April 23, 2005                                                                     

Event:  Men’s Lacrosse

Site: East Grand Rapids, Michigan (Memorial Field)

Score: #4 Michigan 10, #23 Michigan State 3

Records: UM 14-2, 6-0 CCLA), Michigan State (10-2, 4-2 CCLA)

Next U-M Game: Saturday, April 30, 5:00pm EST– vs. winner Michigan State/Buffalo (CCLA Semi Final, East Grand Rapids, Michigan – Mehney Field)

Wolverines Weather the Storm, Defeat Spartans 10-3

Event Recap I Boxscore I Notes & Quotes I Photos

East Grand Rapids, Mich. – In a brutal combination of freezing rain, snow and wind, the #4 University of Michigan men’s lacrosse team opened a 4-1 lead after two periods, en-route to a 10-3 victory over #23 Michigan State on Saturday, April 23 at East Grand Rapids High School.  With the victory, Michigan completed their regular season conference schedule with a perfect 6-0 record and a first place seed heading into the CCLA playoffs next weekend.

Unfortunately, the spring snowstorm also kept away the expected crowds.  Last year’s contest, played on a beautiful April evening, drew almost 5,000 fans, and organizers hoped to top that number this year.  Instead, only 565 braved the elements tonight, despite advanced ticket sales well above that number.

The weather was a major influence throughout the contest, with heavy snow falling by game’s end and the teams requiring almost the entire first period to get accustomed to the field conditions.   It took almost 11 minutes for someone to open the scoring, with the Wolverines tallying the first goal in the game.  Senior captain Ryan Clark (Summit, N.J./Summit) finished on a pass from sophomore Matt Hudson (Libertyville, Ill./Libertyville) across the front of the cage.  Although the Wolverines dominated possession, Clark’s tally would be the only goal of the period as both teams struggled to find a rhythm in the wintry conditions.

Between quarters, Michigan freshman Peter Krauss (Grand Rapids, Mich./Forest Hills Central) was called for an illegal stick penalty, resulting in a non-releasable, three-minute man-up advantage for MSU.  Michigan State took advantage, scoring just 13 seconds into the period, knotting the game at 1-1 and seemingly giving the Spartans the momentum to take control of the game with almost the entire 3 minute penalty still remaining.  It was the Wolverines who took advantage, however, as the Maize and Blue scored seven seconds later, after senior Trevor Broad (Grosse Pointe, Mich./University Liggett) won the ensuing faceoff and immediately fed Matt Hudson for the man-down goal. 

Michigan extended the lead under two minutes later, on a tally from freshman Evan Fox (Suffern, N.Y./Suffern), the Wolverines second man-down goal of the illegal-stick penalty.  With Michigan outscoring Michigan State 2-1 during their own 3 minute non-releasable penalty, the momentum had shifted back and stayed that way for the rest of the game.  Hudson tallied his second goal of the game at the 9:39 mark, on an assist from Clark to give the Wolverines a 4-1 lead.  Neither team was able to find the back of the net for the remainder of the first half, as Michigan entered the locker-room leading 4-1. 

Michigan opened the scoring in the second half, on Fox’s second goal of the game, assisted once again by Ryan Clark.  The Wolverines earned the initial possession, and worked the ball up-field before Clark fed Fox from behind the net to give Michigan the four-goal lead at 5-1. 

The Spartans closed the gap to 5-2 at the 10:25 mark on a goal down low.  After six scoreless minutes, senior captain Paul Passino (Houston, Texas/Episcopal) gave Michigan the four-goal lead again at 6-2 at the 5:52 mark of the third.  Passino cut in from the top of the zone on a slow break and received a pass from Krauss before finishing on a high blast for his first goal of the season.  Senior captain Kirk Kozel (Barrington, Ill./Barrington) added to the Wolverines lead with his fourth goal of the season and the fifth of his career in impressive style, after bringing the ball upfield on the clear and dishing it Ryan Clark.  On the give-and-go, Clark found Kozel open in front about 10 yards out, but the senior defensemen was tripped up and fell to his knees.  Scrambling on his knees he was still able to avoid an opponent’s stick check and throw a fake on MSU goalie Jon Dean before firing the shot just inside the right pipe.  It was Clark’s fourth assist of the game, and it was the final goal of the period, putting U-M up 7-2 heading into the final frame.

MSU notched the first goal of the fourth quarter, four minutes in to once again close the gap to four.  Just as they had done all game however, Michigan answered back on freshman Bobby Morales’ (Bloomfield Hills, Mich./Brother Rice) first tally of the game.  Clark added the helper for his fifth assist of the game – a nice cross field pass to find the cutting Morales on the near side.  Evan Fox and senior attackman Paul Mans (Palo Alto, Calif./Gunn) finished the scoring for the Wolverines with the final score 10-3 in favor of the Maize and Blue. 

Michigan won the majority of the statistical categories, registering more than twice as many shots as Spartans did, 38-18, and earning more groundballs, 40-35, when they could find them in the snow.  The Wolverines won 12 of 16 faceoffs and cleared the ball at a better rate at 21-25 to 18-24.  Both teams finished 1-4 on man-up attempts.  Michigan did register two man-down goals in the contest.  Senior goaltender Dan Webber (Weston, Mass./Weston) recorded four saves in the contest in a full 60 minutes of play. 

