AN EVENING WITH SAFA AL AHMAD NOVEMBER 19, 2019 | 7:30 P.M. | RACKHAM AUDITORIUM FREE | NO REGISTRATION | WALLENBERG.UMICH.EDU 4B — November 18, 2019 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com SportsMonday W alking through the Michigan Stadium concourse at about 3:50 on Satur- day, you could hear it before you saw it. “It’s great to be a Michi- gan Wolver- ine,” they chanted, and the chants came from no one direction, just every- where. It was minutes after the Michi- gan football team kneeled down to put the finishing touches on a 44-10 beatdown of Michigan State, with Shea Patterson running the game ball to Jim Harbaugh, and minutes before Harbaugh told the assembled media that he stuffed the ball back into Patterson’s book bag, a token of appreciation for a 384-yard, four-touchdown perfor- mance, Patterson’s best in a Michi- gan uniform. It was two days after, trailing by one against the Spartans with a power play coming midway through the third period, junior forward Mike Pastujov got called for roughing, negating the Wolver- ines’ best chance at pulling back in a 4-3 loss. It was hours before the Michi- gan State hockey team would skate over to its student section in the corner of Munn Ice Arena and pound on the glass after a 3-0 win, basking in chants of their own, that in the game’s last three min- utes went from “Board the Buses,” to “Fuck Jim Harbaugh,” and finally, “Little Sister.” It was one moment in a week- end full of them, and it encap- sulated everything about the Michigan-Michigan State rivalry. There are separate repercus- sions on all sides for all of these games. Michigan football got a highlight in what seemed poised to be a lost season. Michigan hockey fell further back on its heels, then got kicked into the dirt. But this is not a platform to try and mix football and hockey analysis. It’s one to dissect a rivalry, and what it means to the people in it. Like senior safety Josh Metellus, from Florida and indoc- trinated into this, who waved at the Spartans when the final whistle blew and later explained, “I was telling them to go home. It’s time for them to leave. They don’t deserve to be in this stadium.” Like sophomore defenseman Nick Blankenburg, from Washing- ton, Mich., who does need need the rivalry contextualized and who stood in the offices at Yost Ice Arena on Thursday after his team threw away a 3-1 lead, arms crossed and frowning. “We just let off the gas,” he said, a cardinal sin in this rivalry. Like Mel Pearson, who has coached in this game in some form for a combined 26 years, who took a long walk to center ice on Sat- urday and shook Michigan State coach Danton Cole’s hand, then trudged to the end of the hand- shake line. He stood in a hallway behind the bench 15 minutes later, his hands on his hips, and said of Michigan’s power play, which went 0-for-8 on the weekend, all but costing the Wolverines two games, “We’re terrible there. We’re absolutely terrible.” Like athletic director Warde Manuel, who sent a co-signed let- ter with Michigan State athletic director Bill Beekman to fans on Friday imploring respectful behavior at the football game. That got thrown out the window along with a few thousand yellow towels that rained down on Nico Collins after he waltzed into the end zone on a 22-yard post route early in the fourth quarter, making the score 34-10 and making a crowd of 111,496 lose its collective mind. Like Harbaugh, the public face of Michigan athletics, who cried in the Spartan Stadium locker room a year ago after the Wolverines beat the Spartans. On Saturday, he only used one word to describe his emotions. “Happy. Really happy,” he said. “It’s a big game, it’s for the state championship. 112th version. And now our team, everybody that’s in the locker room has the advantage. Fifth-year seniors are 3-2. The seniors are 3-1. The juniors are 2-1. Sophomores are 2-0 and the freshmen are 1-0. That’s a big program win. Makes me very happy.” This is stereotyped as a chippy, physical matchup, and rightfully so. The two football teams had five combined unsportsmanlike conduct penalties, two personal fouls and an ejection, imposed on Michigan State defensive lineman Jacub Panasiuk after a blatant cheap shot on Patterson. Thurs- day’s hockey game featured a fight after Michigan State defenseman Christian Krygier cross-checked Jake Slaker. Sophomore defense- man Jack Summers jumped on Krygier, whose twin brother, Cole, started punching Slaker. There is real, visceral hatred on all sides. And with that comes emotion, the two extremes dis- played across sports and across the weekend. “You never want to be in this situation, losing