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Thursday, May 9, 2019
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
SPORTS

Michigan pulls away late from Spartans to win midweek game

The seventh inning turned the
tide for Michigan.
After barely surviving the top of
the inning with the bases loaded
and only one out, the Wolverines’
offense came to life — capitalizing
on a throwing error, a hit-by-pitch
and a wild pitch. The game was
put out of reach for in-state rival
Michigan State (16-30 overall, 5-12
Big Ten) as it went down 5-0 to the
hosts at Ray Fisher Stadium.
In their third meeting on the
season, the Michigan baseball
team (35-11, 14-3) bested the
Spartans 7-0 after pulling away
late.
For the Wolverines, every hit
mattered. A leadoff fly ball from
sophomore
designated
hitter
Jordan Nwogu bounced off the top
of the wall in right field, forcing
the right fielder to scramble after
the ball to limit Nwogu to a triple.
Sophomore center fielder Jesse
Franklin then hit a sacrifice fly to

bring in Nwogu for an early 1-0
lead.
Two innings later, Franklin
would strike again. This time with
a 105-mile-per-hour bullet over
the scoreboard in right field for a
solo home run and a 2-0 lead for
Michigan.
“Guys
getting
on
base,”
said
Franklin.
“Those
sac-flies, I wasn’t
really trying to hit
pop ups like that
because if nobody’s
on base those are
just big old pop
flies. So just guys
getting on base.”
Added Michigan
coach Erik Bakich:
“We took advantage of some
opportunistic offense. We did a
good job when we got runners to
third base to get them in somehow,
even if it wasn’t via a Franklin
home run or sac fly, but just to find
a way to knock those guys in.”
All told, the Wolverines scored
seven runs on eight hits, balancing

powerful batting with capitalizing
on Michigan State’s mistakes.
Both
teams
had
managed
to find a way to shut down the
opposing team’s offense until the
seventh inning, when senior left-
hander Ben Keizer was in his third
inning
of
relief.
Zaid
Walker
managed a single,
and pinch hitter
Bailey
Peterson
reached base after
a backhanded toss
from
sophomore
shortstop
Jack
Blomgren
drew
senior
second
baseman
Ako
Thomas
off
the
base.
Keizer was pulled before the
inning ended and sophomore left-
hander Angelo Smith came in to
get out of the jam. After giving up
a four pitch walk to load the bases,
Smith struck out the Spartan’s
leadoff hitter. But the inning ended
when a hard-hit ball to right field
forced a diving catch from junior

right fielder Jordan Brewer.
Michigan went on to score three
runs in the bottom of the seventh
and two runs in the bottom of the
eighth to win the game 7-0.
“I walked the first guy,” Smith
said. “From there I had to find it
quick because the game’s getting
close and if they score they’d only
be down one so the next batter I
threw three sliders and got him out

in three pitches.”
Added
Bakich:
“All
the
momentum from then was on our
side, we scored five runs in the
next two innings after that. That
was a huge moment in the game,
if he dives and misses it, all three
runs score. So, he took a chance
and nailed it and got it. From that
moment on you could just feel it
was different.”

KENT SCHWARTZ
Daily Sports Writer

Men’s tennis bows out in second round of NCAA Tournament

For the seniors of the Michigan
men’s
tennis
team,
Saturday
brought two endings.
Though
Myles
Schalet
and
Gabe
Tishman
missed
commencement while in Waco,
Texas for the NCAA Tournament,
they still posed in caps and gowns
to celebrate the culmination of
their time as students.
A few hours later, their time
as college athletes, too, came
to an end. A day after beating
Dartmouth (15-9), 4-2, on Friday,
the
20th-ranked
Wolverines
(18-9) fell to No. 6 Baylor (24-5),
4-1, in the second round of the
tournament.
Michigan started slow against
the Big Green, losing its two
completed
doubles
matches
to drop the doubles point. But
sophomore Mattias Siimar won at
No. 3 singles in straight sets, 6-3,
6-1, to tie the score.
“Mattias getting on the board
for us was huge,” said Michigan
coach Adam Steinberg. “He’s
struggled a little bit as of late,

so I was happy for him. When
you lose the doubles point, it’s
so important to get to one-all
and you feel like, OK, back in the
match.”
After Dartmouth regained the
lead with a win at No. 4 singles,
it seemed like the Wolverines
were in trouble when freshman
Patrick Maloney fell behind, 3-0,
in his second set at the No. 5 slot.
But Maloney battled back to win
in straight sets, 7-5, 6-3, knotting
the match back up. That provided
the spark Michigan needed, as it

took the matches at No. 2 and No.
6 singles to seal the win — and
the all-important second-round
berth.
But if Friday’s matches started
with a whimper and ended with
a bang, Saturday’s were the
opposite.
Facing the Bears as a significant
underdog in the round of 32, the
Wolverines dropped their match
at No. 1 doubles before roaring
back to take the remaining two,
both in tiebreakers. Schalet and
freshman Andrew Fenty jumped

up and down and whooped as
they clinched the doubles point
that had eluded Michigan the day
before.
“It was an exciting doubles
point,” Steinberg said. “It was
great. It doesn’t get much better
than that for college tennis. We
came through and we felt great
about it going into the singles, so
it’s a — against a team like Baylor,
if you don’t win the doubles,
you’re really in trouble.”
As the Wolverines learned,
sometimes, against a team like
Baylor, you’re in trouble anyway.
This time, the Bears were
the team that got the score to
one-all after losing the doubles
point and simultaneously swung
momentum in their favor. First, it
was junior Connor Johnston who
went down in straight sets, 2-6,
3-6. The carnage only piled up as
Fenty, then Tishman, then Siimar
dropped their matches — all in
straight sets.
Michigan won just two sets at
singles — one each from Maloney
and Schalet, both of whom were
not afforded the chance to finish
their matches with the result
already decided.

“Our energy in the beginning
of the singles needed to be much
better,” Steinberg said. “For us,
that’s who we are, our identity,
and I don’t think we came out the
way we should have and Baylor
fed off that. They got confident
quick and they have great players,
so you give a little confidence
to a team like that, with a lot of
talent, they’re gonna take it and
run with it. ... When you win the
doubles, you gotta capitalize on
it early, get some breaks, and we
didn’t do that. And Baylor took
control of the match.”
Fenty, ranked No. 48 in the
country
at
singles,
qualified
for
the
NCAA
Individual
Championships later this month,
the lone Wolverine who will
keep playing after the team’s
elimination.
Steinberg
always
tells
his
tournament teams that these are
the moments they’ve worked for
all year — the opportunity to play
great teams like the Bears on the
biggest stage in college tennis.
But
on
Saturday,
Michigan
couldn’t take advantage of that
opportunity,
and
its
season
unceremoniously came to a close.

ARIA GERSON
Daily Sports Editor

KATELYN MULCAHY/Daily
Sophomore left-hander Angelo Smith escaped a seventh-inning jam Tuesday.

All the
momentum
from then was
on our side

ALEC COHEN/Daily
Senior Myles Schalet recorded one of Michigan’s two singles victories Baylor.