This was supposed to be a season 
of destiny for the Michigan field 
hockey team.
Coming off a season in which it 
swept the Big Ten and earned the 
national runner-up, the Wolverines 
entered the 2021 season expecting 
greatness. That expectation was 
made even greater due to the 
circumstances, with the season 
coming 20 years after Michigan’s 
lone national championship and the 
NCAA finals being hosted in Ann 
Arbor.
The 
season 
seemed 
almost 
perfectly designed to have a fairytale 
ending. Instead, it ended more like 

a nightmare. After a string of late-
season losses, the Wolverines walked 
away from the 2021 season short of 
their lofty goals. 
Sunday’s game against Harvard 
ultimately proved the final straw. 
Despite finishing with a lead in shots, 
and putting the pressure hard on the 
Crimson in the fourth quarter, it was 
ultimately Harvard that prevailed 
with the shootout victory. 
“It’s not easy to lose a game like this,” 
Michigan coach Marcia Pankratz said. 

“We just couldn’t get it done.”
It didn’t start out this way. Early 
and decisive wins against North 
Carolina — which has won the last 
three national championships — and 
then top-15 Wake Forest cemented 
the Wolverines at the top of the 
NFHCA Coaches Poll. 
Even more impressive were the 
omissions in those games; three of 
Michigan’s top players, including 
senior midfielder Sofia Southam, 
were away on national duty. Once 
they returned to the team, it was all 
engines go.
In their first five games after the 
return of the national team players, 
the 
Wolverines 
outscored 
their 
opponents 33-4. This, in a sport in 
which three goals is considered 
an offensive flurry. Though later 

games saw much tighter results, 
including a double overtime against 
Northwestern, Michigan continued 
to win games, and entered a 
showdown against No. 2 Iowa as the 
top-ranked team with a 11-0 record. 
Against the Hawkeyes, cracks 
started to form in the Wolverines’ 
play that would become crevices 
as the season moved on: Michigan 
dominating possession and peppering 
the 
opponent 
with 
shots, 
but 
not enough finding the cage; the 

Wolverines earning a litany of corner 
opportunities, but not converting. 
And, 
ultimately, 
Michigan’s 
opponents finding a brief window of 
opportunity to put the game away.
“The kids are resilient, we had our 
chances, and we just couldn’t convert 
them.” Pankratz said.
Of their five losses, only one 
Wolverine loss — their 1-0 Big Ten 
Tournament 
final 
loss 
against 
Rutgers — was put away in the first 
half. The others saw Michigan lead or 
keep the game tied late, but ultimately 
have a win slip through its fingers, 
either in the fourth quarter, overtime 
or shootout.
“I hope everyone remembers 
how this feels,” fifth year back Halle 
O’Neill said. “I hope they come back 
next season with a vengeance.”

Save for O’Neill and fifth-year back 
Emma Tamer, the Wolverines plan to 
return the rest of their starting lineup, 
in large part to the NCAA’s COVID-19 
eligibility relief. 
Given that, it’s unlikely the bitter 
end of this year’s season will be 
forgotten any time soon. 
“It’s been nip-and-tuck between 
this season’s ending and last’s,” 
Pankratz said. “We’re gonna enter 
next season with the same high 
expectations we’ve had all this year.”

In 1997, The Daily football beat predicted 
that Michigan would finish the season 7-5. 
They predicted the Wolverines would 
lose to Northwestern, Minnesota and 
Wisconsin 
and 
finish 
fourth in the Big Ten 
with an appearance in a 
meaningless bowl game. 
And then Michigan 
went to Penn State.
It 
went 
into 
the 
early-November 
game 
undefeated, but questions 
remained 
about 
how 
good the team actually 
was: Was it a classic 
Michigan ‘just enough to stay competitive in 
the Big Ten’ good or were fans looking at a trip 
to Pasadena? 
By 
halftime, 
those 
questions 
were 
answered. The Wolverines turned what was 
supposed to be a competitive grudge-match 
into a 24-0 slashing in the first two quarters. 
“That’s the moment where I was like, 
‘Wow, they could do this. This could happen,’ 
” former Daily football writer Nick Cotsonika 
told The Daily. “And Bo Schembechler was so 
fired up. He was in the press box (because of 
his role in the athletic department). … And he 
just looked at me, facing me. He grabbed both 
my shoulders, shook me and then walked 
away. Not a word. Just grabbed me, shook me 
and walked away. There was this feeling like 

