Michigan 15, Detroit 10

Photo by Tim Sullivan/GLS, awful lighting by Ultimate Soccer Arenas.

This was a game in three acts, one of which was even, one of which Michigan dominated, and the third of which the Maize and Blue let their opponent make things look pretty for the computers. In all, it ended up looking a little – but just a little – closer than the action dictated.

Tempo-Free

From the official box score, a look at the tempo-free stats:

Michigan was the better team in possession, thanks to faceoff man Mike McDonnell and a little bit of trouble clearing for the Titans (one of those fails leading directly to a transition goal). They were also much better in efficiency, even though the numbers don’t bear out the difference between the teams thanks to the five-goal run to end the game.

Notes

The body of evidence is beginning to mount that Michigan’s Mike McDonnell is just a really good faceoff guy – a nice development after losing last year’s starter, Brad Lott. Sure, UDM hasn’t exactly covered itself in glory at the dot in every other game, but chasing Ben Gjokaj (who I’ve noted in the past I have a ton of respect for as a player) indicates that against all but the best specialists/units Michigan will face, McDonnell is going to be an asset. He helped the Wolverines maintain a (needed) possession advantage in the first half until they got the offense humming, and from that it was all good.

Speaking of that offense, I hesitate to dismiss the Titans’ defensive effort, but I felt – and John Paul agrees – that the Maize and Blue had tons of first-half openings that they simply gave away due to sloppiness.

“It was us not playing our game,” Paul said. “Offensively, we were just trying to make things happen instead of playing our offense. We could see pretty early that if we were patient and moving the ball, we were going to get opportunities. The second half when we were able to grind that out was about our offense starting to settle down and play smarter.”

U-M shots were saved six times – a few on shots that the coaches would probably rather not have seen taken – and a couple of their six first-half turnovers were also forced plays that a team more settled in doesn’t make. They settle in for the second half, and the Titans couldn’t respond blow-for-blow, and there was your game.

The first half for UDM was impressive, though, since I think this Michigan team will end up being pretty good and the Titans… have struggled so far. They were able to overcome their own bugaboo (eight turnovers, including two failed clears) to launch 19 shots, 11 of them on goal, and five finding twine. They’ll have to manufacture a bit of offense – and battle through their own errors – a bit this year, especially until Mark Anstead is able to return from illness.

As for individual offensive performances, this turned into the Ian King and Brent Noseworthy show for Michigan (get used to it this year), with four goals a pop plus King assisting on one of Noseworthy’s three-straight in the fourth quarter – capping the 11-goal U-M run that decided the game. Always gotta show love to the poles, as well, with Dickson Smith riding UDM into a turnover and cashing in himself, and Nick DeCaprio assisting one of King’s tallies after a caused turnover himself.

Detroit was led by Matthew VanGalen’s goal and three assists, with Seth Mendell and Sean Birney contributing a pair of goals and pair of assists, respectively. With the good comes the bad, as we see with UDM all too often though: the duo combined for five of the Titans’ 15 turnovers, as well.

We tend to see this game be a little sloppy/chippy/frantic/whatever, and seven caused turnovers for Detroit and eight for Michigan is well above either team’s normal production in that department, though in a faster-paced game maybe not unexpected (but then the turnovers result in more possessions and a faster pace, etc. etc., and INCEPTION).

Both goalies had good performances, with Jason Weber’s .400 save percentage sort of misleading because he was hung out to dry a few times, especially during the big Michigan run. Tommy Heidt’s .600 was very good – though we see too much of UDM shooters lobbing balls toward a goalie’s chest to read too much into it – and Michigan’s mediocre save percentage of .500 was way more attributable to backup Gunner Garn allowing four goals and saving just one shot when the Titans made things look pretty in the end.

Elsewhere

Michigan recap. Photo gallery (unfortunately mine all turned out horrible due to the lighting). Box. Detroit recap. McEwen recap for IL. It’s a goal:

Up Next

Hey, it’s a lot of games to recap (three for each team since this one), so we’ll get right into that, yeah?