2B — March 11, 2019 SportsMonday The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com I n observance of Women’s History Month, The Daily’s sports section kicks off its second annual series aimed at telling the stories of female ath- letes, coaches and teams at the University from the per- spective of the female sports writers on staff. Former managing sports editor Laney Byler starts the series with this column. I called Nicole Auerbach on Friday morning, ready to talk about the numbers behind women in sports journalism. I wanted to talk about her experiences, her role covering national college football for The Athletic and how much importance she placed in women setting up other women for success in a field dominated by men. At some point, the conversa- tion landed on an internship she did the summer after her freshman year of college. It was 2008, and Auerbach got an internship with The Trentonian in New Jersey. She’d spend the summer cover- ing the Yankees’ AA team, the Trenton Thun- der, and jump into her career as a sports- writer. When she was younger, she’d read Sports Illustrated cover-to-cover. She loved writing, and she loved sports, but she didn’t know where to start — until she found The Daily. She ended up covering sports ranging from club ultimate frisbee to wom- en’s gymnastics. For someone who thought that reporting sports would be an ideal job, that internship with The Tren- tonian had potential to really assist her in becoming a sports journalist. Then she found out she was barred from entering the Thunder’s locker room. In 2008. Games ended around 10 p.m., and she’d have to wait outside the locker room for players that she asked for (or sometimes, she wouldn’t get the oppor- tunity to speak with players at all). She realized she was missing out on the raw answers players gave immediately after their games. Then she had to race against deadline after her interviews, hoping to get her story in on time despite not having the same access as other people. As far as obstacles go, not being allowed to enter the locker room was a pretty big one. “I brought it up to my edi- tor — one thing I’ve always been very fortunate to have is editors that have really had my back on this stuff — so my editor made it happen,” she told me on Fri- day. “He called them, and they tried to tell him that the rule was because I was an intern and not a full- time employee at a newspaper — not because I was a woman. And he said ‘That’s ridiculous. She’s on deadline, she has a job to do, and you need to let her in.’” And then? “And then they did.” For women in sports jour- nalism, barriers to entry can range from being barred from a locker room to facing a lack of female role models in higher positions. In a sphere his- torically dominated by men, Auerbach’s story shows just how far some women have to reach to level the playing field. Of course, that playing field was lev- eled with a push from her and her editor. The next summer, when a baseball coach asked her, “Did you understand every- thing I said?” she received the same amount of support from her editors, who gave her the choice to cover that team or move on to a different one. Having allies in the room — male allies, specifically — was one way to crunch that barrier. “I think that every woman in this field has stories like that, where you have to figure out how you’re going to navi- gate something and whether or not you’re going to tell your bosses,” Auerbach said. “Because you don’t want them to think that you’re not capable of handling yourself in the field and in these situations, but you also want them to know so they have your back, in exactly the way my editors did in both of those situations. Because they 100 percent went to bat for me.” Now Auerbach covers national college football for The Athletic, along with Chan- tel Jennings — both of whom are alumni of The Daily’s sports staff. For them, support networks of women in the industry have been vital to han- dling their role as sports journal- ists. But these examples preach the impor- tance of having allies for women in a world dominated by barriers. While having net- works for female support are necessary, having support from both men and women would close the gap even further. “Everyone deserves a spot at the table,” Jennings said on Saturday, “and if it’s only women who are bringing women to the table, or if it’s only people of color who are bring people of color to the table, we’re not going to have an accurate representa- tion. Or, it’s just going to be really, really slow. “It needs to be everyone. Everyone has to look out for everyone.” Byler can be reached at dbyler@umich.edu or on Twitter @laneybyler Step up to the plate LANEY BYLER Minnesota Massacre Michigan’s season ends at hands of Golden Gophers with Big Ten Tournament sweep punctuated by 4-1 Saturday blowout MINNEAPOLIS — It was over before it even started. Rem Pitlick made sure of it. With a goal to his name already and up 3-0 with three minutes left in the second period, Minnesota’s star center gathered a pass from Tyler Sheehy in the right circle and without hesitation knifed the puck into the top of Michigan’s net, ending whatever small pulse the Wolverines’ season clung to. “They came out to play and we didn’t,” said junior forward Jake Slaker. “It showed on the scoreboard.” At times this season, the Michigan hockey team looked like the lethal, fast-skating team that most pegged it to be coming into the season. Others moments weren’t as rosy. The Wolverines would often come out and win a Friday game, and outshoot their opponent on a Saturday, only to be outdone by costly turnovers in games they largely had a chance to win. Saturday’s 4-1 loss to Minnesota was neither. Call it a season-ending loss or call it a decisive nail in the coffin to a season once rife with hope. But either way, by the time the buzzer sounded, Michigan was nothing but a shadow of its once-lofty potential. “They jumped us,” said Michigan coach Mel Pearson. “We weren’t ready to play. That’s been an issue from time to time this year. Other games we’ve been able to claw ourselves out of it. The last time we were in here, we were down three-zip and we had to claw our way out of it. At this time of year, when teams are desperate, you can’t do that.” Pearson always mentioned the Wolverines’ fourth line as a group that