Seniors get shot at championship

BLAINE, Minn. - Sports isn't always fair to great players who may never play in a championship game - no matter how long and illustrious their careers are.

But Michigan seniors Ruth Poulin, Debbie Flaherty and Karen Montgomery will leave their college soccer careers after this season knowing they played on a championship team. No matter how the Wolverines fare in the upcoming NCAA tournament, these seniors can attest to their moments in the sun.

"This was my goal," said Flaherty, a team captain and four-year starter. "When I first came to this program, I knew it would start out slowly and hopefully end like this. We've already done a lot of firsts this year, but I wanted to go out with something like this."

Flaherty's goal was a long way from reality when she first came to Michigan four years ago. In their inaugural season, the Wolverines won only one conference game and didn't approach respectability until finishing 3-3 last year. Michigan advanced to the tournament semifinals in 1994 and '96, but championships were out of the question.

This year, things were different from the get-go. The Wolverines won a team record 15 games and finished second in the Big Ten with a 7-1-1 record. Appropriately, the first freshman class was still around for Michigan's first shot at a championship.

"This tournament meant so much because if we lost, it could have been the last collegiate game that I ever played," said Poulin, not knowing if Michigan would receive an NCAA tournament bid.

But not all Big Ten seniors were as lucky as Poulin. Players like Ohio State's Jodie Stranges and Penn State's Rachel Hoffman played their last collegiate games last weekend. This season, Stranges and Hoffman were both All-Big Ten first team selections for the third-consecutive year. But neither one had the benefit of a supporting cast of underclassmen like Michigan's Amber Berendowsky, Kacy Beitel or Erin Gilhart.

"It's frustrating," said Stranges, after Ohio State's first-round loss to Michigan. "We've given these teams a good game during the season, and we've beaten them in the seasons before. It's just come tournament time, it's never really gone our way."

Ohio State hasn't had any success against the Wolverines in the postseason. Despite beating it in three-straight regular season games, the Buckeyes fell to Michigan in each of the last two opening rounds of the tournament.

The Nittany Lions have seen the tournament semifinals a couple times, but they never played in a championship game. Unlike Michigan, Penn State has been successful since its inception, holding an all-time record of 44-16-4, but the Wolverines have done a lot more than the Lions in the postseason.

"Emotionally, this is a really tough loss because this is our fourth year like Michigan," Penn State coach Pat Farmer said. "We have 10 seniors that started the program, and this was probably their last game."

11-10-97