All Blue With Titles on the Line

Men's Gymnastics at the National Championship

On Friday night in Columbus, Ohio, #3 Men's Gymnastics will compete in the second national semifinal. With the top three teams in each session advancing to the finals, Michigan is certainly favored to advance out of a group that includes #2 Oklahoma, along with other top-11 teams in OSU, Penn State, Air Force, and Springfield. The finals will be on Saturday night at 6pm, and the whole thing is streaming on NCAA.com. (They really couldn't get this on ESPN+?)

Michigan has a notable win over their biggest competition at session 2: they beat Oklahoma in Ann Arbor in early March. They do have a narrow loss to OSU their last time in Columbus, but it would take an extremely disappointing series of events to keep them out of Saturday's final, if you're #3 in the country you can probably manage top 3 in your group, and Michigan hasn't missed a final since 2018.

Once there, Michigan's fate is up to Michigan. On the WGym broadcast last night, one of the coaches put it very well (I forget which one sorry): you cannot play offense, you cannot play defense, you just have yourself. Their top score this season, a 425.500 is the top score any team registered this season. There is nothing stopping Michigan from putting up such a number again, the 418.100 they put up en-route to their fourth consecutive Big Ten Title also holds up nationally.

One Wolverine will enter as the individual #1 in their best event: sophomore Fred Richard on the High Bar. Per MGoBlue.com, Javier Alonso holds the same distinction on still rings but as far as I can tell RoadtoNationals says otherwise. Still, Alonso is one of seven Wolverines ranked in the top 5 of any event, including the 2-3 punch of Crew Bold and Evgeny Siminiuc on parallel bars. Bold joins Richard in the high bar top-3.

There is a solid chance that Michigan leaves Ohio with an individual national championship. A particularly good Saturday night and the team championship is also within reach.

Women's Lacrosse Takes a Shot at a Championship

For the second time this season, Michigan plays perhaps it's biggest match in program history. Last time, they lost to #1 Maryland, a disappointing loss but after a long enough winning streak that it did not take any season-long goals off the table. Now they'll do it again, hosting Senior Day in Ann Arbor against #1 Northwestern. The Wolverines slipped down as far as #6 but are back up to #4 in advance of this one. I don't think this one is as clear as "win and you're #1" (though if they win and aren't at least getting number 1 votes I will be having words with the committee), but there is a trophy on the line: the Big Ten Regular Season Championship. The game is Sunday at noon on BTN. (The TV kind.)

The Maryland loss remains Michigan's only loss of the regular season after they made a wild comeback last week against Johns Hopkins. Michigan was down 8-4 at the half. By the time Johns Hopkins scored a second-half goal, Michigan was leading 10-9, a six goal run to start the half and a seven-goal run going back to the end of the first half. After four minutes of agonizing one-goal lacrosse, Jill Smith scored her fourth of the game to restore the two-goal lead. Hopkins would not score again, and Michigan rode a 9-1(!) second half to a 13-9 final.

In the meantime, Maryland picked up a weird loss to Penn State to close their conference season 4-2. Michigan and Northwestern are the final remaining one-loss Big Ten teams (Northwestern's loss is also to Penn State?), the winner will be the only one-loss Big Ten team and thus the champion. Michigan's best-ever conference finish was 3rd in 2019, tying for second would already be it's new best result. But with only one loss, conference or otherwise, Michigan is ready for the true next step: a Big Ten Trophy, the first seed in the conference tourney, and an eye towards a deep run in the Big Dance.

What Else Is Blue

• Women's Tennis closes its regular season at home with a pair of matches this weekend. Just one win among those two matches and they will clinch at least a share of the B1G title, a sweep means a perfect, 11-0 conference season and an outright title. I think Michigan is going to win the title outright. They play Iowa on Saturday, who is 5-4 in B1G play but 1-3 against the teams ahead of them in the conference standings. Nebraska, Sunday's opponent, is 2-7 in the B1G. The friendly confines should deliver Michigan a title, and an opportunity to win another one at a home Big Ten Tournament next weekend.
• Women's Gymnastics closed the season last night, having missed out on qualifying for the NCAA Team Semis. Still, they sent three individuals to the individual finals, held concurrently with the semis. The best performance of the night for Michigan was the 9.950 Sierra Brooks put up on the floor, good for second in the country and an All-American designation. Gabby Wilson finished eighth on the floor to earn second team All-America. Carly Bauman also participated, finishing 10th on uneven bars.
• We're creeping closer to the Olympics, having just hit the 100-day mark. Tom Brady will appear at the US Olympic Trials in late-June, and Aasia Laurencin has met the Olympic standard in 100m hurdles with the #2 time in the world this qualifying cycle. She is currently trying to obtain St. Lucian citizenship, which would certainly send her to the Olympics as it would allow her to bypass US Trials. Meanwhile, the US Olympic Trials in Wrestling featyre several Wolverine alumni, including heavyweight Mason Parris, who will get a bye to the championship as the 1 seed.