The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Sports
Friday, April 19, 2019 — 7
“You’re no longer the underdog”
How Michigan women’s lacrosse learned how to win
Before the start of the season in
February, coach Hannah Nielsen
set up a board with challenging
but attainable goals for her team.
Finish over .500. The Michigan
women’s lacrosse team, in its five
years of existence, had never had
a winning season.
A winning record in Big Ten
play. The Wolverines had never
done that either — or even won
more than two games.
Make the Big Ten Tournament.
The last time that happened was
2016, back before there were just
four teams in the tournament.
Michigan
was
winless
in
conference that year and exited
unceremoniously with a 20-5 loss
to Northwestern. Its presence
was not missed.
Follow team values, on and off
the field. The mantra upon which
Nielsen bases her culture.
Now, the Wolverines have
done all those things.
They’re 14-2, having already
clinched an undefeated home
record and a spot in the Big
Ten Tournament. Those old
objectives have been checked
off and replaced by new ones
— ones that seemed completely
unrealistic just months ago.
Make the Big Ten Tournament
championship game.
Get a bid to the NCAA
Tournament.
Win the opening contest there.
“There was no specific mile
marker for what we were going
to achieve and when,” Nielsen
said. “I set out, when I took over
the program, to build this team
into the best it could possibly
be, the quickest it could possibly
get there. But at the same time,
it needed to be done in the right
way. … So to be where we’re at is
kind of — it’s excellent.”
In one season, the team that
was once a cautionary tale on the
difficulties of starting up a high-
major lacrosse program from
scratch has become a success
story.
***
Nielsen came into Michigan in
2018 as one of the most decorated
lacrosse players of all time, a
four-time
national
champion
and
three-time
All-American
at Northwestern who set three
NCAA assists records during her
career.
She’d won everywhere she’d
been. She’d won so much that
she’d
never
experienced
a
losing season — not as a player,
not during assistant coaching
stints at Penn State, Towson or
Northwestern, not even when
she was an assistant at Colorado
in the first two years of the
program’s existence.
With the Buffaloes, Nielsen
learned how to build a team from
scratch. She took the lessons she
learned about laying a foundation
with her to Ann Arbor, but this
was her toughest task yet. After
all, Colorado was a blank slate. At
Michigan, losing was all anyone
knew.
As recruits in 2014, senior
goalkeeper
Mira
Shane
and
senior attacker Adriana Pendino
— along with several other East
Coast commits — attended the
Wolverines’
inaugural
game,
at Villanova. They watched as
Michigan scored the first goal
only to eventually fall, 20-7.
For years, that was what the
program was. Any sparks of
hope were quickly extinguished
en route to constant defeats.
To survive in that environment
almost requires a numbness to
failure, a numbness rarely found
in high-level athletes.
Nielsen saw that first-hand
in her debut as head coach.
Following a 20-10 loss to the
Buffaloes, the players boarded
the bus, laughing and talking like
normal. So Nielsen stepped in
and addressed her team.
That’s not OK. You can’t be
coming onto the bus laughing
after a first game where you lost
by 10.
Two days later, Michigan lost
to Jacksonville. Again, there was
a sense that it was just fine. The
Wolverines hadn’t played badly,
per se. The defense was alright.
They scored more goals than they
usually did.
When Nielsen let them know
that their complacency wouldn’t
fly, it came as a shock.
“We were OK with losing
because that was the culture
around
Michigan
women’s
lacrosse earlier, previously,” said
sophomore midfielder Maggie
Kane. “And so when we were
losing a lot of those games, it was
obviously frustrating. But I think
everybody was just used to it.”
Nielsen worked to rebuild her
program’s culture from the inside
out. She knew it would take time,
and she wanted to make sure it was
done the right way. Nielsen’s goal
was to change the team’s mindset
and to establish the values
of
accountability,
consistent
improvement
and
leadership
by example. Her methods were
stricter than previous coaches,
but she simultaneously made
sure her team had fun, gelled
with each other and played with
confidence.
Her biggest message to the
team was the first step of building
a winning culture:
“You’re
never
gonna
go
anywhere if you don’t set your
expectations high.”
***
It was the last game of the 2018
season, and once again, it was
meaningless.
The Wolverines were in State
College for a tilt with No. 16 Penn
State. They weren’t going to finish
over .500 or make the Big Ten
Tournament. They had nothing
left to play for but themselves.
But sometimes, when pride is
the only thing on the line, funny
things happen.
With
seven
seconds
left,
Michigan trailed by one. With
six seconds left, Molly Garrett
picked up a ground ball and
shoveled a pass to Catherine
Granito. Granito’s shot plopped
into the top of the net. The game
was tied.
With one second left, Kane
sprinted down the field after
winning a draw, took a last-ditch
blind shot and stood, speechless,
watching the net ripple as her
shot went in. She looked around to
see if anyone else had processed
what had just happened.
Everyone
was
speechless.
Then, they began jumping up and
down and embracing each other.
“I think I peed my pants,”
Shane said.
The Wolverines had won,
11-10, beating a ranked team
for the first time — ever. To this
day, they get chills watching the
replay.
It was the first time all the
puzzle pieces clicked. Michigan
was
nowhere
near
a
real
championship, but this could be
its little championship, the small
victory to pave the road for bigger
ones.
“We realized what a good,
big win felt like,” Kane said. “I
think everyone geared up and
was like, ‘Wow, that isn’t OK to
lose to these teams that are even
mediocre, and it feels awesome to
beat a top-20 team.’ ”
Suddenly, drawn in by the
taste of victory, Michigan had
confidence and momentum going
into the 2019 season. It was a
lethal combination.
