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.