April 8, 2005

Event:  Men's Lacrosse

Site:  Ann Arbor, Michigan (Oosterbaan Fieldhouse)

Score:  #5 Michigan 15, Indiana 6

Records:  U-M (10-2, 2-0 CCLA), Indiana (4-6, 2-4 CCLA)

Next U-M Game:  Saturday, March 26, 7:00pm - vs. #24 Miami (Ohio) (Ann Arbor, Michigan - Oosterbaan Fieldhouse)

5-1 Second Quarter Launches Victory Over Indiana

Event Recap I Boxscore I Notes & Quotes I Photos

Ann Arbor, Mich. - The #5 ranked University of Michigan men's lacrosse team defeated the Indiana Hoosiers by a score of 15-6 at Oosterbaan Fieldhouse on Friday, April 8.  In another balanced effort, eight Wolverines scored in the contest, en-route to U-M's seventh win in a row.

Michigan opened the scoring at the 8:55 mark of the first on a goal from freshman Peter Krauss (Grand Rapids, Mich./Forest Hills Central) who received a clearing pass from senior defenseman Brian Anderson (Lansing, Mich./Waverly).  Anderson scooped up the ball in the Wolverines' zone and carried it to center field before firing a pass to a streaking Krauss.  Krauss received the pass and dodged in deep and fired a low shot just inside the right post.  Leading 1-0, Michigan struck again just under a minute later on a goal from freshman attackman Evan Fox (Suffern, N.Y./Suffern), and once more at 7:01 on Krauss' second tally to give Michigan the 3-0 lead mid-way through the first period. 

Indiana bounced back, notching back-to-back to goals at the 0:49 mark and just 10 seconds later at the :39 mark of the first drawing the game within one at 3-2.  The end of period goal-scoring barrage continued as Michigan extended their lead to two once again on Evan Fox's second goal of the game with only seconds remaining in the opening frame.

The Wolverines scored first in the second period on a goal from senior captain Anthony Ragnone (Flint, Mich./Flint Powers), the fifth of the season for Ragnone giving Michigan the 5-2 lead.  Krauss added his third three minutes later at 11:15, before Indiana scored their lone goal of the second period at the 6:03 mark.  The Wolverines then rattled off three more goals in the final five minutes of the period on two more goals from Fox and one from senior Mike O'Leary (St. Louis, MO./Clayton), with the Wolverines entering the locker-room leading 9-3.  

The Hoosiers came out in the second period and scored the first goal, a tally from Brad Perez, to cut the score to 9-4.  Michigan answered back under two minutes later on a shot from freshman Bobby Morales (Bloomfield Hills, Mich./Brother Rice) from deep in the zone on the far left side.  Sophomore Matt Hudson (Libertyville, Ill./Libertyville) notched his first goal of the game at the 3:48 mark on a set up from Evan Fox.  Fox tossed the pass over the top of the goal, jumped to receive it and fired a shot all in the same motion, giving Michigan the 11-4 lead entering the final frame of play. 

Senior Paul Mans (Palo Alto, Calif./Gunn High) notched the first goal of the fourth quarter, just over five minutes in at 9:52, before Matt Hudson notched his second goal of the game under a minute later at 9:04.  Freshman Doug Bell (Troy, Mich./Troy) assisted on the play.  Mans added another under a minute later at 8:22 to give Michigan the 14-5 lead midway through the final quarter.  Both teams would add an additional goal, with the final score 15-6. 

Senior goaltender Dan Webber (Weston, Mass./Weston) finished with seven saves and four goals allowed during his three quarters of play, while sophomore Ryan Kaufman (Olney, Md./Magruder) stopped two shots and allowed two goals in his quarter of relief. 

Statistically, U-M won every category, finishing with 41 shots to the Hoosiers’ 18 and scooping up 55 groundballs compared to 31.  The Wolverines were 16-24 in faceoffs and cleared the ball at a better rate than IU, finishing 17-22 while Indiana posted 13-24 totals.  The Maize and Blue notched four man-up goals on six attempts while holding Indiana scoreless in three tries. 

Michigan will take to the field again tomorrow night, vs. #24 Miami (Ohio) at 7:00pm EST in Ann Arbor at Oosterbaan Fieldhouse.