games,” said senior defenseman Griffin Luce Saturday night, sweat still drip- ping and skates still on. “... I wouldn’t say we’re panicking here, we’re not worried, but day-to-day, we just have to bring it every day as a team.” Forty-nine miles away and a few hours earlier, Metellus was at a podium with cameras trained on him, expressing the exact opposite. “I’m pretty pleased,” Metellus said, “because I feel like we’re way more classier than them. They try to take it to a level that wasn’t play- ing football. We play football over here. I don’t know what they do over there, but we play football.” That’s what this rivalry is, and that’s what it always will be. Whether you’re in the Michigan Stadium concourse, the bowels of Munn Ice Arena or anywhere in between, it only takes a moment to see it. A weekend inside the rivalry ETHAN SEARS Spartans crush ‘M,’ 3-0, for sweep EAST LANSING — Kris Mayotte turned to Mel Pearson on the bench, and with a grim expression on his face, the assistant coach — in charge of goaltending — shouted one word, or rather, one name. “Hayden!” Pearson had presumed Mayotte wanted to discuss the goal Strauss Mann had just allowed, his third of the night. But when a second shout of Hayden Lavigne’s name came, without another thought, Pearson cued the switch of goaltenders — a “no-brainer” he later called the decision. Pulling a goaltender is indicative of only one thing. A team is struggling to stop shots, and that a change is needed. And for the Michigan hockey team, that meant that its recent struggles to stop pucks against Michigan State had continued onto Saturday’s matchup that resulted in a 3-0 loss — leading the team to turn to Lavigne. “You’re just trying to change the tempo of the game a little bit,” Pearson said. The decision came too late, though. The switch didn’t remove the fact that the Wolverines had dug themselves into a three-goal hole. Or that any offensive pushes resulted in a glaring zero on Michigan’s side of the scoreboard. The goaltender change was just a change of pace, a gamble to spark energy amongst the deflated Wolverines. “We’re just not getting many breaks,” Pearson said. “You have to make your breaks” The despair built from the three goals that were allowed early. A tipped shot in front of the crease in the first period is a difficult task to ask anyone to save. Add in two screens, and the task was impossible for Mann. But the blame for the second and third goals, however, laid largely on Mann’s shoulders. A shot from Austin Kamar off a faceoff win snuck between Mann’s glove and leg pad, and diminished any momentum the Wolverines had built from their relentless second-period attacks. And a third goal, minutes later from Tommy Apap after a persistent crease attack — a top-shelf shot on a rebound after three saves — sent Michigan into a state of dismay. It wasn’t just the relative ease that Michigan State scored with, it was the difficulty that came with every high-danger scoring chance the Wolverines produced. In the second period, sophomore forward Jimmy Lambert conducted a three-on- one breakaway that fizzled out without a single shot on goal. “You see it on the bench, when you get a three-on-one like Jimmy had and we don’t even get a shot, you can just see it on the bench, like, ‘What do we have to do?’ ” Pearson said. “And it gets frustrating, and they’re all frustrated right now.” Sensing the frustration, the switch was called, and a timeout, too, as insurance. The message in the 60 seconds was clear. Stay with it. Keep playing hard. There was plenty of time left in the game. The revitalized efforts didn’t procure any goals, but opportunities came, which couldn’t be said about much of the first period, and the latter half of the second. And in all three periods, the lack of opportunities on the power play further doomed Michigan. Converting 0-of-5 power plays, the man- advantage proved to be a non-factor when its inherent purpose is to provide teams with an increased chance to score. “We have two opportunities in the first period,” Pearson said. “And we have the chance to do some things and we’re terrible there, we’re absolutely terrible there. “... You have guys who aren’t finishing and really struggling offensively, they go hand and hand, the power play and (even- strength scoring).” And those problems are not things a simple goaltender change can fix. ALEXANDRIA POMPEI/Daily Cornelius Johnson scored the final touchdown in Michigan’s 44-10 win. TIEN LE Daily Sports Editor ALEC COHEN/Daily Sophomore goaltender Strauss Mann got pulled on Saturday for Hayden Lavigne. You can see it on the bench like, “What do we