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Men's lacrosse returns to Pittsburgh

The Michigan's men's lacrosse club returns to the scene of the crime this weekend.

At last year's Pittsburgh Invitational tournament, Virginia Tech stole the title from the Wolverines in the championship game.

This year the Hokies will meet Michigan earlier in the tournament. The two teams meet Friday in the first game of the opening round. Michigan will also face Penn State and Pittsburgh in the first round.

Virginia Tech will likely provide the toughest competition of the tournament for Michigan -- at least until a potential late round match-up with Navy.

"Virginia Tech won last year. Navy won two years ago," Michigan senior Tom Samburg said. "Those are the best teams we'll play."

Pittsburgh and Penn State should not be as tough on the Wolverines, at least if history proves to be true.

"We don't know too much about Penn State or Pittsburgh," Samburg said. "But we beat them last year. The Penn State game was close."

Pittsburgh may be a bit tougher competition due to home field advantage.

But Michigan is happy to play on those fields after running around in the muck of Purdue's grass fields last week.

"Some of the games will be indoors, and Pittsburgh Stadium will also be used. Both fields are turf," Samburg said. "That will be to our advantage, since we play almost all our games on turf."

Ten teams were invited to the field. Big Ten rivals Illinois and Purdue will participate. Among the other teams involved, Miami (Ohio) has been the most successful this year.

Michigan would be pleased with another turnout like last year's.

"We hope to do well. Last year we made the finals," Samburg said. "We hope, and expect, to do that well again."

To do so, the Wolverines will need to address some problems that proved costly in last weekend's loss to the Illini.

"We don't plan on doing anything differently, but we'd certainly like to be a little more successful," Samburg said. "We need to work on picking up ground balls and on being more aggressive."

Michigan may have to go without a familiar face this weekend. Junior Bill Argersinger, a three-year starter, hurt himself in the Big Ten Regionals.

He should be available for the weekend, but might only see limited action.