It’s the offseason, which means it’s time to complain about the lack of a playoff in college football, right? Thought so.

I won’t say an overwhelming majority of college football fans are strongly in favor of moving to a larger playoff structure (since the current system is indeed a “playoff,” but only 2 teams are invited each year). However, there is certainly strong sentiment among followers of the college game, and especially those who constantly have ESPN cramming the idea down their throat. I’m a playoff proponent, though not as vehement a supporter as many. However, even if the BCS is somehow modified into a playoff, or even if a playoff structure is built from the ground up, it’s unlikely that the structure will be beneficial to college football.

I’ll be the first to admit I don’t like the NFL at all. Sure, I’ll watch the occasional game, because it’s a chance to watch the foot-ed ball on a day when the college guys don’t play, but I don’t think I’ll ever get true enjoyment out of The League. The atmosphere around the whole affair (and I don’t just mean game atmosphere) is overly sterilized, and everything seems so soulless, the exact opposite of college football. I guess it’s difficult to voice that sentiment in any way other than to look at college football, and look at the NFL, and note the clinical feel of the NFL in comparison. It sours the whole vibe of the game. So, I guess that’s something of a tangent, but it boils down to this: I don’t want the game to feel meaningless. It often does just that in the NFL (regardless of whether that’s true or not).

For an NCAA football playoff to be successful, it can’t grant automatic bids to conference champions. This leads to meaningless games. If Florida and Alabama hadn’t been gunning for a trip to the national title game last year, but rather an auto-bid into a grand tournament, their games in the final 2-3 weeks prior to the SEC Championship Game would have been meaningless, as they had already locked up their divisions of the conference. Of course, they would try to win the remaining games still, because, well, that’s what you do, but it certainly takes a lot of the magic out of college football.

Unfortunately, the big conferences, and the schools they represent, will never vote in favor of a national tournament that doesn’t include auto-bids for their conferences, and the precious dollars that said auto-bids bring to the conferences. Therein lies the rub: A tournament without auto-bids can’t happen, and a tournament with auto-bids would suck. I’m not strongly in favor of the MGoPlayoff, because restricting to 6 teams seems a little small to me, and I think the difference between 2 home games and 1 home game (between the 1-2 seeds and the 3-4 seeds, as opposed to 1 home game with a bye for the top dogs) is incentive enough to be in those top 2, both from a competitive and (perhaps much, much more importantly – think of a team finishing the year with 10 home games(!)) financial standpoint.

So, what does it all mean? I guess very little, other than your standard off-season musing about the merits of a playoff. Because if Congress doesn’t intervene, it ain’t happenin’.

Posted under Football

For those of you that don’t know, I’m not much into recruiting of any sort.  Baseball recruiting isn’t really OMGZ FRONT PAGE OF RIVALS! either, therefore these type of posts will probably be few and far between.  So, the article…

The Napa Valley Register is reporting Michigan’s interest in Napa Valley Indian’s pitcher Ben Ballantine (image from same post):

It will be an exciting week for the 6-foot-8 senior on top of the Big Games. He said the University of Michigan is flying him out to Ann Arbor, Mich., after Thursday’s game for a recruiting visit.

“They currently have a pitcher (Chris Fetter) who’s 6 foot-8 and my same build, 230 pounds or so, and he’s graduating this year. The head coach says I’m built just like him and I throw just like he did when he first came in as a freshman, and he wants someone to come in and try to fill his shoes,” Ballantine said Thursday. “I put together big packets during basketball season and sent them to a bunch of schools, just to see who would call back. Michigan showed a lot of interest and they came and watched me on (April 28).”

It goes on to say that his mother’s family is from Ann Arbor, and his dad’s side is from Ohio, so there is a good chance would be fine making the move from California to Michigan.

For those of you who love to stalk 17-18 year olds, his MaxPrep page.  It should have a game-by-game breakdown of his statistics.  Enjoy.

Posted under Baseball, Recruiting

There was finally a situation where I didn’t feel so scared about Jeff DeCarlo pitching for Michigan. That situation you may ask? That would be an 18-0 lead in the 7th inning of today’s game at Western Michigan. DeCarlo did give up a run in his one inning of work, but it obviously meant nothing.

The final score is 20-1.  I’ll link to the box score when it comes out.

