Michigan 11, Bellarmine 10 (OT)

This is probably the biggest win to date in U-M’s program history. Bellarmine has been pretty good, and though they’re on a two-game losing streak now, I doubt they’re going to finish as one of the worst five programs in the country (as the single victim the last two years did), or behind Mercer, Detroit, or Furman.

Tempo Free

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

Even though Michigan ran out to leads of 3-0 and 5-2, Bellarmine’s comeback to eventually take the lead gave them a pretty good efficiency mark on the day. The Wolverines absolutely dominated possession though, and that led to the win.

This was a medium-paced game, but Michigan’s possession edge (61.5% of possessions, in fact) was the decisive factor.

Notes

Hello, Brad Lott. Welcome home. I was a few days off in my prediction that Lott would return to form soon, because he did it in a big way against BU. The Knights did not win a faceoff in the first half, which allowed U-M to focus on its settled offense and defense, rather than scraping to earn possessions as we’d seen in recent weeks. Lott’s rebound puts him back among the nation’s best faceoff specialists (even with the struggles in the Carolinas to his name), and 21/24 is a fine day. He did commit five turnovers and didn’t engineer much fast-break offense, but even then, you’re sort of splitting hair for a FO specialist.

The other aspect of the possession game was mostly a draw. Bellarmine had more clearing attempts than Michigan on account of U-M winning all the faceoffs, and each team had just one failed clear. I would have expected more riding, but Michigan likely didn’t feel the need to given how strong they were on faceoffs, and Bellarmine probably didn’t feel like potentially compounding something that was an issue.

Mikie Schlosser got the overtime game winner. Mike Francia (with help from Kyle Jackson) may have gotten the highlight of the game:

No Wolverine player recorded more than three points: Francia added two assists to the above goal, Jackson added a goal of his own, Will Meter had one of each, and Thomas Paras had two goals and an assist. When this Michigan offense is clicking, there are a ton of options to score the ball. It’s still a little lacking in consistency (which will come with experience), and sure as hell isn’t going to repeat the feat against Maryland, but its progress is moving smoothly.

Despite dominating the ball for the most part, Michigan only managed five more shots than Bellarmine (45 to 40). In non-FO ground balls, U-M was actually somewhat dominated, 20-13, and that explains how Bellarmine managed to keep things close despite the possession deficit. What Michigan did with those shots, however, was far better. 24/45 were on cage (.533), with 11 of them of course getting past Will Haas. Bellarmine put only 16 of 40 (.400) on cage, with 10 beating Zonino.

That disparity is a positive for Michigan’s offense, but not a strong positive for Zonino, who didn’t face too much rubber but saved only .375 of shots faced. When the possession game and offense are working well, you can win with a mark like that. More often than not, at least one of the other units will falter, and Zonino will have to step up. He’s been making progress this season – the Bellarmine performance may not be the best example of that – but it’s still tough to think what Michigan doesn’t have in terms of ball-stopping ability with Gerald Logan out for the year.

Even though Michigan’s defense prevented Logan from seeing many shots on cage, it wasn’t because they were forcing turnovers – only four all game (one each from Jeff Chu, Chase Brown, Josh Stauffer – who also got his first career goal – and Kyle Jackson). Bellarmine still managed to commit 15 TOs, so like the shooting accuracy, it appears Michigan was helped out by an opponent that wasn’t doing a whole lot to help itself out.

Coming the other way, Michigan committed 21 turnovers – not a great number – but 15 were forced by a Bellarmine defense that 1) is really good until the past couple weeks, and 2) thrives on forcing turnovers. As much as you could say that 11 unforced TOs buried Bellarmine, Michigan keeping its own number down to six is a strong positive.

One more interesting note from the boxscore: No matter who actually walks onto the field first, typically the first offensive midfield is listed as starting. That wasn’t the case for Michigan Saturday, with Lott, Brown, and Chu (FO specialist, LSM, and short-stick D-middie) listed as the starters. Not sure if there was a motivational or reward element to it, but it’s definitely something that’s a rarity for Michigan.

Elsewhere

IL’s Eamon McAnaney lists is as one of his impact games from the weekend. Maize n Brew recaps the game. Michigan game recap. Boxscore. Bellarmine recap.

Up Next

Later today (4 p.m., to be exact), Michigan will take on the No. 1 team in the country in Maryland. The game is at Michigan Stadium, and the first 150 fans get some form of door prize. The Terps are the best team to play a road game at Michigan in program history.

…that’s a blessing and a curse, because it shows that Michigan lacrosse is becoming a capital-B capital-D Big Deal, but also because the game will probably not go so well for the Maize and Blue. Keeping the margin of defeat reasonable is probably the best-case scenario.