’s
key moments.
“The entire game I was
getting putbacks and trying
to get to the basket, so I tried
to keep that same mindset so
that I didn’t worry myself,”
Hillmon said.
However,
the
Wildcats
responded with three quick
points to take the lead back.
After Hillmon split a pair of
free throws, Michigan was
whistled for a foul on a loose
ball, much to the chagrin of
the crowd. After the Wildcats
converted on both of their free
throws, Thome notched a layup
with 25 seconds left to cut
the lead to two after Hillmon
shielded an errant pass from
being picked off.
Hillmon produced another
big play on the Wolverines’
next
offensive
possession.
Following two missed free
throws from Northwestern,
battling inside to secure a
putback off of her own miss to
tie the score up at 72.
“Even if it was a bad pass
(Hillmon) would come to get
it,” Brown said. “And even
if she missed she’d get the
rebound.”
Michigan forced an airball
on
the
ensuing
Wildcats
possession to send the game
into overtime. After the game,
Munger noted that the team’s
defensive
effort
down
the
stretch was instrumental in
kickstarting its comeback.
“If we’re not scoring we
have to make sure they’re not
scoring,” she said.
Northwestern
gained
the
edge with a minute to go in
overtime when it sunk two
free throws following a foul,
but
Munger
returned
the
favor to regain the lead. When
sophomore guard Deja Church
was whistled for an offensive
foul with 12 seconds left, it
gave the Wildcats one final
chance to win the game and
the Wolverines a chance for
one last stop. After Jordan
Hamilton’s
layup
bounced
off the rim, Michigan found
itself basking in the glory of a
thrilling 79-78 victory.
BAILEY JOHNSON
Daily Sports Writer
ALEXIS RANKIN/Daily
Senior defenseman Nick Boka’s unsportsmanlike-conduct penalty led to a Merrimack goal in Michigan’s 4-2 loss.
What now?
MAX
MARCOVITCH
ALEXIS RANKIN/Daily
Chase Winovich played his last game in Michigan’s Peach Bowl loss.
TIEN LE
Daily Sports Writer
TEDDY GUTKIN
Daily Sports Writer
ALEXANDRIA POMPEI/Daily
Senior guard Nicole Munger hit two free throws with 51.8 seconds to go.