12 — Wednesday, January 20, 2021
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Johnson and Beniers lead the
way for Michigan’s offense
Tune into a Michigan hockey
game and chances are that Kent
Johnson and Matty Beniers will
catch your eye.
The freshman forwards have
taken the Big Ten by storm this year,
playing on a line together. Johnson
has been on a torrent scoring pace
with a team-leading 16 points —
and his 12 assists top the Big Ten.
Beniers has been successful in his
own right, as his 11 points indicate,
the third-highest total on the team.
“They’re really engaged with
each other as far as how they want
to play,” Michigan coach Mel
Pearson said. “Matty’s probably
got a little bit more of a motor and
speed. Kent’s a little bit better
cerebrally and (with) what he does
with the puck. But they both read
off each other extremely well.”
Putting the duo together paid
off almost instantly. In their first
collegiate hockey game against
Arizona State, Beniers found the
back of the net twice and Johnson
had the primary assist on both
goals. They’ve only gotten more
comfortable with each other as the
season has gone on.
“We both know where we are,
where we’re going to be when we’re
going around the ice and where
we want the puck when we’re
shooting,” Beniers said. “We’re just
building chemistry right now.”
They have contrasting styles on
the ice, but their combination of
abilities makes them tough to beat.
Beniers stands out for his ability
to play a 200-foot game. He’ll be
circling around the offensive zone
looking for a scoring opportunity
then moments later hustling back to
play defense. And he doesn’t let up
the entire game.
“He’s never taken a day off, he
doesn’t know how to,” assistant
coach Kris Mayotte said. “His
motor and his compete is elite. You
don’t coach that; it’s something
special that he has in him.”
Johnson, meanwhile, has a
dazzling flare to his game and
can pull out highlight reel plays
at a moment’s notice. Much like
Beniers’s ability to grind out long
possessions on both ends of the ice,
Johnson’s flashy moves are more of
a natural instinct than a coachable
trait.
“I just try to not really think
when I play and just let my training
and my subconscious do the work,”
Johnson said. “If I feel like I need to
do something between my legs to
make the best play, then I’ll do it.”
Johnson and Beniers are both
currently projected as top ten picks
in the 2021 NHL draft. Having
two top NHL prospects on a line
together is a rare privilege, and
the Wolverines have taken full
advantage of it.
Before
the
season,
Pearson
emphasized that the key to strong
lines is to have two guys who play
well together and then build off of
it. It’s been a revolving door at right
wing on the line, but it hasn’t slowed
the duo’s production.
“I think you’ll see them be even
better in the second half,” Pearson
said. “We just got to find the right
guy to put on the right side with
them.”
Michigan has a lot of talent on its
roster, but if it wants to make a deep
tournament run, it will have to push
the right buttons to maximize that
talent. Halfway through the season,
it’s clear that pairing Beniers and
Johnson together has been a step
towards achieving just that.
“We saw from day one, they’re
smart players,” Pearson said. “A
smart player needs smart players to
play with them.”
JOSH TAUBMAN
Daily Sports Writer
MADELINE HINKLEY/Daily
Freshman forward Matty Beniers has registered 11 points this season playing on a line with Kent Johnson.
For Ziyah Holman, stunning comeback brings moment in the spotlight
By now, you’ve probably seen
the clip. If you haven’t, Mich-
igan freshman Ziyah Holman
takes the baton for the final
leg of the 4x400 relay at Sat-
urday’s Sim-
mons-Harvey
Invitational
from 25
meters
behind her
closest com-
petitor. With-
in seconds,
she passes an
Ohio State
runner. A lap later — mere steps
from the finish line — she uses a
final burst to bury Indiana too,
winning the race for Michigan
with a 51.79 second split.
“51 seconds of thrill” is
how Anthony Belber, her high
school coach at Georgetown
Day School in Washington, D.C.
describes it. On social media,
hundreds of thousands feel the
same way. As of Tuesday after-
noon, the video has 454,000
views on Facebook, 204,000 on
Twitter and 47,000 on Insta-
gram.