Travis Smith started this game for Michigan. He pitched 6 scoreless innings, giving up 4 hits and 3 walks while striking out 2. Great start (and win) for Smith, but yeah, Western isn’t a good team at all. They are #244 in RPI according to Boyds World. Their batting average ranks #224 out of 288 teams ranked by the NCAA. Regardless, it’s nice to see a Michigan starter pitch to their level and not the opposing team’s.

Mike Dufek lead the real beating of the Broncos. While wearing the #25 jersey (not sure why), he destroyed WMU in every aspect of the game. Dufek went 6 for 6 on the day with 5 RBI and 4 runs. Holy crap. That means he’s on a 8 at-bat hitting streak including his two singles to close out the OSU series. That has to be approaching a school record. In those 6 hits were 2 homers and 4 singles. Monstrous day.

As if that wasn’t enough, Coach Maloney let him pitch the 9th inning. I guess Dufek was upset he got stranded on deck, unable to go 7 for 7, to end the top of the 9th inning. Dufek unleashed the heat in the 9th, striking out the side with almost exclusively the high heat. Someone don’t stop that man!

Other offensive performances of note:

• LaMarre – 2/5  4 R, 2 RBI, 2 BB
• Urban – 2/3  2 R, 2 RBI
• Berset – 3/4  4 RBI, R, 2B
• Oaks – 2/6 3 RBI, 2 R, HR
• 12 Wolverines with a hit, 6 had multiple hits
• 8 Wolverines with an RBI, 6 had multiple RBIs

We start up again tomorrow at the Fish.  6:35pm start time for those of you in Ann Arbor.  Hopefully we see this kind of game again tomorrow.  No starters have been announced yet.

Posted under Baseball

Ah, the tired maxim of the spread offense’s alleged inability to get high school prospects into the NFL strikes again:

Speaking of recruiting — in this case the negative variety — check out this quote in the Palm Beach Post from Pahokee receiver De’Joshua Johnson.

“I dropped Florida and West Virginia because of the spread offense,” Johnson said. “I don’t want to play in the spread offense. I’ve seen how it affected receivers in the NFL draft.”

Johnson is reportedly leaning to Florida State and is considering Tennessee.

For his part, Pat Dooley has a decent and brief retort, though it comes off as Florida-homer rebuttal, rather than rebutting the actual claims themselves:

He might want to check his facts.

Didn’t Percy Harvin go in the first round? Chad Jackson? Meyer has had five receivers drafted from Florida during his tenure (six if you count Cornelius Ingram), the most for any school in the nation. FSU hasn’t had a first-round skill player in seven years and two receivers taken in the draft during Meyer’s tenure. Tennessee has had three during the same span.

This is a good start, but it doesn’t really hit the point at the very crux of this matter: You are what you are. Percy Harvin didn’t get drafted where he did because of the spread offense, he got drafted because he has Size X and Skill Set Y, which the NFL interprets as NFL Potential Z. Harvin has had Size X and Skill Set Y at his disposal, and would have had them regardless of where he went to college (we can debate the minor-ish point of a different strength coach at some other school helping Harvin achieve his potential to a different degree, but that’s outside of the discussion of offense – though I’d contend that some spread schemes demand a better strength coach).

The main things that an offensive scheme will affect are:

1. Production. Depending on the type of spread, a receiver may play a larger or smaller role in the offense, affecting production. One of the the things that the NFL might look at is “Well, he has X and Y, but his production hasn’t matched that. Does he have a good excuse for this, or does he not bring it on game day?” Spread offenses are even more creative in terms of ways to get receivers the ball, in Harvin/Johnson’s specific cases.
2. Preparation. Sure, a college QB who runs exclusively from the shotgun won’t be quite as ready to play right away in the NFL, and a receiver might run fewer or different routes, and have simpler reads of defenses playing in a spread offense. These players don’t come to the NFL ready to compete on day 1, perhaps. However, I’ll let Mike Leach take this one:

“I only need a three-hour window. I’ll have a great clinic for all the NFL coaches who are so horrible that they can’t teach a guy to take a snap under center and go backwards.”

Yeah, so Mike Leach is awesome, and an offensive scheme doesn’t have a huge effect on where a player is drafted (and oddly, this is especially true for receivers, whose responsibilities probably change the least out of anyone on the offense with a spread v. pro-style offense).

