Michigan teams hosted some big events last weekend, with both tennis teams hosting the ITA Kick-Off and Water Polo hosting their annual Wolverine Invitational. The friendly confines certainly helped the Wolverines, as I simply do not have to mention any losses today. Not bad!
| Day |
Date |
Time |
Sport |
Opponent |
Location |
TV/Stream |
| Friday |
2/2 |
8:30p |
🤼♂️ #11 Wrestling |
#3 Iowa |
Home |
 |
| Sunday |
2/4 |
3:45p |
🤸♀️ #13 Women's Gymnastics |
#13 Michigan State |
Home |
|
The Watch Grid got some major updates this week as I began adding lax, baseball, and softball. There are two big TV events on tap this week as wrestling hosts senior night against Iowa, while women's gymnastics welcomes Michigan State. That's not a typo, the teams are tied at #13 nationally. This is one of the biggest meets in the rivalry's recent history, and Crisler should be crowded and loud, highly recommend making it out there if you can, but if not Big Ten Network will do.
Tennis Sends Both Teams to Indoor Nationals
Both the Michigan men's and women's tennis teams hosted regionals in the annual ITA Kick-Off Weekend. Every year the Kick-Off has 15 host sites, each one hosting a four-team mini-tournament with the winners qualifying for the ITA Indoor National Championship tournament a few weeks later. To round out it's field to an even 16, the host gets an auto-bid (Columbia on the men's side, Washington on the women's). The men beat Nevada and #15 Stanford, and climbed to number 11, while the women beat Utah and Arkansas and remain #5.
Women
Bottom line: the women beat the crap out of the Utes and Razorbacks, winning both matches 4-0. I think you could argue that it wasn't even that close against Utah. The match started with the Charney/R. Miller and Jones/Ross pairs each winning their sets 6-0, while the Brown/K. Miller pair was up 5-2 when they abandoned the set after Michigan clinched the doubles point.
In singles, Michigan continued to not lose a set, with all three Wolverine points coming in matches with a +8 or better games differential. Piper Charney, playing at #5 bageled her opponent in the first set, 6-0, and put in a 6-1 second set to put the Wolverines up 2-0. Lily Jones went 6-1, 6-1 at #6 for 3-0, and the match ended not so long after that when Gala Mesochoritou clinched it at #3, 6-2, 6-3. Elsewhere on court, Kari Miller, Julia Fliegner, and Jaedan Brown had all won their first sets, and while multiple Utes were pushing for a third set (Fliegner was tied 5-5, and Brown was about to begin a tiebreak), it did not matter.
Arkansas beat Purdue to reach Saturday's regional final, and finally took a set off the Wolverines after the Brown/K. Miller pairing went down 6-4 in doubles. Razorback singles did not fare much better than Utah. No one lost 6-0, but once again Arkansas did not win a singles set. Utah put itself in a deeper hole after an unfortunate injury handed Gala her point up 4-1 in the first, and there was just no climbing back for Utah. Kari Miller, up to #10 nationally, made quick work of the Hogs' only ranked player, #59 Carolina Gomez Alonso, 6-2, 6-1. Charney won by a similar scoreline (6-1, 6-2) and that was that. Everyone else had already won their first sets.
Michigan will now go to Indoor Nationals in Washington (this is not an NCAA event, winning does not mean you are the "national champion" in the way people tend to use the term, but you do get the opportunity to put a bunch of very good opponents on your schedule). The field features the entire top 12 (Michigan included), plus four other teams in the top 25. The host Huskies are the lowest ranked team, at #21.
First, there's some business to take care of at home, as two of those teams will be at the Varsity Tennis Center this week. #11 Virginia comes to Ann Arbor on Saturday, with #8 Florida to follow on Tuesday. Michigan's one loss this season came against now-#3 OK State, but the swing this weekend should tell us a lot about what Michigan might look like against its highest quality opponents.
Men
The men also put together a sweep in their first round match, with a 4-0 victory over Nevada. After a 2-0 sweep earned them the doubles point, Gavin Young earned the first singles point early with a 6-0, 6-2 win. With Patorn Hanchaikul and Will Cooksey winning 6-1, 6-1 and 6-1, 6-2, respectively, once again we have a meet where every Wolverine singles point came in a match with a +9 or better games differential.