What hasn’t made the social
media rounds is Holman’s 600-
meter race an hour and a half
earlier. There’s less drama to
that one because she won by
four seconds with a time of
1:29.27, topping a pair of Ohio
State seniors. “It was a stadium
record, a meet record and an
NCAA lead (for the season),”
Holman said by phone Tues-
day, with the nonchalance that
accompanies expectation.
After all, she’s used to this.
She’s been an anchor in the
4x400 since she was a freshman
in high school. The only time
she can remember not being in
that position was at the 2019
Pan American U20 Champi-
onships when her team set an
under-20 world record. So when
she took the baton Saturday
afternoon, she just reminded
herself to do what she was
taught.
“Just go test them, honestly,”
Holman said. “Just go get them,
see how far you can get. As the
race keeps going, you see your-
self getting closer. Like oh my
god, I’m actually getting closer.
Why would I try so hard and
not try to win?”
When she did, it was more
familiar than anything. “All the
time in high school, honestly,”
Holman said when asked if
she’s ever experienced a similar
comeback. “That was my thing.”
Five hundred miles away,
those were the memories that
raced to Belber’s mind as he
watched on a live stream. As
Holman took the baton, he
turned to his daughters and
said, “If this were high school,
she would’ve caught those girls,
but this is too big of a gap for
college.” 51.79 seconds later,
Holman proved it wasn’t.
“I know how strong she is,
but it even blew away my expec-
tations for what kind of a time
she would be running this time
of year,” Belber said. “She made
the college athletes around her
look like they were just high
schoolers.”
For Holman, the race itself
wasn’t as stunning as the social
media attention it garnered. For
47 months, every four years,
track is a sport that often blends
into the background. She was a
three-time Gatorade Player of
the Year in high school, but that
doesn’t bring the same fame as
it does in football and basket-
ball. So when Saturday’s video
went viral, it brought Holman
a level of attention she’s never
experienced before.
“I’ve gotten so many messag-
es, it’s not even funny,” Holman
said. “I feel so bad because I’m
still replying — trying to reply
— to everyone, but honestly
it’s pretty impossible. I’m still
replying to stuff from Satur-
day.”
Since Saturday, she estimated
she’s gotten 500 direct messag-
es from family, friends and fans
across Instagram and Twitter,
with about 100 left to respond
to. It’s not all positive, though.
Holman said she’s gotten one or
two racist messages, which she
brushes off with an admirable
absence of second thought.
“I can’t sit here cursing peo-
ple if I wanted to, because that’s
not done with class,” Holman
said. More than anything, that’s
the lasting difference in her life
from Saturday morning. With
one stunning, come-from-be-
hind leg of a 4x400, she’s imme-
diately been thrust into the
public eye.
“It’s real, people are watch-
ing me now,” she added. “Any-
thing that you do has to be done
with class, honestly, because
you have so many people at your
back.”
If everything goes accord-
ing to plan, Holman will have
even more people at her back
this summer. Before COVID-19
postponed the 2020 Olym-
pics to this summer, she had
received an invite to Olympic
trials for the 400 meters. She’ll
almost certainly be invited
again, this time with a year of
college training and experience
under her belt.
“It gave me some more time
and more confidence, honest-
ly,” Holman said. “I don’t know
what I would’ve done last year.”
That’s the other impact of
Saturday’s race. In 2016, the
eighth and final American
to qualify for the 400 meters
posted a 51.80 in trials. If
Holman can repeat Saturday’s
performance, she’ll put her-
self in strong contention to do
the same. And while athletes
generally post faster times
with running starts in relays,
Holman did so on an indoor
track — which has more turns
— and with tired legs from
her previous accolades that
day.
If she does qualify for the
Olympics, she’ll have reached
her ultimate goal. But for now,
Saturday’s meet — the first of
her college career — is a pretty
good place to start.
“I had no idea what was
gonna happen,” Holman
said. “I just came out there
to compete. I have goals, but
I definitely didn’t expect a
51.7 split. That was crazy. I
couldn’t believe that.”
On social media, neither
could hundreds of thousands of
new fans.
Mackie can be reached at
tmackie@umich.edu or on
Twitter @theo_mackie.
THEO
MACKIE
ALEC COHEN/Daily
In her first collegiate meet, Ziyah Holman ran 1:29.27 in the 600-meter and anchored the 4x400 relay.