The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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SEPTEMBER 2025 ❱ THE WOLVERINE 59 ❱ OLYMPIC SPORTS UPDATE centage (.331) and blocks per set (1.00) with 203 kills on the year. Junior Morgan Burke — Burke ap- peared in and started all 31 matches and also earned Academic All-Big Ten status last fall. She played in all 117 sets and recorded 1,168 assists and 294 blocks in addition to 38 kills, 31 aces and 39 blocks. Men's Golf First Event: Aug. 31-Sept. 1 at Island Resort Intercollegiate (Bark River, Mich.) Season Outlook: A new-look roster defines this season as head coach Scott Barlow looks to take the program to an- other level after a 15th-place Big Ten fin- ish a year ago. TOP THREE ATHLETES: Sophomore Nilay Naik — This 2025 Division III All-American signed with the U-M program this offseason, after starting eight of nine events as a fresh- man at Pomona College and leading his team with a 71.70 scoring average, 9 sub- par rounds and 5 sub-70 tallies. Sophomore Dean Muratore — He played in 12 events with 11 starts as a freshman, recording 4 top-15 and 2 top- 10 individual finishes and had a career- best tie for seventh place at the Virtues Intercollegiate (73-69/142, -2). Sophomore RJ Arone — He's one of two U-M golfers who played and started all 12 regular-season events last season, recording 3 top-20 and 1 top-10 finish as a freshman, a sixth-place showing at the Virtues Intercollegiate. Women's Golf First Event: Sept. 7-8 at Wolverine Invitational (Ann Arbor) Season Outlook: Head coach Jan Dowling brings back three of her four best performers from last season on a group that finished the 2024-25 slate with an eighth-place finish at the Big Ten Championships with one individual performer at NCAA Regionals in Mara Janess, who is back this season. TOP THREE ATHLETES: Senior Sydney Sung — She played in nine events with eight starts last season, recording a career-low 75.04 scoring av- erage. Sung has started 20 of 23 events during her career with 4 sub-par rounds and 2 even-par rounds. Senior Lauren Sung — She's started 26 of 30 career events with 7 career top- 20 finishes and a top-10 mark. Five of Sung's top-20 finishes came last season, when she played in 10 events with nine starts and led the team in three events, headlined by a third-place tie at the Ter- rapin Invitational. Redshirt Junior Mara Janess — Ja- ness started 16 of 18 career tournaments, averaging 74.80 per round with 7 sub- par rounds and 1 sub-70 round in addi- tion to 6 rounds of par. She shot a career- low 69 (-3) in the third round of the 2025 Chattanooga Classic. She also went on to the NCAA Columbus Regional as an individual and finished 41st. Men's Tennis First Event: Sept. 22-28 at ITF M15 Ann Arbor (Ann Arbor) Season Outlook: Last year's Wol- verines finished with a 15-13 record and reached the quarterfinals of the Big Ten Tournament, also making their ninth straight NCAA Tournament appear- ance before losing to Cornell in the first round. Now, they work to build off that and keep their NCAA streak alive. TOP THREE ATHLETES: Senior Bjorn Swenson — He went 16-12 in singles, 3-4 in the fall and 13-8 in duals last season, along with a 6-2 mark against Big Ten opponents and three ranked wins. Swenson had a seven- match win streak, one shy of equaling his career high, from March 16-May 3. Senior Nicholas Steiglehner — He posted a 15-18 singles record, 4-6 in the fall and 11-12 in duals, headlined by a ranked win over No. 56 Alejandro Moreno at Tennessee. Steiglehner led all Wolverines in matches clinched with four (Tennessee, Harvard, Purdue and Indiana). Junior Alex Cairo — Cairo, an Aca- demic All-Big Ten selection, posted a 10-13 record in singles play, 5-5 in the fall and 5-8 in duals. His first singles victory over a ranked opponent came against No. 113 Bryce Nakashima (Ohio State) last October. Women's Tennis First Event: Sept. 22 at ITA All- American Championships (Cary, N.C.) Season Outlook: The U-M women are coming off a fantastic season. They ended with a 27-5 overall record that in- cluded a Big Ten title and a No. 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament, where they bowed out in the semifinals. U-M loses program star Julia Fliegner, but plenty of talent remains to make another run. TOP THREE ATHLETES: Senior Lily Jones — Jones was named to the All-Big Ten second team and was U-M's Big Ten Sportsmanship honoree for the third straight season, competing at both NCAA Singles and Doubles Championships. She was the only U-M player to compete in both and recorded the first 30-win season of her career (30-14). Junior Piper Charney — She was an All-Big Ten first-team honoree and ITA All-American in singles, the first such honor of her career, finishing last season ranked No. 17 individually and No. 42 in doubles. Charney won a team-high 35 singles matches for her second straight 30-win season. Sophomore Emily Sartz-Lunde — The 2025 Big Ten Freshman of the Year and All-Big Ten Freshman team selection was also the ITA Midwest Region Rookie of the Year, finishing the season ranked No. 55 in singles. ❑ Emily Sartz-Lunde, who was the 2025 Big Ten Freshman of the Year and ITA Midwest Region Rookie of the Year, finished last season ranked No. 55 in singles. PHOTO COURTESY MICHIGAN PHOTOGRAPHY