Let’s take a look at every receiver drafted in the 2009 NFL Draft. I’ll vaguely lump their college offensive schemes into “spread” and “pro-style.” This may seem a bit simplistic at first, but then, isn’t the criticism of the spread offense writ large simplistic itself?

Take a look at that! 13 Receivers from spread offenses and 17 from pro-style offenses were selected, with 4 from 1-AA teams, which I didn’t include because 1) I don’t know what type of offense most 1-AA schools run, and 2) If they’re taking a guy from a 1-AA school, offensive scheme is probably not on the forefront of NFL GMs’ decisions. Considering that more schools run a pro-style offense (particularly in power conferences, from which most NFL players are likely to come), that’s not bad at all. In the first round, the same number of players from each offensive type (3 apiece). When you consider that some schools that I placed in the “pro style” category also have some elements of spread offenses, such as Ohio State, LSU, and Oregon State, it’s a complete wash, at worst. And I guess that brings me back to my main point, which is not that the spread is inherently better for a wide receiver prospect’s chances of making it to the NFL, but rather than the offensive scheme on the whole is irrelevant.

So what’s the course of action? Obviously, a 17-year-old kid didn’t come up with this (bogus) assertion by himself. No, based on reputation, and the schools entering and exiting De’Joshua’s list, this almost certainly comes from one Lane Monte Kiffin. Of course, do I expect Rich Rodriguez to bore a kid to death with charts and whatnot? Probably not, but dispelling a meme, using whatever evidence is available, will certainly help.

Posted under Analysis, Coaching, Football, Recruiting

2010 Michigan Recruiting Board

Moved LA Slot/RB/Ath Drew Dileo to committed. Also, it is kinda a sad snapshot of SEC recruiting when the following sentence has to be included in the commit article in the local paper for a Louisiana player:

A Class of 2010 commitment who projects as an academic qualifier, Dileo committed to Michigan with offers from Stanford, Tulane and Rice.

Also: look at that offer list (Northwestern had offered as well). Of course he’s going to meet the minimum NCAA requirements. So, yay for upping the team GPA. Also: he plays baseball for the equally excellent Parkview baseball team, the reigning state champs. The current wisdom is that he’ll end up at slot. In the commitment post, I promised a more informative update, so here goes:

In his junior season, Dileo rushed 102 times for 760 yards (7.45 ypc) and caught 21 passes for 315 yards (15.00 ypc). However, it was in the return game that he excelled the most. He took four kicks back to the house, and was named 1st team all-district in that capacity. As I mentioned on Thursday, he was the team’s MVP in their state title game his sophomore year. The esteemed Brian of MGoBlog has found a more comprehensive highlight of that game for your viewing pleasure (Dileo is #3 for the blue guys, and can be seen mostly catching the ball):

Yay for the informative update.

Sam Webb recruiting fluff in the Detroit News regarding Michigan’s chances with FL QB Christian Green. He’s long been regarded as a Florida State semi-lock (to play WR):

“A lot of my family came through Florida State,” Green explained. “My mom graduated from Florida State. So did my cousin (former NFL wideout E.G. Green), my uncle, and a lot of people I know. So I grew up a Seminole fan. I feel real comfortable with the coaching staff. When I go up there I feel like it’s a down-to-earth environment. It is a family environment and I feel real comfortable with a lot of people. That’s one of the reasons I think it is No. 1 on my list so far.”

, but the Wolverines aren’t out of the race for him:

“My cousin Sam Sword played for Michigan back in ’96,” Green said, referring to the former standout linebacker. “He talks about Michigan every single time we have family together at a BBQ or reunion. He’s always saying something about Michigan and just gets Michigan Wolverines in my head.

“I’ve known about them for a little bit now,” Green added, laughing.

He also has a connection to the Michigan staff, as Calvin Magee is a coach emeritus there. There’s a ton more information in the article about his recent visit to Ann Arbor, so I’d say it’s definitely worth checking out.

A recruiting update on the gentlemen from Byrnes, SC, including RB Marcus Lattimore:

This much is clear for right now: Auburn still leads for his services… But really no school can be counted out. Not the Tigers or the Noles. Not Georgia, which Lattimore says he will definitely visit officially. Not North Carolina or South Carolina or Clemson. Even Penn State and Michigan still are in the mix along with others.

Under Armour All-American Corey Miller and fellow defensive lineman Brandon Willis, both from Byrnes, could end up in Garnet and Gold. In fact, the chances of that happening are more likely than not, at this point.

