The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Sports
Thursday January 10, 2019 — 5A

It was New Year’s Eve and 
Reece Hughes was playing 
video games with his friends. 
The sophomore was prepared 
for a night of some relaxed fun 
coming off of what had been a 
particularly grueling winter 
break of training.
Then around 9:30, Hughes’ 
phone buzzed and displayed 
an 
incoming 
call 
from 
Michigan coach Sean Bormet. 
Bormet informed his young 
wrestler that he would be 
traveling with the team on 
their west coast trip to cap off 
the break and that he would be 
wrestling — although he’d be 
doing it two weight classes up. 
Hughes, typically wrestling at 
the 165-pound weight class, 
would be filling in for an 
injured Jelani Embree, one of 
Hughes’ closest friends.
When it came time for 
his match on Jan. 3, Hughes 
stepped onto the mat with 
a game plan and nothing to 
lose and shocked everybody 
in attendance with a third 
period pin, highlighting a 33-8 
victory for the Wolverines 
(4-0 overall, 1-0 Big Ten) over 
Oregon State (1-3).
All the more remarkable, 
Hughes 
faced 
a 
nearly 
identical situation just a year 
earlier. When Michigan faced 
off against the Beavers in the 
Joe Wells Classic last season, 
Hughes stepped up a weight 
class and filled in for the 
then-injured 
Logan 
Massa 
to secure another surprise 
victory. 
Hughes 
showed 
everybody what it means to 
be a team player, embracing 
any opportunity to wrestle for 
the Wolverines, even if that 
means his record might take 
a hit.
In the end, despite the 
weight 
difference, 
it 
was 
Hughes’ 
preparation 
and 
training that led to the victory.
“Reece’s 
been 
training 
incredibly hard the last six 
to eight weeks,” Bormet said. 

“He’s always trained hard, 
but there’s been a noticeable 
amount of increased intensity 
in his training, and I’m seeing 
it daily.
“He’s a gamer. He competes 
hard, he sets a hard pace, he’s 
good in all three positions, 
and everybody’s excited to see 
him get his hand raised.”
Hughes knew he would have 
to approach things differently 
if he were to tack some points 
on the board for his team. In 
response, Hughes schemed 
with Bormet to keep the pace 
and movement high and tire 
out his opponent heading into 
the third period.
The plan worked like a 
charm. Hughes began the 
third in the down position, 
struggled to get to the edge 
of the mat with his opponent, 
Myles Terry, still draped over 
his back, then waited for 
Terry to make a mistake. After 
rolling around a bit on the 
edge of the mat, Hughes made 
his move, catching Terry’s leg 
and using his hips to thrust 
the wrestler onto his back for 
the bout-sealing fall.
“This 
was 
one 
of 
the 
matches where I didn’t have 
anything to lose, and that’s 
why I feel like I wrestled a 
better match at the end of the 
day,” Hughes said. “I went out 
there with, ‘Just go out there 
and give it your all.’ That’s 
what a few of the coaches 
came up to me and mentioned 
before the match. As long as 
you go out there and give it 

your all, we’re gonna be happy 
with your performance.”
Another 
highlight 
for 
the Wolverines came from 
freshman Mason Parris, who 
pulled off an enormous upset 
against the top-ranked Amar 
Dhesi in a near-dominant 11-4 
decision.
After 
finding 
success 
wrestling unattached to start 
out the season, Parris and the 
Michigan coaching staff were 
faced with a tough decision 
— 
redshirt 
their 
prized 
freshman or let him compete.
When match time rolled 
around, 
Bormet 
and 
Co. 
decided to unleash the beast, 
setting Parris free onto the 
collegiate 
wrestling 
scene. 
Parris responded in kind, 
handily beating D-I’s No. 1 
heavyweight.
“When 
you 
have 
a 
conversation 
with 
Mason, 
you could just see in his eyes 
he wants to compete and 
he’s up for the challenge,” 
Bormet said. “He’s excited 
about competing, he loves to 
compete. That’s why these 
guys want to go wrestle in 
college, and that was a great 
opportunity for him tonight, 
and he was excited about it.”
Added Parris: “It was a 
great feeling. It definitely 
boosted my confidence a lot 
just to compete with Michigan 
across my chest and compete 
for the team with my friends 
and stuff, so it was a really 
good experience for me.”
With a key freshman set 

to take on the gauntlet of Big 
Ten wrestling and a deep 
bench ready to wrestle up 
for the sake of the team, the 
Wolverines are poised for a 
dramatic season.