On Feb. 26, the 5-0 Wolverines
faced a three-goal deficit at No. 9
Denver with less than 15 minutes
remaining. At altitude, on the
road, against a ranked team,
Michigan stormed back to win,
12-10.
“I think win after win, game
after game, when we were 1-0,
2-0, 3-0, 4-0, all the way up, it
was like we went into each and
every game, the following game,
like, ‘We will win this game,’”
Pendino said. “Not, ‘We can win
this game,’ or ‘We might win this
game.’ So I think the confidence
aspect
just
came
with
our
success.”
The first step in learning
how to win was setting the
expectation of winning as the
norm. The second — winning
close games and coming from
behind — came in Denver.
Through February and March,
the Wolverines kept winning,
stretching their streak to 13
games with their first-ever win
over No. 18 Johns Hopkins on
March 30. But the unexpected
success
wasn’t
without
its
drawbacks.
“The hardest struggle was
with winning, you’re no longer
the underdog,” Pendino said.
“People have more expectations
and there was pressure.”
As the wins mounted so did
the pressure. Michigan had never
before faced the phenomenon of
a winning streak, of each game
feeling more and more important
and more and more like a burden.
“As the ladder kept climbing,
where it was just like six, seven,
eight, nine, it was like, ‘Oh my
God, I’m really happy, but holy
moly,’ ” Shane said. “And the
stage got bigger. I think that
people were definitely rising to
the occasion but … it was hard at
some point.
“It’s hard to know how to win
and this program hasn’t known
how to do it in the past and I
think Hannah and our whole
entire coaching staff is teaching
us how to do that, to walk away
with — even if you feel like there’s
pressure, how do you rise to the
occasion and come off the field no
matter what, with a win?”
In its 13-game winning streak,
Michigan learned how to do that.
But then came the third step:
learning how to lose again.
Not losing chronically, like the
Wolverines did before, but losing
— as all teams do — and coming
back from it.
On April 6, Michigan scored
the first goal of the game against
Maryland, then the No. 2 team
in the country. An hour later, the
Wolverines had to deal with the
consequences of a 14-3 drubbing
by the Terrapins.
“It was really just a relief to
get the one loss out of the way,”
Nielsen said. “Get it early-ish
in the campaign, I’d rather lose
in April than lose in May. So it
was just, it was a really good
measuring stick, and to come
back and reflect on the game and
say, ‘Alright, guys, we need to be
better. We need to be a little bit
more confident in what we’re
doing, play a little harder, play a
little faster.’ ”
While Nielsen focused on
the positives, the players were
crushed. It was a far cry from
the athletes who had laughed
on the bus after a loss to a team
far inferior to Maryland. The
complacency was gone, but in the
immediate aftermath, so was the
confidence that had carried the
team so far. A year after working
to teach her team that losing was
never OK, it was up to Nielsen to
pick Michigan back up after the
suddenly forgotten phenomenon
of defeat.
That, in itself, showed just
how much the expectations had
shifted.
The coaches had a pulse on
their athletes. Practice that week
was light and fun, designed to get
the Wolverines back on board and
ready for the rest of their season.
This time, they’d earned it.
And in a way, the loss took
the pressure off. No longer
was each game the one that
threatened to end the streak.
Instead, each successive win
would be gravy. The following
week, the Wolverines clinched
an undefeated home record by
beating Rutgers, something that
seemed unthinkable just months
before.
Nielsen always pushed her
players to think bigger and set
loftier goals. Now, as they’ve
thought bigger and won bigger,
she’s struggling to temper her
own expectations as the bar for
success gets higher.
“You win games and your
expectation levels get higher and
higher and you forget to just sort
of reflect and say, ‘We’re probably
not supposed to be here,’ ” Nielsen
said. “And so we’re a little harder
on them than maybe we need to
be sometimes.”
But even if the season does end
in disappointment for Nielsen, it
will be a symptom of the winning
culture
she’s
successfully
established. Even her talk of April
losses being preferable to May
losses would have been unheard
of before, when May lacrosse
existed simply as a figment of
their collective imaginations.
Michigan is no longer the
laughingstock. Now, it’s a team
that could play a few weeks
into May if everything breaks
right. Nielsen, of course, is no
stranger to postseason lacrosse
and the way that anything can
happen there. She sees that in the
Wolverines’ future — if not quite
this year, then soon, because with
the foundation she built, the sky
is the limit. Finally, the team
is full of people who — top to
bottom — know how to win.
Nielsen has teased the players
about her experiences with May
lacrosse, but she hasn’t gone into
too much detail. She wants them
to stay hungry, after all — and
she wants them to experience the
feeling for themselves.
To know they’re more than
capable, all she has to do is look at
how her goal board has changed
since February.
To know they’re more than
capable, all she has to do is look at
how her goal board has changed
since February.
ARIA GERSON
Daily Sports Writer
KARTIK SUNDARAM/Daily
The Michigan women’s lacrosse team started the season hoping to simply finish with a winning record in Big Ten play.
KATELYN MULCAHY/Daily
Senior attacker Adriana Pendino attended the Wolverines’ inaugural game in 2014, a 20-7 loss to Villanova.
ZACHARY GOLDSMITH/Daily
Sophomore midfielder Maggie Kane noted that prior Michigan teams have been OK with a losing culture.