Things don’t look rosy for any of them, and I hadn’t been previously aware of the strong Florida State lead for the two non-Lattimore players.

An oversight on my part: last Monday, Sam Webb talked a bunch about OH RB Andre Givens on the recruiting roundup. Givens has been offered, and has a friendly rivalry in football and track with 2009 Michigan signee Fitzgerald Toussaint (Fitz is allegedly a bit faster in the 100m). Toussaint is trying to convince Givens to commit to the Wolverines, as he’s apparently unaware of the plethora of RBs over the past couple classes.

IN RB Roderick Smith is still talkin’ Buckeye commitment. He says he probably won’t make an announcement until July, or maybe even after his football season, but Michigan doesn’t seem to be involved at all. Since the Wolverines have a big back (Stephen Hopkins) in the class already, Smith is not a likely Wolverines target, and I’ve removed him from the board.

Palm Beach Post columnist/blogger guy Ben Volin says:

Rumors are swirling that Atlantic WR James Louis is close to committing, as well as Treasure Coast LB Jeff Luc and Royal Palm Beach WR Chris Dunkley, three players that have had positive visits to Gainesville in the past month.

The Louis news has indeed been swirling for quite some time, and Dunkley has long been considered a near-lock to the Gators. However, the news on Luc is neither encouraging nor surprising. If those three do indeed commit to Florida, that would give the Gators on hell of a start to their 2010 recruiting class. Go Gator.

Removed MD WR Adrian Coxson, who committed to Penn State.

OH TE Alex Welch has received a Michigan offer (info in header).

Some fluff on IL TE CJ Fiedorowicz, primarily focused around the fact that he’ll be featured on a Sports Stars of Tomorrow episode in the fall. He has also expanded his favorites list to include Wisconsin and Notre Dame (previously, it had just been a top 2 of OSU and Iowa). The quote from CJ in the article indicates that he’s already feeling a bit burned out by the recruiting process, so might a decision come sooner than expected? I certainly wouldn’t be surprised.

The Wolverines sent a coach into the school of MN OL Seantrel Henderson. No word on the effect of the visit, but with the Evaluation Period underway, expect them to be making lots of high school visits (to coaches, not players) around this time of year. Regarding Henderson, there’s a pretty significant fluff piece on him in the Pioneer Press.

“At times it gets irritating, but I know this is something I have to go through,” Henderson said. “I won’t make my announcement until February.”

The first day football recruits in the 2010 class can sign a national letter of intent is Feb. 3, but players can give oral commitments before that date.

In the meantime, Henderson and his family have set up a tentative game plan to help manage the process. By the end of the summer, Henderson will settle on a top 10. After he takes his maximum five official visits in the fall, he will trim the number to three.

Michigan is fairly consistently listed among his top 10-ish, and he plans to make another visit to Ann Arbor this summer, so Michigan is looking pretty good for now.

Last Thursday, I speculated that PA DE/LB Jordan Paskorz had been favoring Michigan. In that day’s recruiting roundup, Sam Webb revealed something very interesting: Michigan is indeed near the top of his list, and the Wolverines have now offered Paskorz.

MD LB Josh Furman has Michigan near the top of his list, and he also does fast things, running a sub-11.0 100m dash. That is wicked fast for a linebacker. Here’s a bit of ESPN fluff on Furman. Sounds very good:

He posted a wind-aided 4.39 40-yard dash, a 42 inch vertical jump, a 4.12 short shuttle and a modest broad jump of 9 feet, 8 inches. His 16 reps of 185 pounds were also very impressive and a bit surprising given his longer, rangier frame (6-foot-2, 192 pounds). While he did look a bit lean, his great wingspan and overall body length suggest continued physical development. We believe he will eventually have a well-developed frame that will tip the scales in the 225-pound range while he’ll maintain the great quick-twitch burst and speed we saw Friday night.

Lacking technique, but a physical specimen that can develop into something wicked in college.

MD LB Troy Gloster has narrowed his list of schools to a top five that includes Michigan (info in header). Also included are BC, UNC, Stanford, and West Virginia.

The high school coach of OH LB Jewone Snow thinks he’s getting close to an offer:

“Michigan is looking at all three of those players,” Johnson said. “They haven’t offered Jewone yet, but I believe they’re getting close. Stevie is a formality on Sept. 1.”

