Michigan 18, Marquette 9

David McCormack scores in the third quarter

Since this was not an official game, there are no official stats (and therefore no Tempo-Free breakdown). However, there was still plenty to learn about Michigan from a relatively dominating performance against Marquette.

Notes

We’ll start in goal, where it’s clear that, while Robbie Zonino is capable, he’s also not going to steal as many goals as Gerald Logan did last year. Fortunately for Michigan, Zonino is used to bigtime games – as you’d expect coming out of Conestoga.

“Zonino really is a gamer,” Michigan coach John Paul said. “You come to practice and you might think, ‘man, these guys may be in trouble.’ He’s played this way now in both the games we’ve had him in… He’s used to playing in high-pressure games, he saw shooters in high school that were as good as he saw on the field today. He’s used to this, and I don’t think anything fazed him today. He was great.”

Without official stats, it’s tough to say just how good his performance was, but I definitely got the feeling that he let in a softie or two (and his frustration was evident a couple times).

On to scoring, where I’ll just run down the whole list, since there’s no official box score.

• Jr. A Andrew Portnoy: 4G, 1A.
• Fr. A Ian King: 3G, 1A
• Jr. A David McCormack: 2G, 2A
• So. M Kyle Jackson: 2G, 1A
• Jr. A Mike Francia: 1G, 2A
• Sr. M Doug Bryant: 1G, 1A
• Fr. M Mikie Schlosser, Sr. M Thomas Paras, So. M David Joseph, So. M Riley Kennedy, Fr. A Andrew Roswell: 1G
• So. M Mike Hernandez, Jr. FO Kevin Wylie, So. M Dan Kinek: 1A

The performance of King was big, especially since he was playing out of position at lefty attack, since junior Will Meter missed the game.

“We have really high hopes for Ian, and he pretty much missed the fall with mono, so he’s really just come on in the last three weeks or so,” Paul said. “We’re just starting to see in practice what he can become. We saw a little bit of it today, he’s pretty special. Ian will be on the field [when Meter returns]. We don’t have a lefty on the field at attack right now. King can play both hands, but he’s a righty. He’ll get over to the right side, Meter will take the lefty side.”

That means Portnoy, Francia, and McCormack will be fighting for the third starting spot. The offense was potent (without full stats I can’t be sure, but Paul said 18 goals on 31 opportunities, which would be blistering – I don’t think Michigan calculates opportunities the same way I do at TFL, though).

The one big scary point was a huge second-quarter run by Marquette, which even bled a little bit into the third quarter as well. U-M had a 7-1 lead entering the second quarter, and the Golden Eagles outscored them 6-1 to enter the halftime break down just a goal, then added the first two of the second half to earn their first lead of the game.

Of course, Michigan closed strong with the final ten goals of the game to earn a comfortable win. The second-quarter run felt like it was on account of possession, and Paul confirmed that in the postgame. Michigan failed five clears, leading to several unsettled opportunities (which were cashed in by Marquette attack Tyler Melnyk, who scored six of Marquette’s seven fist-half goals). The Wolverines also struggled on draws during the quarter.

“We were 5/10 clearing the ball, we couldn’t win a faceoff,” Paul explained. “We had four penalties, two of them we gave to them on the faceoff. Possessions, that’s really what it comes down to. We were playing a freshman faceoff guy [Brian Archer], and he didn’t handle adversity very well. That’s a lesson for him, he knows.

“These guys needed a reminder about how important some of the little things are, and they got away from some of the little things. Clearing the ball is easy. In fact, we were perfect clearing the ball today other than that quarter. Stop making dumb mistakes and we’ll be fine, and that’s what they did.”

Speaking of faceoffs, Michigan rotated through three specialists (not including start Brad Lott, who was out with injury but should return for the Penn State game Saturday). Freshman Will Biagi played the first and fourth quarters, and I unofficially have him winning six of 14 draws (though he won the clamp on a couple and the wings weren’t there for a GB). Archer’s second-quarter performance was only a 3/8 mark – not that bad – but as Paul mentioned, he had a couple penalties for violations (and gave up some 6-on-5 opportunities both through those and through giving up clean wins). Kevin Wylie was an outstanding 6/8 in the third, and also had an assist on a clean win.

“Brian Archer didn’t have a good second quarter but I really liked what Biagi and Wylie did,” Paul said. “We didn’t have Brad Lott today, who’s going to be the starter at that position, and to see the backups come in and do that well, I was pretty happy with that. I think those two things stood out to me.”

When Lott comes back, he should start. He’s the best they have, but there are more bullets in the chamber than there were last year, a very positive development.

Injuries. The program has already announced that goalie Gerald Logan would miss the whole year, but I think it was new information that sophomore defenseman Charlie Keady would be out for the duration of the year, as well. Other than those two, the whole team is expected to return in short order (just about all contributors other than Meter for this wekend’s game, by the sounds of things). Defense is where Michigan can’t afford any more injuries.

“We’re deep at attack, we’re deep on offense,” Paul said. “We’re not as deep defensively, and that’s where werre going to have to make sure we stay healthy.”

 J.D. Johnson, Chris Walker, and Mack Gembis started on defense for Michigan, with Paxton Moore playing at LSM on defense (but oddly not on the wings for faceoffs, where Chase Brown was on the top unit).

The Other Guys. I wasn’t paying the utmost attention, but I didn’t see much action from either of Marquette’s Michigan natives. Attack Henry Nelson barely played (if at all), and fellow Brother Rice alum K.C. Kennedy was not one of the top couple faceoff guys.

Photos

I’m transitioning to Flickr for photos right now, and I’m too simple to figure out how to embed a slideshow. Here’s a link to the set, for now.

Up Next

Penn State is going to be a significantly bigger challenge than Marquette, particularly in the transition from preseason to regular-season action. U-M travels to take on the Nittany Lions in State College Saturday.