have to do?” Michigan unable to respond to deficit EAST LANSING — It took just under two minutes for the game to completely slip away. In those brief 104 seconds, the Michigan hockey team collapsed. But it wouldn’t show immediately. Entering the second period, the Wolverines were riding a wave of momentum. They showed no signs of having surrendered a goal in the opening minutes of the first period. Their play was sharp. The offense displayed urgency. Every puck that connected with a Michigan stick went towards the net. “We were all over them,” said senior defenseman Griffin Luce. “They couldn’t hang with us, they couldn’t play with us. They get the first goal there and I think we did a pretty good job answering. They didn’t know what hit them.” But no matter how potent their second-period start was, there was still the fact that the first goal, scored in the opening minutes, was, ultimately, the game-winner. When Luce was asked about the team’s response to the early goal, he pointed to the team’s intensity in the second period. But there was still 18 minutes between the goal and the “strong response” unaccounted for. Because in those 18 minutes, there was little to point to. Little improvement. Little upswing in intensity. Little response to show for a team that needs to start learning to handle the adversity it faces. Because as quickly as everything seemed to be going right for the Wolverines in the second period, everything began to go wrong. It started with senior forward Nick Pastujov losing a faceoff in the defensive zone. Michigan State forward Adam Goodsir won the draw and slid the puck behind him to forward Austin Kamer. Kamer released the puck within a second of receiving it, connected with the back of the net and then the buzzer sounded. Michigan had fallen into a 2-0 deficit, but the bleeding didn’t stop. Immediately after the goal, there was no pushback, similar to the 18 minutes after the first Spartan goal. The Wolverines seemed deflated, and more obviously, frustrated. Sticks were slammed. Heads were shaken. It didn’t matter that almost half the game still remained, Michigan was playing like a team that had already lost. And rather than responding immediately to Michigan State’s second goal — exactly what the Wolverines had failed to after falling behind 1-0 — they faltered. “They just fought a little harder in those gritty areas to score those goals,” said Michigan coach Mel Pearson. “That’s what (we’ve been) talking about. We’ve got to play a little harder there.” The lack of response by the Wolverines resulted in an even stronger push from Michigan State. One minute later, Spartan forward Jagger Joshua pushed the puck past freshman defenseman Keaton Pherson to gain the offensive zone. Joshua fired a rising shot towards the net, but freshman forward Johnny Beecher batted the puck out of the air. Beecher’s play was followed by a scramble for the puck in front of the net, and sophomore goaltender Strauss Mann was forced to make a series of saves. One of the saves left him vulnerable, Mann was stomach down on the ice, sprawled across his crease. When the puck came found the stick of Michigan State forward Tommy Apap, it was too easy. The net was wide open, and he buried the puck top shelf. The game had gone from bad to worse to over. The Wolverines had fallen into a three-goal hole they were unable to climb out of against the Spartans. The team was rattled because for the first time in a string of games, Michigan’s biggest problem wasn’t their offense — it was everything. And the response to the third goal wasn’t a rally or a harder press or anything effort-based. It was a personnel change. Trying to provide a spark for his team, Pearson pulled Mann from goal and replaced him with senior goaltender Hayden Lavigne, who had yet to see ice time in a game this season. Pearson followed the swap with a timeout to regroup the team. “It just gives a little boost there for us,” Luce said. “It just gets guys on their toes a little bit. So we can go and get right back on it. He’s coming in cold so you never wanna give him any chances early right away.” But it didn’t have the effect Pearson intended. In the wake of those two goals, the Wolverines would never regain control of the game, and there were no shortage of chances to do so. The opening two minutes of the game, and the 104-second stretch of play in the second period had done too much damage, and Michigan showed just how incapable it is of immediately responding to falling behind in a game. MOLLY SHEA Daily Sports Writer ALEC COHEN/Daily The Michigan hockey team let the game slip away over a short span on Saturday.