Finally, on Sunday, one of the Wolverine teams played another good team, and they got the battle that the VTC had been waiting for all weekend. Stanford started off by winning the doubles point, clinching by winning a tiebreak against the Hanchaikul/Cooksey pair. The Young/Ehrenschneider pair had already won their set.
In singles, Stanford made the early push to extend their lead, with Young losing a 6-1, 6-3. Things looked pretty hairy for a minute here. Stanford was up 2-0, and among the other five matches, Michigan had lost two first sets. Michigan would need to convert every first set win into match win, and send at least one of the other matches to a third set.
So they did. Bjorn Swenson closed his first set 6-4 with a straight set win. And when Nino Ehrenschneider won a second set tiebreak to clinch the match at #3, suddenly we were all tied up. Jacob Bickerseth had lost his first set 6-1, but made a resounding comeback, winning the second 6-3 and causing no doubt in the third, 6-2. 3-2 Michigan. Stanford did get one more point with Cooksey forcing the third set and losing to make it 3-3, but by the time that had happened Hanchaikul was up something like 4-1 in his third set. He was able to hold on for a 4-3 Michigan win. A whole match full of close battles but when it was all said and done Hanchaikul was able to give Michigan an unusually low-stress finish.
Not unlike the women's side, the top 14 in its entirety will be headed to indoor nationals. Unlike the women's side, hosts Columbia come in at #9. The only two teams not in the top 14 will be #18 Arizona State and #21 Alabama. And looming at the top? #1 Ohio State.
First, Michigan will head for a road tilt against Harvard this Friday, matching our #11 with their #12. Between then and indoor nationals, Michigan will welcome Washington and Notre Dame, as well as a huge matchup with #5 TCU, a common NCAA Tournament foe over the last several years.
Water Polo Bounces Back to Sweep At Home
When we last saw Water Polo, they had opened their seasons with three Quality Losses™, such that they actually rose in the first in-season rankings to #11. In the second weekend of play, Michigan hosted the Michigan Invitational, opening conference play in the process. The Wolverines swept the weekend, going 4-0 including a notable win over #22 LIU. Certainly, the competition wasn't what they faced in their opening weekend losses, but if Michigan is to have any chance at all of claiming an at-large tournament bid, they have to win every single match they're supposed to (and then some).
The event opener against St. Francis also served as Michigan's CWPA opener, and it was over shortly after it began. Libby Alsemgeest scored the opening goal just over two minutes in, and by the time she scored the last goal of the first quarter, it was 5-0 Michigan. About halfway through the second Kata Utassy completed her fourth consecutive hat trick to open the season, and eventually it was 16-0 when St. Francis finally got onto the scoreboard in the fourth. 18-2 was the final.
The ranked tilt against LIU was the highlight of the weekend, and was played just a few hours after the St. Francis match. This match ended 14-9, but I don't think that really paints a picture of how this match was. It started close, with Lola Ciruli opening the scoring and LIU tying less than a minute later. Allison Lock's first goal of the season gave the Wolverines a 2-1 lead they'd never relinquish, as she kicked off a six goal run that lasted until late in the second quarter.
An 8-2 halftime score gave way to a series of mini-runs for the Dolphins. A three-goal Dolphins run between the late third and mid-fourth put the score at 10-8, and that's when the Wolverines stepped up and closed it out. Jillian Schlom added her second goal of the season, two more Wolverines scored, and it was 13-8 when LIU scored their last goal with just 35 seconds to play. Issy Jackson grabbed the final tally with just three seconds to play. For her efforts, Schlom would go on to win CWPA Rookie of the Week honors.
Michigan cruised through day 2 of the tournament, winning 15-5 and 20-3 tilts against Marist and Salem, respectively. They're now headed to Santa Barbara to take on #12 UCSB in the Triton Invitational. Unlike the Wolverine Invite, the Triton is a true tournament. Michigan will play the winner or loser of #1 USC v. Concordia Irvine (not Concordia Ann Arbor) in the second round, with 11 of the top 15 teams in the country potentially waiting in the later stages. This is a huge opportunity for the Wolverines to move on from moral victories and take a ranked win or two.