NOTES

●  After leading or tying for the team-lead in groundballs in every game this season, senior long-stick midfielder David Silverman (Potomac, Md./Churchill) was unable to accomplish the task vs. Texas A&M on April 2.  Silverman was once again up to the task vs. Indiana however, registering 10 groundballs to lead the Maize and Blue and increasing his team-high total to 85.

●  Michigan spread the scoring load as they've done all season with ten different Wolverines scoring a point.  Five Wolverines recorded multi-point games, with four notching multi-goal games.

●  Once again, freshman Evan Fox led the team with 4-2-6 totals.  The second part of the freshman-connection, Peter Krauss posted 3-2-5 in the contest.  Fox upped his team-lead point total to 33-19-52, while Krauss moved within three points of second place with 17-12-29.

●  The second period was where the Wolverines showed the most dominance, outscoring Indiana 5-1, out-shooting them 13-5, finishing a perfect 5-5 on clear attempts and a perfect 2-2 on the man-up.

QUOTES

U-M Head Coach John Paul

On the game itself: “I thought we played pretty well, but I thought emotionally we were pretty flat today.   It's hard because we just had a trip, and we’ve got a huge game coming up this week.  You know we talked about this once again being treated like a three-game tournament and I’d like to see us come out a little more inspired.  But overall I’m not too upset about the way we played.”

On the difference in entering the CCLA schedule with the 56-game record broken:  “Yeah – absolutely there’s a change.  I don’t think teams in the conference fear us as much.  Two-three years ago everyone was fired up to play us, but in the back of their heads they knew they didn’t have much of a shot.  But I think some of that luster is gone.  We talked about that tonight, trying to get some of that back, especially at home.  Team’s never came in thinking they had an opportunity at all.  We don’t want teams coming in here thinking this is an opportunity for them to grab a win.  We want to get some of that intimidation back.”

On the spread of scoring:  “We’re six deep at midfield and six deep at attack and that’s our game.  We’re balanced enough where I don’t know who you have to come in here and say, ‘we’ve got to stop that guy’.  We’ve had our share of go-to guys here in the past, but I actually prefer to be balanced.  What happens when you have incredible game-breaking offensive players is that at crunch time a lot of guys just sit back and wait for those guys to go to work.  But this team is unselfish.  Whoever is in the open spot finishes.  Everyone feels involved.” 

On the play of some of the backups:  “I thought Joe Stelmark played pretty well when he was in there.  I liked the way Uhler played on defense back there.  Doug Bell had a great fourth quarter, over everybody actually.  Those guys did a really nice job.”

On Webber stepping up regardless of the shot frequency:  “Once again he was fine.  He didn’t see a lot though and that’s been the story for us all year – even against some of the really good teams.  Our defense makes teams work.  What we talk about with Dan is we know with our defense he is not going to get tested a lot, but when he does, he’s got to be ready.  His challenge is maintaining focus.” 

Sophomore Attackman Matt Hudson

On the offensive effort:  “Well we did what we had to get done.  Hopefully tomorrow we’ll come out on all cylinders.  We really haven’t put together a full game this year – I’d really like to see us come out and produce in all four quarters and avoid the mental errors. 

On his successful return from his injury:  “Coming off an injury physically is always difficult but I almost find it harder mentally.  I’ve got to come back and play with all these guys at full speed who’ve been playing for five months – that’s always a challenge.  This year, more than any other team I’ve ever played on, all of our offensive guys can play.  When I’m coming back I’m not just trying to get back to where I was last year, I actually need to improve.” 

Senior Captain Anthony Ragnone II

On the game itself:  “Well we came out to a fast start there, and played well in the second.  There were a couple of lulls there where we probably didn’t play as well as we should have, but we picked up and were able to play a lot of the bench and kept it going there in fourth.  But hopefully we’ll come out and play a little better tomorrow. 

On entering the CCLA five-game stretch and the upcoming match vs. Oakland:  “Obviously the Oakland game is in the back of our mind, but coming into this final stretch the whole team has been really excited to just get back into conference play.  There is a different feeling for us than there was in the last three years.  We’re not defending champions and we’re mad about it so we need to come out and take our conference back and that’s what we’re thinking coming into tonight and tomorrow.”

Contact: Joe Hennessy (734) 276-8493, jjhennes@umich.edu