“Stevie” is 2011 DE Steve Miller, who will probably be the top player in Ohio next year (likely battling OSU lock QB Braxton Miller). He visited Michigan earlier in the spring with Snow, and the Wolverines are expected to be in his early top 2, along with the Buckeyes.

Track times galore in spring recruiting updates! Denard Robinson, Adrian Witty, 2010 RB Cassius McDowell, and some other guy from their school are quite speedy indeed. Very speedy, sir.

Posted under Football, Recruiting

But it loses 3?

After dropping the first two games of the series on Saturday, Michigan managed to salvage a victory on Sunday. Eric Katzman got the win with 5 innings of sketchy work, and Alan Oaks got the ridiculous 4 inning save. I say ridiculous because save rules allow there to be saves over two innings or more than 3 runs.

Katzman was a bit shaky in this game, throwing a ton of pitches and allowing baserunners in each of his 5 innings of work. He allowed 4 hits, 3 walks, hit a batter (with the bases loaded), but he only allowed one run. He struck out 5 and stranded 8 runners. Three of those runners came in the 5th inning when “Evil Katzman” entered the game. After a quick out, Katzman gave up a double, single, walk, and hit batsman to give up the run. After a quick conference with Coach Maloney, Katzman struck out his final batter of the day.

Alan Oaks entered the game in the 6th and gave up a run on back to back hits. Ohio State managed a run, but OSU left fielder made a base running blunder trying to stretch a double into a triple and making the last out at third base. For those of you less into baseball, that’s a huge huge mistake. Instead of having a runner in scoring position, you lose any shot at adding more runs that inning. Honestly, when I saw that, the first thing I said was, “That’s a Michigan mistake.” It’s the kind of poor base running I’ve grown accustom to lately. That play ended up being the turning point in the game as OSU lost the momentum and would never regain it.

Oaks finished the game with 4 innings pitched with 4 hits, 1 run, 2 walks and a strikeout. Very solid game and it may get him another shot at starting in the next two weeks. With the Burgoon start going less than stellar on Saturday, the third slot is still anyone’s to take, even this late in the season.

Offensively, everything was clicking for the Wolverines. All those line drives up the middle fell just outside of the reach of the OSU middle infielders. Soft fly balls to the gaps were just out of range of the outfielders. It was the exact opposite of game 1. You could just tell in the first inning when we collected a pair of infield singles that things were different in this game. Lady luck was on our side.

Mike Dufek and Jake McLouth were the big run producers on the day. Dufek went 3/5 with a double, 3 RBI, and a run. McLouth went 2/3 with 2 RBI. Both came through with the timely hits when we needed them, something we haven’t seen since the first few weeks of the season.

Anthony Toth and Ryan LaMarre were the run scorers. Toth scored three times despite only getting one hit in the game. LaMarre went 2/4 with a pair of singles and 2 runs scored. I really like what I saw of LaMarre’s bat this weekend. He hit a couple of balls hard in the no hitter but was robbed by the middle infielders. In game 3 he was driving liners to the opposite field, a sign of seeing the ball well. LaMarre also stole two bases in the game. You could tell the Buckeyes’ catcher Forsythe was struggling with the pitchers and with base runners in general. He was only in the game because normal starter Burkhart left Saturday’s game 2 with an undisclosed leg injury. While I’m glad Michigan could take advantage of the replacement starter, here’s hoping Burkhart’s alright.

Timmy Kal also had an excellent game, going 2/5 with a pair of doubles getting the spot start at third base. He also made an excellent defensive play at third base.

The loss in the series doesn’t set us back that much.  In the Half Way Home post I did two weeks ago, I thought we’d just win one game as well.  The problem growing there is how good MSU is finishing and how Purdue closes out their schedule.   It could be close on earning a 6 seed in the BTT.  More on that later in the week though.

Cislo Out

Not only did we lose two games, we also lost something a little more important. News came through via The Daily yesterday on the mysterious absence of Kevin Cislo from games 2 and 3 of the OSU series:

“I don’t know if he’ll be able to play at all (this season),” Maloney said. “I don’t know if he’s out for the year, but he’s definitely out.”

Mark it down as a bum shoulder for now. This injury is really bad. We lose our leader on the infield and one of our better hitters. We’ll see if Kevin may make a return by the BigTen tournament, but at this point I would imagine he’s done. Here’s hoping for a good recovery.