Slow to progress, Michigan’s offense looks for something that’s not there

Recall the first game of the 
season, a shock that came to 
many when the then-No. 4 
Michigan hockey team fell to 
unranked Vermont.
What was anticipated to be 
a relatively easy game ended 
in a loss that showed holes in 
both the Wolverines defense 
and offense.
“I 
thought 
we 
weren’t 
ready to play tonight, we 
weren’t really ready to play,” 
said 
Michigan 
coach 
Mel 
Pearson after the loss to the 
Catamounts. “We came in 
today with the mindset that it 
was going to be easy and that 
we were going to come out and 
score 10 goals on them.
“Anytime 
you have that 
mindset, 
we 
got 
behind 
early and dug 
ourselves 
a 
hole. We clawed 
back a little bit. 
We did a lot 
of really good 
things, we just 
couldn’t score. 
Some 
nights 
they don’t go in, so you can’t 
give up four goals anywhere, at 
home, on the road, anywhere, 
and expect to win. You can 
check the stats, you gotta keep 
it to about two goals or under 
to have a chance. You give up 
four, you’re asking for trouble.”
Now think back to Tuesday’s 
4-2 loss to visiting Merrimack. 
The Wolverines (7-8-6 overall, 
3-4-4 Big Ten) fell into an 
early deficit in a game they 
figured to win and struggled 
to score goals while allowing 
four on the defensive end.
The Vermont game was the 
first of the season. Merrimack 
was 
the 
23rd. 
The 
same 
problems that occurred then, 
as Pearson noted Tuesday, are 
still occurring now. Only back 
then, it took the goaltender 

48 saves to stop the Michigan 
offense, whereas Tuesday, it 
took 36.
So as the season progresses, 
a 
supposed 
non-issue 
is 
becoming more apparent as a 
critical weakness for the team 
— scoring.
Pearson 
always 
believed 
the offense would grow as 
the team grew. After all, 
at the start of the season, 
new linemates were getting 
acquainted with one another, 
and younger players were 
learning the system. Pearson’s 
expectation has always been 
the same.
“The goal scoring will come, 
the goal scoring will come,” 
Pearson said after Michigan’s 
exhibition game Oct. 7. “If 
you’re forced to have to score 
five, 
it 
gets 
difficult. If you 
give 
up 
four 
goals, 
it 
gets 
tough to score 
five.”
And 
yet, 
against 
Merrimack, the 
team 
allowed 
four goals. And 
as predicted, it’s 
tough to score 
five, especially when a team 
is clawing back from behind. 
Against the 52nd-ranked team 
according to Pairwise, the 
Wolverines could only muster 
two goals, ones that required 
full effort just to get a good 
look.
The two came from junior 
forwards 
Jake 
Slaker 
and 
Adam Winborg. Slaker, who 
managed to get a step on his 
defender, hit a well-placed 
shot over the goaltender’s 
shoulder. 
Winborg 
fought 
for positioning for his goal, 
redirecting a slapshot from the 
blue line.
But these plays were never 
the issue. It’s the unsuccessful 
ones 
— 
despite 
all 
the 
opportunities created — that 
raise questions. How can the 

Wolverines, second in the 
nation for shots on goal and 
third in the nation for total 
shots, struggle to score so 
much?
Moments in the Merrimack 
game offer explanations as to 
why.
The first three minutes of 
the game were well played 
by the offense. Seven shots 
on goal, plenty of dangerous 
scoring opportunities were 
present. However, the team 
grew 
stagnant 
following 
its early barrage of shots, 
and more so after Michigan 
conceded a goal.
Even after it gained a power 
play off of a hooking penalty, 
the offense struggled to get 
anything going. The first 40 
seconds were spent attempting 
to enter the offensive zone, 
and quick clears by Merrimack 
made it more problematic for 
the Wolverines to get their 

power play going.
After 
the 
team 
finally 
pushed the puck into the zone, 
junior forward Will Lockwood 
received 
the 
puck at the blue 
line. Faced with 
pressure 
from 
defenders, 
he 
instinctively 
swung the puck 
out across the 
line to where 
another player 
was 
supposed 
to be to keep the 
offensive 
push 
alive. Only no one was there, 
and instead, the Warriors stole 
the puck during Michigan’s 
man advantage.
The power play ended with 
no shots on goal.
“We’re looking for a little 
bit too much offense playing 
— when you’re playing Notre 
Dame you know it’s Notre 

