Tuesday Morning Brews: You play to win The Game

Happy Tuesday, folks. Welcome to Morning Brews. Hopefully you’re burning some vacation days this week and reading this from your couch. But if not, don’t worry—we’re just a couple days away from Thanksgiving, and then we’ll be just a couple days away from The Game.

Let’s get to it:

Men’s soccer falls to Notre Dame in PK shootout. Men’s soccer faced off against No. 7 Notre Dame this past Sunday and played the Fighting Irish to a scoreless draw through double-overtime. The PKs went much like the game, with neither team able to gain much of an advantage through the first 10 rounds. In the eleventh round, Notre Dame found net and Michigan didn’t. Ironically, to get to this game the Wolverines won their opening match of the NCAA Tournament in similar fashion, besting Princeton 11-10 on PKs. The team finished the year with a record of 12-5-4.

Wrestling tops No. 6 Lehigh. Another meet, another victory for the wrestling Wolverines—but this one came against the 6th ranked team in the country. Michigan, No. 5 in their own right, seemed in control for much of the day with only one ranked wrestler losing to a lower ranked opponent. In fact, the Wolverines took seven of the 10 bouts en route to their 21-13 victory. The team is now 2-0 on the season. They’ll be back in action at the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational starting on November 30th.

Volleyball tops MSU to pull even in conference. The Wolverines have had a tough go of it on the hardwood recently, dropping seven of their last 10 matches. However, Michigan got back in the win column this past Saturday against Michigan State to even up their conference record. The Wolverines and Spartans traded the first two sets (30-28, 18-25) before Michigan took the last two (25-17, 26-24) for a 3-1 victory. The team is now 20-9 (9-9) on the season. They’ll be back in action tomorrow evening against Northwestern.

Hockey splits the weekend again. After splitting last weekend against No. 6 Notre Dame, Michigan—as the title suggests—split this past weekend against No. 5 Penn State. The Wolverines came back from a 2-4 deficit against the Nittany Lions in the first game with a furious 4-goal third period to win 6-4. In the second game, Michigan again was down 2-4 and again scored four goals in the third period—but Penn State netted a pair of their own and so the teams headed to overtime. There, the Nittany Lions netted the game winner just seven seconds into the period. The team is now 6-5 (2-2) on the season. They next play Wisconsin this weekend.

Much like men’s basketball, the women’s program is off to a strong start this season. They’ve recorded a few blowout wins against lesser competition, most recently against Detroit Mercy—to whom the Wolverines showed little. Hallie Thome led all scorers with 25 pts., while freshman Naz Hillmon contributed 22 pts. and 8 rebs. to the effort. Michigan’s season begins to get tougher this Friday when the Wolverines face off with Mizzou in the opening round of the Gulf Coast Showcase.

Much has been made of the Wolverines being favored this weekend at Ohio State, and I’ll leave to you fine folks whether you think that’s deserved or not. For what it’s worth, here’s what Alex Kirshner over at the SB Nation mothership had to say about this week’s line: “Again, all the 2018 evidence says Michigan should be favored. The Wolverines have usually looked like a buzzsaw this year. Watching Ohio State has more resembled having teeth pulled. The Buckeyes should’ve lost to Maryland mere days ago.” Will the Wolverines win? We’ll find out Saturday afternoon.