Also, I’m not much for fluff articles, but here’s a recent one on Kevin from The Ann Arbor News.

Mid Week Matchup

This week is a home and home series with Western Michigan. Tuesday is at Kalamazoo at 3:05pm, with Wednesday being at the Fish (6:35pm).

Posted under Baseball

With a win over the Buffalo Bulls yesterday, the Michigan men’s lacrosse team has won the CCLA for the third year running, and completed its second consecutive undefeated season, as they head into the national tournament.

Buffalo
The Wolverines got off to a slow start offensively, as they were unable to get any good shots off despite controlling possession most of the time. Kevin Zorovich broke the seal, collecting a rebound and depositing it in the net for a 1-0 Wolverine advantage. He again scored as the clock hit 0 on the first quarter, from a Harry Freid steal at midfield and a long pass down near the crease. Buffalo’s best scoring opportunity during the first quarter was a long attempt at an empty net, as goalie Mark Stone was marking a forward on the 10-man ride. However, the shot sailed wide to the ride, and Michigan escaped unscathed.

Early in the second quarter, Trevor Yealy got on the board. Following the Yealy goal, Buffalo had a number of man-up opportunities due to a rash of Michigan penalties, but the Bulls couldn’t muster a serious scoring chance. Later in the quarter, Jamie Goldberg scored from the left side of the net, but it was disallowed, as the referee determined his toes were in the crease. David Rogers made up for it moments later, as he zipped a shot past the goalie on the run, giving Michigan a 4-0 lead. Shortly thereafter, Buffalo had their best scoring opportunity of the game, as a fairly open look beat Stone, but clanged off the left post and away from the goal. However, they maintained possession and were able to finally get on the board. David Reinhard won the ensuing faceoff, and found Trevor Yealy in front of goal, but Trevor’s shot was blocked. Michigan maintained possession, and Svet Tintchev was able to give Michigan the 5-1 advantage.

In the second half, a Buffalo player went down with an injury (and an oblivious Bulls fan was screaming at the ref (a common condition for them, apparently) to stop play, as Buffalo had an open scoring chance), and before play was stopped the Wolverines committed a penalty, giving Buffalo the man advantage. A Buffalo Turnover led to a shorthanded goal by Trevor Yealy (from Zach Elyachar), and Aaron Hodari followed it with a nice juke around a defender going for the big hit, and adding a score of his own. Finally, the floodgates started opening for Michigan, as a Wes McGowan shot on the doorstep of the goal was saved, but Josh Ein scooped up the rebound and dished to David Rogers for an easy goal. Another scary moment for Michigan came when Buffalo yet again launched a long shot on an empty goal against the 10-man ride, but it went wide, and a second opportunity by the Bulls went wide as well. Once the Wolverines regained possession, they took it to the offensive zone, and Josh Ein, from behind the net, found Riley Kearns streaking towards the goal, and found him for the score. On the ensuing faceoff, Buffalo took one of their few faceoffs of the day, and scored their second goal, cutting the Michigan lead to 9-2. The Wolverines were not to be deterred, however, as Aaron Hodari bounced in a long jump shot, and Anthony Hrusovsky pinged one in off the right post. Trevor Yealy added his 3rd and 4th goals of the game before the end of the period (with the 4th coming with 1 second remaining), and the Wolverines led 13-2 heading into the fourth quarter.

Sophomore goalie Andrew Fowler started the fourth quarter in net, and was tested early, as an unnecessary roughness and a slash against the Wolverines put them 2 men down. However, Fowler came through for Michigan, saving an open shot from 10 feet away. One of the highlights of the game came shortly after that, as Josh Ein received a long clearing pass, and went in on goal. He spun through (and was hit by) several Bulls players just outside the crease, but somehow managed to hold onto the ball, whish he gave to Clark McIntyre -for immediate deposit only. Following the goal, Ein’s equipment was checked by an incredulous referee crew. When they detemrined that the stick was legal, there was a rousing round of applause from the Michigan fans. Ein got one of his own off a feed from Michael Bartomioli moments later. Closing out the scoring for Michigan was Colin Bayer, who scored backhanded, backing in on goal.

Following the game, 11 Wolverines were given their all-conference recognition, with Trevor Yealy and Zach Elyachar taking home Offensive and Defensive Player of the Year awards, respectively.

Photo by Martin Vloet for Michigan Lacrosse.

