AN EVENING WITH SAFA AL AHMAD

NOVEMBER 19, 2019 | 7:30 P.M. | RACKHAM AUDITORIUM

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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.