‘Oh my god, right? What is going on?’ ” 
After the game, with a final score of 34-8, 
Nittany Lions coach Joe Paterno said that 
Michigan had “as much right to be voted No. 
1 as any team in the country.” 
That week, the Wolverines jumped from 
No. 4 to No. 1, a position they held onto 
through the remainder of their undefeated 
season and a trip to the Rose Bowl. 
This year, our football beat predicted 
Michigan would end 8-4. They thought the 
Wolverines’ worst losses would be against 
Indiana, Northwestern and Maryland, and 
they’d finish fourth in the Big Ten East with a 
trip to the Las Vegas Bowl. They really wanted 
to go to Las Vegas. 
And then Michigan went to Penn State.
The 21-17 game was much closer to what 
Cotsonika expected the 1997 game to be — a 
hard-fought, down-to-the-wire battle — 
and maybe even more competitive than the 
Wolverines were expecting coming into it 
on Saturday. After methodically clawing 
their way to an eight-point lead by the start 
of the fourth quarter, the Wolverines found 
themselves tied, 14-14, with less than eight 
minutes to play. 
Michigan had been there before. Two 
weeks ago, the Wolverines blew a 16-point 
lead in a top 10 road game in East Lansing. 
They fumbled a 17-17 tie against the Spartans 
at home last season. And blew a seven-point 
lead against Ohio State in 2017. And an eight-

point lead in Iowa City in 2016. And then a 
10-point lead over the Buckeyes two weeks 
later. And a six-point lead over No. 7 Michigan 
State the year before that. 
The idea that Harbaugh can’t win on the 
road has been beaten to death so many times 
that it feels more like an immutable fact than a 
cliché. But, with four minutes left on the clock, 
Erick All took the first step to rewriting that 
narrative.
On 2nd-and-10 in what would become 
the last scoring drive of the game, junior 
quarterback Cade McNamara found All on a 
crossing route. The junior tight end cut up the 
field, outrunning two Penn State defenders en 
route to the end zone. 
“I want to give Michigan a bunch of credit, 
obviously a really good football team that we 
battled for four quarters,” Nittany Lions coach 
James Franklin told reporters on Saturday. 
“… (Aidan Hutchinson and David Ojabo), 
you can make the argument maybe the best 
combination of two D-ends of the country.”
It wasn’t a watershed moment that’s going 
to lead to a national title. I’d be hard-pressed to 
find an argument comparing Hutchinson to 
Charles Woodson, Michigan already has one 
loss with another likely on the horizon and — 
potentially most crucially — college football is 
a totally different landscape than it was in the 
late 1990s. 
But the Wolverines are still returning 
to Ann Arbor with higher stakes, gone of 

the biggest road wins of Harbaugh’s tenure 
and status as at least a semi-serious playoff 
contender. Pending a Michigan State loss in 
Columbus next weekend and a Michigan win 
in College Park, the Wolverines’ game against 
Ohio State after Thanksgiving will be a de facto 
Big Ten East title bout. But, regardless of what 
happens down the line, this win carries weight. 
With a lot to prove coming off of a 
historically-low 
2-4 
season, 
Harbaugh 
showed not only can he win on the road, but, 
more importantly, his team can come through 
with a high-pressure, fourth quarter win late 
in the season. 
A win like Saturday validates athletic director 
Warde Manuel’s decision to bring Harbaugh 
back. And it shows that all the changes his 

