The Wolverine

June-July 2013 - Wolverine

The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports

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The Wolverines won the national championship by scoring 443.2 points, beating secondplace Oklahoma by a whopping 3.1 points. photo courtesy michigan athletic media relations "I was feeling pretty confident before we even started the Super Six," Michigan head coach Kurt Golder said. "But as we were going through the finals meet, we were getting some lower scores than we did the previous day. Near the end of the meet, the gap was pretty close between us and Oklahoma. They were on high bar and we were on floor, and we're the No. 1 floor team, but I was concerned that if we had some bad luck and three or four guys sit down on a given tumbling pass, that Oklahoma could catch us. "When [senior] Rohan Sebastian was the first guy to go and he scored a 15.2, which was a personal best for him, that's when I started to feel comfortable. And every guy after that hit. With about two guys left to go, it was mathematically impossible for Oklahoma to pass us." And the Wolverines celebrated. They have now won two of the last four national titles, after claiming it in 2010, the program's first crown since 1999. This year's crown is the fifth in program history (1963 and 1970 were the other earlier national championships). This title was definitely not a foregone conclusion midway through the season. In back-to-back meets in mid-March, the Wolverines were defeated handily by No. 3 Oklahoma (432.1-431.25) in Ann Arbor and No. 1 Penn State (427.3-430.4). At the time, the long season and even longer training regimen was beginning to take its toll on the Wolverines. Several key contributors, including Mikulak, were resting with various injuries, and the lineup was incomplete. Over the coming weeks, Golder decided to rest some of his better gym-

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