Up Next
The Wolverines now head to Denver for the MCLA National Championship, in which they will be the #1 overall seed. The tournament pairings were released this morning, and Michigan will take on the #16 seed Texas Longhorns next Tuesday (May 12) at 4PM. The site will be Dick’s Sporting Goods Park, which has 24 full lacrosse fields, plus the main stadium itself, the home of the MLS Colorado Rapids. I’m hoping to find someone knowledgable about Texas Lacrosse for a preview, so if anyone out there in the ether has a connection, let me know.

Posted under Football

Posted under Football, Recruiting

With a 20-6 victory over the Central Michigan Chippewas at Saline High School yesterday, the Michigan Lacrosse team has fought their way into the Championship Game in the CCLA conference tournament against Buffalo, to be played today at Saline High School’s East Stadium at 3PM. Come support the team against the Bulls, and cheer them on to their 3rd consecutive conference championship (and 37th straight win overall).

Central Michigan
The Chippewas got on the board first, and Michigan had a rough time getting started, but once they did, it was all Wolverines, as they demoralized the Chippewas 20-6 (in their previous meeting, Michigan had won 21-4). Mark Stone got the start in goal for the Wolverines, but fellow sophomore Andrew Fowler was able to get some time in net, playing the entire fourth quarter.

Trevor Yealy and Wes McGowan led the team in goals with four apiece, and David Reinhard, who dominated on faceoffs as per usual, was able to take the bench in the second half, while sophomore Edward Ernst got a bit of game action.

Up Next
Today. 3PM. Saline High School. Conference Finals. Buffalo.

Posted under Other Sports

Michigan was swept in two games of the doubleheader at Ohio State today. Game one was an Alex Wimmers no hitter, the first 9-inning no hitter in the school’s history. Chris Fetter pitched well, but things fell apart late after Chris Berset lost a pop up behind the plate with 2 outs. The ball fell foul, the next pitch was driven into right center and 2 runs scored. OSU would add 3 more in the 7th, again, after an error to extend the inning. I don’t think Toth would have turned the double play even with a good throw, but instead it went into the dugout allowing another run to score.

Despite the no hitter, Michigan still managed a few base runners. Twice they were erased because we tried to hit and run with 2 strikes on a batter. Both times Wimmers threw a pitch way up out of the strike zone leading to a strike’em out-throw’em out double play. Burkhart gunned Fellows again in a later inning and should have had Cislo before the strike’em out-throw’em out but the shortstop dropped the ball. So if you’re keeping track at home, we walked 4 times and reached on an error, we left only one man on base.

Its also worth noting that the middle infielders for Ohio State saved this no-no twice. Kovanda made a full extension diving catch to steal a hit from LaMarre and Engle at shortstop made a diving play to turn a single from Nick Urban into a double play. Both were awesome plays.

The offense tried to make up for it in game two knocking 10 hits, but they were no match for the Buckeye and their 15 hits. Tyler Burgoon got the start, wasn’t helped by his defense, and didn’t help himself after getting into trouble either. Burgoon gave up 6 earned runs in 1.2 innings of work. Nick Urban, playing his originally recruited position of second base, also lead to an unearned run.

Mike Wilson was the first reliever and had a good outing compared to his norm. He only gave up one run in 1.1 innings pitched, but he did walk 2. Chris Berset committed an error to advance a runner, but it didn’t affect the score as the runner would have scored on an ensuing hit anyways.

Kolby Wood was the highlight on the mound for the game. He lasted 4 innings of scoreless baseball giving Michigan a chance to comeback. Comeback they did as they rallied to bring the game back to 6-7.

Matt Miller came in to close out the 7th and pitch in the 8th. In the eighth he started the inning with a walk and a hit by pitch. Two sacrifices and a single later, 2 runs would cross the plate to give OSU the final 9-6 lead. The BigTen’s best closer, Jake Hale came in to shut us down and earn his 11th save of the season.

Kevin Cislo didn’t play in this game and I’m not sure why. If anyone has any ideas, let me know in the comments.

I’ve got a trio of exams on Monday, so this will be my review of those two games for now. I may have a better recap of things later in the week.

Highlights via BTN (ignore “Josh” Lorenz, Jake “McLooth,” and Chris “Burst”):

Don’t be surprised if the embed doesn’t work. I think Paul has the settings to where an admin has to post embeds. If it’s not here now, we’ll get it up soon.

Posted under Baseball