program’s gone through since last year have 
proven it’s moving in the right direction.
This might not be the year Harbaugh beats 
the Buckeyes, but he could come pretty damn 
close. Only one of Michigan’s past six contests 
against the Buckeyes have been decided 
by less than a touchdown. Win or lose, the 
Wolverines could be looking at their first trip 
to the Rose Bowl since 2007. Win or lose, this 
season could be the turning point that thrusts 
Harbaugh’s program into the upper echelon 
of college football.
“We’re not mediocre,” safety Marcus Ray 
said of his team after the 1997 Penn State win. 
“And we’re not done yet.”
Twenty-four years later, neither are these 
Wolverines. 

LANE

KIZZIAH

SportsWednesday: This isn’t 1997. But it is something. 

GABBY CERITANO/Daily 
After a win at Penn State, the parallels between Michigan’s 1997 and 2021 seasons are clear.

ALLISON ENGKVIST/Daily 
Harvard upset the Michigan field hockey team in the NCAA Tournament quarterfinals this weekend. 

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com 
Sports
 Wednesday, November 17, 2021 — 7

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Familiar struggles doom Wolverines’ 
season in NCAA Tournament loss

DAVID WOELKERS
Daily Sports Writer

Penn State outlasts Michigan’s volleyball team in spirited 3-1 contest

Friday evening, No. 15 Penn 
State (18-7 overall, 11-4 Big Ten) 
came out victorious over the 
Michigan volleyball team (14-10, 
7-8). The Nittany Lions beat the 
Wolverines 3-1 for the second time 
this season in a competitive contest 
in which Michigan refused to go 
down quietly. 
Penn State played aggressively 
and remained in control for almost 
the entire night. However, a large 
and energetic crowd came out to 
support the Wolverines for their 
Pink Game, feuling the home side’s 
resolve. Despite being down at 
least five points at some point in 

each set, the Wolverines showed 
impressive spirit. They fought their 
way back to a level score late in 
three separate sets. 
Penn State seemingly had the 
first set secured when it took a 
22-15 lead, but the Wolverines 
steeled themselves and proceeded 
to go on an 8-1 run to tie the set 
at 23. This caused Penn State 
to take a timeout. The Nittany 
Lions managed to pull themselves 
together during that timeout and 
took the set, 26-24.
The second set was a similar 
story, but this time Michigan won 
out. Aftering falling behind 11-20, 
the Wolverines went on another 
impressive run, this time 10-1, to 
tie the set. Then, after a back and 
forth, a service ace from junior 

opposite May Pertofsky put it away 
for Michigan 25-23, drawing the 
game even at a set apiece. 
The 
third 
set 
was 
much 
more balanced throughout. The 
Wolverines hung with Penn State, 
even taking an 18-17 lead. But, the 
Nittany Lions rallied from there to 
take the set 25-19.
After its third set victory, 
Penn State capitalized on the 
momentum and slowly pulled away 
from Michigan over the fourth 
set, building a five point 21-16 
lead. However, as they had done 
all night, the Wolverines rallied. 
Pushing within two points, it 
seemed they had a chance to finish 
the comeback. But the Nittany 
Lions managed to finish them off. 
Penn State challenged the final 

play of the match, leading to an 
overturned Wolverine block error 
and the Nittany Lions winning the 
day. 
“I thought we played well, we 
just weren’t quite steady enough,” 
Michigan 
coach 
Mark 
Rosen 
said. “Penn State was a little more 
consistent in the pass game, a little 
more consistent attacking wise… 
that’s part of the game and we’ve 
got to get better at that, but overall 
I thought we played well.” 
As 
the 
season 
progresses, 
players like outside hitter Jess 
Mruzik have grown. A sophomore, 
she led the Wolverine offense on 
Friday and as players like her gain 
more experience, those tight late-
set situations will turn more in 
Michigan’s favor.

IAN PAYNE
For The Daily

JENNA HICKEY/Daily 
For the second time this season, the Wolverines fell to Penn State in four-set fashion.