Michigan will take to the field again next week back at East Grand Rapids High School in the semifinals of the CCLA Playoffs.  With their undefeated CCLA season in pocket, Michigan has earned the first seed and will have a first round bye.  On Saturday, April 30 at 5:00 p.m. they will face the winner of the 4/5 game between Michigan State and Buffalo, which will be played on Friday.  For a complete schedule of events visit MGoBlue.com.

NOTES

●  Ryan Clark tied a season high with five assists and six total points.  Clark provided the same effort vs. Florida (March 27), notching 1-5-6.

●  With his fourth goal of the season and the fifth of his career, senior captain Kirk Kozel has recorded goals in back-to-back games for the first time in his career.  Kozel posted 1-1-2 vs. Central Michigan on April 15.

●  The poor weather didn’t slow down senior long-stick midfielder David Silverman (Potomac, Md./Churchill) who tied for the team lead with fellow senior Trevor Broad with six groundballs in the contest.  Both players are posting career highs this season in groundballs with Silverman leading the team with 118 and Broad currently second with 65.

●  Michigan notched their second and third man-down goals of the season during the same penalty, a second-period illegal stick penalty on Peter Krauss.

●  Senior Paul Passino notched his first goal of the season, with a third-period tally.

● The win was Michigan’s 11^th in a row.  The team record is 15 wins in a row set between March 8 – April 9, 2002.

●  With the 6-0 CCLA record in ’05, Michigan finished their regular season conference schedule without a loss for the seventh straight season.  Including the post-season, the Wolverines are now 62-1 against conference opponents since the formation of the CCLA in 1998.

●  This was the fifth year in a row the Michigan - Michigan State game has played at a neutral site.  From 2001 - 2003 the game was played at Birmingham Seaholm High School, drawing an average crowd of about 2,500.  Last year the game was moved to East Grand Rapids and drew over 4,500 fans, making it the largest crowd to ever watch an amateur lacrosse game in Michigan.  This year's game was expected to top that record number, and was also planned to be televised live by Comcast, but the unexpected snowstorm kept the crowd down (despite a large number of pre-sold tickets) and cancelled television plans.  No decision has been made on the site of next year's game.

QUOTES

U-M Head Coach John Paul

On the game itself: “Given the conditions, and the fact we’re an indoor team, I’m pretty pleased with the way we handled this.  We moved the ball pretty well offensively, and I thought we were mentally prepared for the weather.  I was proud of the guys.  It was nice getting a game like this in, because we never have to deal with this at home for games or practices in our indoor building, and we haven’t played a game like this all year.  Weather wise, we’ve been lucky with all of our travel this year.”

On Ryan Clark’s five assist game:  “His strength is that he sees the field and sees the play before it happens.  He understands what’s about to happen.  He looks off defenders very well also.  Zones are tailor made for what he does.  If you’re going to let him stand around and move the ball he’s going to eat you up.”

On the offense at this point:  “I love where we are.  We’re very unselfish and you certainly can’t pick someone who you have to stop.  We’re getting scoring from everywhere.  We’re moving the ball well with crisp passes, and for the most part we’re making smart decisions.”

On team heading into the playoffs after last-year’s loss:  “This is the most focused team I’ve ever been around.  I think the loss helped a little last year.  There are so many distractions right now with final exams, graduation and the end of classes, the good spring weather we usually have this time of year, and this team is staying the course through it.  I can tell how focused we are by the practices and we had great practices this week.  Usually at this time of year we’re having horrible practices.  We’ll take Monday off so the guys can get after their finals, but I’m sure we’ll be focused and intense going into next weekend.”

Midfielder Jim Constantine

On heading into the post-season:  “I think we’re ready.  We’re excited for next week and the start of tournament.  Obviously last year was a disappointment for us and how things turned out, so we’ll be looking to avenge that.  We’re all excited though.  We just want to keep progressing upwards and working towards nationals.  Our goal is a national championship and tonight was another step.”

Senior Goaltender Dan Webber  

On playing goal in that type of weather:  “Yeah – its tough, just wearing shorts and socks and there isn’t a whole lot you can do but to try and keep within yourself and do the best job you can.  As a whole the entire defense was great in front of me though.”

On picking up the white ball against the continual snow-fall:  “From low to high shots I couldn’t see much.  There was one that hit the post that I didn’t see at all.  From up top though it was easier, because the dark sky helped a little.  It just depended on where the shot came from.”

Senior Attackman Ryan Clark

On the game itself:  “We knew it was going to be a tight game.  The weather gave them a little advantage because we weren’t able to transition as much which is something we’ve been doing well lately.  And it’s Michigan State, and we know they’re going to come out fired up.  But we got their feet moving on defense and we were able to open some things up.  Its nice to come out and play a complete four quarters against this team also.  The score wasn’t showing it, but we creating opportunities out there.”

 

On where the offense is at:  “I feel like we’re on the rise.  We’re never satisfied and we’ve got multiple threats.  We’re going to keep looking for and creating more opportunities because I know we’ve got some guns and we’re not going to stop.”

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