Tuesday Morning Brews: Pablo honey

Happy Tuesday, folks. Welcome to Morning Brews and welcome to the workweek. Teams all across the Michigan sports landscape generally found success over the Presidents Day-lengthened weekend, including baseball who opened their season with a three-game sweep. Without further ado...

Let’s get to it:

Wrestling thumps No. 18 Rutgers to conclude B1G. Michigan finished their Big Ten schedule in style with a big 28-7 win over No. 18 Rutgers. The Wolverines took eight of 10 bouts on the day, including four of the first five. The team also scored a big victory over Maryland on Friday, cruising past the Terrapins 34-4. In that match, Michigan prevailed in nine of 10 bouts on the day. With the pair of victories, the team stands at 12-1 (8-1) on the year. They’ll have a match against Clarion next weekend, before the Big Ten Championships begin on March 9th.

Softball struggle in Big Ten/ACC Challenge. It was a difficult weekend for Michigan on the softball diamond. The Wolverines had four games against Louisville and North Carolina, and Michigan came away the victor in only one of them. Against the Cardinals, the Wolverines split—winning the first game 6-0, but dropping the second 1-2. Against the Tar Heels, Michigan never got much going—dropping both games, 3-8 and 1-4. The 1-3 weekend puts the Wolverines at 4-5 (0-0) on the season. They’ll next play on Friday at the LSU Invitational.

Baseball opens with a sweep of Binghamton. On the other diamond, Michigan’s weekend was much more upbeat. Baseball swept the Binghamton Bearcats of the America East Conference (it’s D-I for baseball, I promise). The Wolverines took two games comfortably, 10-0 and 12-2, while needing to break a tie in the 8th to take the other game 5-4. Michigan is ranked No. 17 here in the early going and will next play at The Citadel this weekend.

Women’s basketball win sixth straight. Women’s basketball appears to be reaching their crescendo at the perfect time as the team’s regular season schedule approaches its conclusion. Kim Barnes Arico’s squad secured a 70-56 victory over Illinois on Sunday for their sixth win in a row. They also bested Indiana on Thursday, 67-58. The two wins improve Michigan’s record to 18-9 (9-6) on the season, good for fourth in the conference. They next have a critical game against third place Rutgers on Thursday.

Women’s lacrosse continued their quick start to the season, including a dramatic double-overtime victory against Dartmouth. As the tweet above states, at 4-0 the team is off to its best start ever. The Wolverines also handily beat Central Michigan on Friday, 20-4. In the early going, Michigan is being paced offensively by Adriana Pendino (13 goals) and Lilly Grass (10 goals). The team will be back in action at Colorado on Sunday.

We still need to get through spring practice and the spring game (April 6th, in case you missed our article yesterday afternoon), but NFL Draft chatter is beginning to heat up. The first Maize n Brew mock draft was released recently, courtesy of Andrew Vailliencourt. He projected both Rashan Gary and Devin Bush being selected in the first round. When was the last time the Wolverines had a first round pick? 2017, when another dynamic defensive duo—Jabrill Peppers and Taco Charlton—were selected by the Browns and Cowboys respectively. For a full breakdown of when each FBS team last saw a player taken in the first round, check out the article above from the SB Nation mothership.