Blue sees tournament crown slip away With All-American Joe Blackburn in net, Spartans skate to third straight GLI title By Geoff Gagnon Daily Sports Writer DETROIT - His hair still wet and his spirit just as damp, Michigan captain Sean Peach made his way from the team's lockerroom. Shaking his head the veteran defenseman headed toward the Michigan bus that waited in the shadow of the rear exit lights of Detroit's Joe Louis Arena. He held no trophy. And as the echoes of a more exuberant Michigan State team filled the corridor beneath the arena, a white pizza box seemed a dismal replacement for the championship hardware he had hoped to hoist. But while pizza served as little consolation for Peach and his teammates in the wake of their Great Lakes Invitational loss to the Spartans, the squad is already feasting on the thought of redemption as it sets to face the CCHA leading team this Friday. In handing Michigan its sixth loss of the year, a 3-1 downing of the Wolverines in the GLI finals Dec. 30, Michigan State has now made it three straight tournament titles. The Spartans have now won 11 of their 12 tries on the banks of the Detroit River. For Michigan, who outshot the Spartans 38-23, the loss was a difficult setback made tougher by the opponent that it came against. "From day-one you understand that State is going to be the rival, the team that you love to hate," forward Mike Cammalleri. "That added intensity makes the game a lot more fun." That intensity was evident early to the 18,000 fans that saw Michigan State jump ahead midway through the first period when Mike Weaver, on a pass from Shawn Horcoff, found a streaking Rustyn Dolyny who slid the puck behind Michigan netminder L.J. Scarpace. The power-play goal, a back door strike at 13:22, gave the Spartans a lead from which they would seldom look back. Michigan was able to tally its own power-play score at 5:11 of the second period as the freshman line of Mark Mink, John Shouneyia and Cammalleri teamed to beat Michigan State's Joe Blackburn for the squad's lone score of the night. Working the offense into the Spartan zone to Blackburn's right, Shouneyia swung the puck to Mink who found a waiting Cammalleri eyeing an open net and the game's equalizer. "It was well-executed tic-tac-toe passing on the power-play. Its something we really work hard on in practice and every once in a while it happens," Cammalleri said. Tournament MVP Horcoff made sure that things didn't stay knotted as he found Kris Koski in front of the Michigan net at the 4:53 mark in the third. Chased behind the pipes by Michigan's Mike Comrie, Horcoff's centering pass sailed past Comrie's outstretched stick and Koski poked it past Scarpace to jump ahead 2-1. The power-play goal was the second of its kind for Michigan State, which tallied its third score with a man-advantage later in the third, but not before Michigan put together a series of chances itself. The most noticeable of which came midway through the final frame when Blackburn fought off a series of shots and put-backs in the frenzied moments before killing off a powerplay. "We killed off some penalties where Joe Blackburn showed why he's an All-American," Michigan State coach Ron Mason said. "He made the saves that just had to be made." Looking for the tying goal in the third, Michigan came up empty finding the crossbar and Blackburn's lunging body instead of the net as the highly touted goaltender thwarted every late Wolverine attack to preserve the win for the Spartans. "Blackburn played great and made some unbelievable saves that won the game for them," Cammalleri said. Michigan State put things out of reach for the Wolverines at 10:57 when Brian Maloney put the Spartans up 3-1 and Michigan away for good as Ron Mason's squad raised the banner for its eighth GLI title. Clad in vintage sweaters for the 35th annual tournament, Michigan may have hoped throwback threads might conjure up the type of winning results the team had formerly grown accustomed to. Despite a seemingly successful 7-4-1 all-time tournament record against the Spartans heading into this season's edition, two of Michigan's four losses had come in the last two years. It was a trend that Michigan coach Red Berenson hoped to stop. Despite the loss however, Berenson said he's pleased with his team's play and wasn't at all surprised with what he saw in Mason's fourth ranked Spartans. "Overall I feel good about the way our team played this weekend. I was proud of our team," Berenson said. "They're the team we expected them to be. They're tough to score on and you just can't give them the power play opportunities that we did." Michigan earned its date with the Spartans after a thrilling overtime win against Lake Superior State the night before. The 4-3 win was Michigan's 19th semifinal victory in 26 GLI appearances and came when Junior Mark Kosick tallied his second goal of the night on a give from Scott Matzka and Dave Huntzicker at 14:13 of the overtime. For Michigan the win was sweet redemption against a pesky conference foe that gave the Wolverines a two-game drubbing at home earlier this season, and had swept the Wolverines a year ago. "We definitely remembered what happened earlier this season when they beat us at home," Peach says, "That was definitely in the back of our minds so it was good to get a little payback." And that is the theme that Michigan will hope to continue as it gears up for Friday's battle in East Lansing - a battle that could help erase the sour taste of the GLI loss. Until then pizza will have to do for Peach and the Wolverines. SAM HOLLENSHEAD/Daily With its 4-3 overtime win, Michigan shook pesky foe Lake Superior off its back and recorded its first victory over the Lakers this season. The Wolverines were not as lucky with the Spartans falling 3-1 in the GLI final. Originally on page 6B in the 1-5-2000 issue of the Daily.