Dame and you know they’re 
a tough team,” Slaker said, 
alluding to the 4-2 outdoor win 
over the Irish last Saturday. 
“Coming in, we 
just didn’t play 
good 
enough 
early. 
That 
caught us, we 
went down, and 
we 
ended 
up 
chasing the rest 
of the game.”
The problem 
early was that 
Michigan 
was 
looking 
for 
something that wasn’t there. 
Passes that went aimlessly into 
the other team’s possession, 
rebounds that went untouched 
on 
the 
goalie’s 
stick-side 
and plays that would have 
benefitted from an extra pass 
were all issues exploited by 
the other team’s defense.
“That’s 
the 
difference, 

pucks all around the net, and 
we can’t convert,” Pearson 
said. “It’s more of the same for 
us.
“If you have it even around 
the net — and we missed the 
net a lot — they blocked a lot 
of shots, but we missed the 
net a lot. Over the net, wide on 
greater scoring opportunities. 
We’re not a gifted team as far 
as scoring goes. We have to 
really work for our goals.”
The realization of the team’s 
inability to score goals is the 
first step to fixing both sides 
of the puck. The offense can’t 
score five goals on any given 
day, and as Pearson hinted, a 
defense can’t expect that and 
give up four goals.
“It’s hard to play from 
behind, and we keep finding 
ourselves in that situation,” 
Slaker said. “It’s costing us 
games, and it’s starting to get 
frustrating.”

TIEN LE
Daily Sports Writer

JACOB KOPNICK
Daily Sports Writer

ALEXIS RANKIN/Daily
Junior forward Will Lockwood and the Michigan hockey team struggled to convert chances in front of the net as the offense stalled in a 4-2 loss to Merrimack.

ALLISON ENGKVIST/Daily
Michigan wrestling coach Sean Bormet helped lead the win over OSU.

“I thought we 
weren’t ready to 
play tonight.”

“It’s costing us 
games, and it’s 
starting to get 
frustrating.”

Classifieds

Call: #734-418-4115
Email: dailydisplay@gmail.com

By David Poole
©2019 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
01/10/19

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

01/10/19

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Release Date: Thursday, January 10, 2019

ACROSS
1 Online shopping 
units
7 8 Series 
automaker
10 Comics possum
14 Eagerly accept
15 Dinner table boors
17 Pinch pennies
18 Strictly religious
19 __ out a living
20 “My bad”
22 “Kidding!”
23 Toklas’ life partner
24 Cupid cohort
28 “The Hunger 
Games” president 
Coriolanus __
30 Flaps
32 “A Little 
Nightmare 
Music” composer 
P.D.Q. __
33 Hot under the 
collar
36 Canadian coin
38 Lowbrow stuff
40 58-Across type 
meaning “black 
dragon”
41 Disney’s Montana
42 Lamb’s lament
43 See 27-Down
44 Whole lot
46 Hamburger’s 
home
50 Hallowed
52 Starters
55 Durham sch.
56 ’70s-’90s 
Pontiacs
58 See 40-Across
59 Common 
campaign 
promise, and 
what four black 
squares in this 
puzzle create
62 Tailor’s measure
64 Person-to-person
65 Rather thick
66 See 38-Down
67 Frowny-faced
68 Chicken

DOWN
1 Mary-Kate, Ashley 
and Elizabeth
2 S’pose
3 “Do I __ eat a 
peach?”: Eliot
4 Prefix with graph 
or gram
5 “Groundhog Day” 
director Harold
6 Mid-Mar. honoree
7 Trite saying

8 Sheep prized for 
its wool
9 Power unit
10 Kiosk with a 
camera
11 Ref. work whose 
2018 Word of the 
Year is “toxic”
12 Miracle-__
13 Mac platform
16 In vogue
21 First word in 
titles by Arthur 
Miller and Agatha 
Christie
25 Flutist Herbie
26 Vaper’s need, 
informally
27 With 43-Across, 
feeling often 
fought
29 British courtroom 
fixture
31 Blackthorn plum
34 Bloemfontein’s 
land: Abbr.
35 Rhine whines
37 Ipanema 
greeting
38 With 66-Across, 
German 
philosopher 
buried in 
London’s 
Highgate 
Cemetery

39 “Bus Stop” 
dramatist
40 Not as current
41 Busy airport
42 Hand-dyed with 
wax
45 Place to put on 
a suit
47 Filmmaker 
with a unique 
style
48 Anxiety
49 Disgraced
51 Go sour

53 “Hasta 
mañana”
54 “The Beat with 
Ari Melber” 
network
57 Avant-garde 
sorts
59 Hiddleston 
who plays 
Loki in 
Marvel films
60 Santa __
61 Boomer’s kid
63 RR stop

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Hughes steps up, Parris upsets in dominant ‘M’ win over Oregon State