he was comfortable matching up with any line in the country. But just five minutes into the game, the Golden Gophers’ Tommy Novak burned freshman forward Nolan Moyle past the boards, letting the 127-game veteran waltz into Michigan’s crease unguarded and flip in Minnesota’s first goal behind freshman goaltender Strauss Mann. Junior forward Will Lockwood responded by shaking Minnesota goaltender Mat Robson out of his net but missed a golden opportunity to tie the game by sending the puck wide of the left post. And after cutting down on defensive zone turnovers, senior defenseman Joseph Cecconi mishandled a centering pass into the hands of Scott Reedy. Seven minutes after Minnesota notched its first goal, Reedy danced around every Wolverine on the ice and doubled the Golden Gophers’ lead. Michigan’s power play remained inconsistent, if not dormant, as it had been for the series and most of the season — the Wolverines didn’t convert either of their two tries in the first two periods and leave Minneapolis 0-6 with a man advantage. With an early exit after last year’s run, Michigan has more questions than answers on its plate. Will Quinn Hughes leave? If he does, how will the Wolverines replace him and senior defenseman Joseph Cecconi’s 53 points? What about Josh Norris and his injury? Can this year’s underclassmen step up and provide more consistent offense? Will next year’s recruiting class get to campus and contribute? “(We need) good recruiting,” Pearson said. “We gotta hit the recruiting hard. We’ve got some good pieces, but we’re a ways away from being the team we need to be.” “I think there’s a lot of things that can change,” Slaker added. “It’s just one of those things where we get back to work and work on ... just about everything.” MINNEAPOLIS — Seven minutes into practice on Thursday afternoon, Michigan coach Mel Pearson gathered his team at center ice. The Wolverines, a day away from the first game of a best- of-three Big Ten Tournament series at Minnesota, lacked the focus and attention to detail Pearson wanted to see. After a quick reminder, the effort level improved, and Michigan carried momentum into Friday night’s game. “They’ll show up and compete tomorrow,” Pearson said on Thursday. “But it’s — as a coach, you’ve watched the tapes. You’ve seen the team, as our staff has. We understand how good Minnesota is. Players just want to play. They don’t watch all that. They don’t understand, how — maybe at times how good (a team is). You can tell them that, but — we just wanted to get their attention today.” Though the Wolverines eventually lost in overtime, Michigan entered the first period with energy and focus and lit the lamp first on Friday night. Pearson got his team’s attention. But on Saturday, in a season-ending 4-1 loss, the Wolverines started the game about how they started practice on Thursday. And this time, Michigan wouldn’t be saved by the fact that how it started didn’t truly matter. “I’m a firm believer (in) you play as you practice, for the most part,” Pearson said. “For the most part. You just want to make sure that you’re — we don’t play tonight. Thank goodness we didn’t play tonight, we’d be down 5-0, first period. It just — we’re sloppy.” Saturday’s game mattered more than any other game had all season. The Wolverines were 60 minutes away from the end of their season, but they didn’t start the game like a team that was so close to elimination. While it wasn’t quite the 5-0 deficit Pearson mentioned Thursday, Michigan was in a deep hole and trailed, 3-0, after the first period. The Wolverines played better in the ensuing 40 minutes, particularly in the second stanza. But by that point, the hole was too deep. “They came out ready to play in the first and we were on our heels,” said junior forward Jake Slaker. “It’s tough to go down three in the first period and chase. I think we did it last time we were here and we had a little better comeback than we did tonight but, like I said, they came ready and we didn’t. And at that point, it was too late.” Just as Pearson had warned his team before the series started, a slow start led to a deep deficit. Michigan started better in the second period, outshooting the Golden Gophers 10-6 in the frame. The majority of Minnesota’s shots came on the power play late in the period after the Wolverines had spent the majority of the stanza putting pressure on goaltender Mat Robson. “We were embarrassed,” Pearson said. “We played with a little bit more pride in the second period. We worked hard.” Despite Michigan’s efforts in its best period of the game, none of the shots were close enough. None of the Wolverines’ scoring chances were truly ‘Grade-A’ chances. And when you’re down 3-0 in a game that could end your season, close isn’t good enough. “We’ve had trouble scoring goals,” Pearson said on Saturday. “We really have all year, and that’s why we’ve been in so many tight overtime games and come out on the wrong end of those. But that wasn’t the case tonight. They were the better team.” A late goal by junior forward Adam Winborg did little more than prevent Robson from getting a shutout. It was too late, way too late. Michigan knew it. The Wolverines couldn’t clear the mental hurdle that comes along with getting in such a deep hole in an elimination game. Not starting on time put Michigan in a spot it couldn’t come back from, and it ended the Wolverines’ season. “Mentally, it’s hard,” Pearson said. “It’s hard when you’re one game down and all of a sudden you’re down 1-0, 2-0. The mind is a powerful thing and I just don’t know if we were in the right frame of mind or believed we could come in and win this game tonight. “If you’re in that spot, it’s a bad spot to be in.” RIAN RATNAVALE Daily Sports Writer BAILEY JOHNSON Daily Sports Writer ALEXANDRIA POMPEI/Daily Junior forward Jake Slaker said that the Michigan hockey team didn’t come to play in Saturday’s season-ending loss. They came to play and we didn’t. It showed. We’ve had trouble scoring goals. We really have all year. KATELYN MULCAHY/Daily Daily writers Anna Marcus, Laney Byler and Bailey Johnson are among the female sports writers who have covered Michigan hockey for The Daily. He said, “That’s ridiculous. She’s on deadline, she has a job to do.” I think every woman in this field has stories like that. You also want them to know so they have your back.