The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Sports
8 — Wednesday, May 11, 2022
Michigan blanks Oklahoma, will
host Super Regional
ABHIJAI SINGH
Daily Sports Writer
Everyone huddled around the No. 1
singles court, anticipating that junior
Ondrej Styler would clinch another
victory for the Michigan men’s tennis
team — just as he had in all three
matches last weekend during the Big
Ten Tournament.
And with all eyes on him, Styler
did exactly that. Not only did he
clinch Michigan’s (24-3 overall, 8-1
Big Ten) 4-0 sweep of the Sooners
(15-10) in the NCAA Tournament’s
second round, but he also locked up
home court advantage for an NCAA
Super Regional.
Styler didn’t wait to make his mark
either.
On his first match point, he
delivered an ace to win in straight
sets, giving the Wolverines their
fourth requisite point to best their
second opponent in two days.
“At any point in the match, I
feel that we can win at all (singles)
positions,” Styler said. “(This feeling)
gives me the confidence and time to
focus on my own game.”
His feeling was certainly right:
five of six Michigan players won their
first sets.
Even so, the Wolverines didn’t
need all five of those wins, anyway.
Instead, their polished doubles play
opened a path to a dominant victory
over an undermanned Oklahoma
team.
Kickstarting
Michigan’s
22nd
earned doubles point this season,
graduate student Nick Beaty and
senior Patrick Maloney handily
outplayed their Sooner opponents —
cruising to win their No. 2 doubles
match, 6-0. Meanwhile, the other
doubles courts held back-and-forth
scoring affairs until Michigan’s No.
1 and No. 3 pairs posted 5-3 leads
thanks to back-to-back unforced
errors by Oklahoma.
Styler didn’t allow the Sooners
to capitalize on their opportunity
to break, serving an ace to win, 6-3,
and giving the Wolverines their first
point.
“We feel like our serving is a
strength of our team,” Michigan
coach Adam Steinberg said. “It’s
really important (to grab) free points,
and it takes the pressure off always
having to grind every single point
out.”
Serving truly bled through the
Wolverines’ plan of attack against
Oklahoma.
Before
sophomore
Jacob
Bickersteth delivered an ace to finish
his first set (6-2), sophomore Nino
Ehrenschneider took the deciding
point with an ace to stamp his
dominating 6-0 first set victory. As
the youngest Michigan players to
be slotted into both the singles and
doubles lineups versus the Sooners,
they led the charge, and their
teammates followed.
After Styler emerged victorious in
his first set, 6-4, Maloney captured
set point with an ace to win his first
set, 6-4. Then Beaty carried the
momentum of an ace to kickstart a 7-5
comeback win.
“I think I came out a little sloppy
(because of the wind),” Beaty said.
“Once I got my feet moving … and
trusted myself to swing out more, my
confidence shifted by feeling more
positive.”
The
Wolverines’
confidence,
With just three games remaining
in the regular season, the No. 23
Michigan
softball
team finds itself in
unfamiliar territory.
The three-game
series
sweep
—
typically a hallmark
of Wolverines’ past
Big Ten campaigns
— has eluded them
thus
far.
Despite
winning the series
against all but two conference
opponents, Michigan is yet to sweep
any of them, outside of a two-game
home-and-home
series
sweep
against Michigan State.
But the past three weekends,
a pattern has developed. The
Wolverines drop the first game of
the series, often struggling mightily
and looking like the inferior team.
But then they quickly recover,
taking the final two games of the
series and escaping with a winning
record.
There’s plenty of reasons that
this pattern could be attributed to.
Maybe Michigan needs an external
motivator, and that opening loss
does the trick. Some members of
the team joke about the Wolverines
being cursed on Fridays. Others
view it as a necessary step to learn
more about their opponents.
“I don’t like to call it a slow start,”
graduate second baseman Melina
Livingston said after the victory
over Minnesota last Saturday. “I like
to call it gaining information.”
Still, it’s easy to take a negative
outlook on this method. Other
teams around the country sweep
opponents,
gaining
enough
information
through
pregame
scouting and early at-bats to start
the series right. So if other teams
can do it, what’s stopping Michigan
from doing the same?
But even with the worries that
the first games bring, the constant
recovery demonstrates something
positive about the Wolverines:
This Michigan team is incredibly
resilient.
And it shows in the games that
the Wolverines have won over the
past few weeks, microcosms of the
entire series that they’ve played.
Start with, for example, the
second game against Maryland.
Just a day before, Michigan lost
the series-opener handedly to a
team it has never lost a series to.
With a demoralizing loss like that,
it would have been easy to fold
over and let that loss define the
series. But the Wolverines quickly
rebounded, winning the next game
on a go-ahead sacrifice bunt in
extra innings before dominating the
series finale.
A week later, that same resiliency
was on full display against rival
Ohio State. Despite blowing a lead in
the top of the seventh inning in the
second game of the series, Michigan
started a rally in the bottom of
the inning and won on a walk-off
triple. The next day, the Buckeyes
delivered a punch to the mouth
in the form of four first-inning
runs. But the Wolverines chipped
away, eventually taking a 5-4 lead
that never wavered and the series
victory.
Noah Kingsley:
Michigan is resilient, if
nothing else
predicated on an aggressive style
of play, continued into their second
sets. Like his performance in doubles
play, Ehrenschneider headlined this
charge.
“(Ehrenschneider has) had a lot of
injuries to deal with,” Steinberg said.
“Now, he’s healthy, and, when he’s
healthy and feeling good … his work
ethic is unmatched.”
Ehrenschneider
seized
three
consecutive break points to take
a quick 5-0 lead — coming atop a
14-shot rally to win the first, striking
a powerful return to grab the second,
and keenly placing a backhanded shot
to take the third.
Two games later, on his match
point,
Ehrenschneider
attacked
the net after three shots and forced
Sooner Welsh Hotard to put too much
into a return that sailed well out of
bounds. Seconds after his 6-0 and
6-2 win notched Michigan its second
point, Bickersteth expanded the
Wolverines’ lead to 3-0 — as he also
won in straight sets, 6-2 and 6-2.
Then Styler finished the job.
Between the Big Ten Tournament
and its first NCAA Tournament
weekend, Michigan has turned to
Ehrenschneider for an early spark
and to Styler for the closing finish.
“That combination of talent and
hard work is what everyone sees,”
Steinberg said.
Now, for only the second time since
2016, the Wolverines will advance
to the Super Regional in hopes of
continuing their seven-match win
streak.
“(These guys) play much braver on
the big points,” Steinberg said. “Now,
I see a totally different game style
and confidence that we have been
pushing for for years.”
Junior Ondrej Styler put up a strong performance against Oklahoma, clinching a 4-0 win in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
TAYLOR PACIS/Daily
NOAH
KINGSLEY
Read more at michigandaily.com
As the regular season nears its close, the Wolverines hope to use their resilience to
facilitate success.
SELENA SUN/Daily