The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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INSIDE MICHIGAN ATHLETICS Student-Athlete Of The Month Men's Swimming And Diving Junior Connor McCarroll rium, the end result could be a Big Ten championship. When he puts in work at the lab, the end result could be a spaceship. No kidding. McCarroll, a two-time Academic All-Big Ten honoree and a backstroke specialist, is studying aerospace engineering at the university and is also a member of the Wolverines' swimming and diving team, which makes for a difficult balance. The Maize and Blue usually meet at the pool at the crack of When Connor McCarroll puts in work at the Canham Natato- dawn for drills, and McCarroll is often studying late into the night. "It's tough, time-consuming major, so you really have to be good at time management to study this and do swimming. To do well, you have to spend a ton of time on projects and things, so it can be very mentally fatiguing. "In high school, it wasn't re- " he said. "It's a very has been inconsistent this season, with the Wolverines ranking seventh in the Big Ten in ERA (4.40) and sixth in opposing batting average (.271) in 37 games through April 17, but Sinnery is a cornerstone U-M can build on. Though only 3-3 in nine starts, the right-hander has had the team's two best in- dividual efforts this year. He went 8 1/3 innings with a 1.20 WHIP (walks/hits per nine innings) in lifting U-M to a 4-0 blanking of Michigan State April 6 before a complete-game 7-3 victory over Penn State April 13 in which he allowed just two earned runs, struck out six and had a 1.22 WHIP. Men's golf senior Matt Thompson: Thanks to an incred- Baseball senior Brandon Sinnery: Michigan's pitching MICHIGAN'S TOP PERFORMERS OF THE MONTH ally that difficult, the first se- mester was a big adjustment. My major has gotten a little harder each semester, so I've been able to ease into it and find a rhythm that works for me. But it's a sacrifice he's willing to make in order to study some- thing that has been a passion of his for a long time. "When I was a little guy, my dad used to read me books about outer space, and I loved it," he said. "I've always really been " interested in anything that flies, any kind of aircraft, and espe- cially things that have to do with outer space. "Coming into school, I really didn't know what I was going to do, but I just kind of followed my interests, and I really love it." The aerospace engineering field is broken into three sub- fields: dynamics, which focuses on rockets, jet propulsion and aerodynamics; structures, the shape and function of the space- craft; and controls, how to manipulate the craft's movements. As an undergraduate, McCarroll is still studying all three at an ible three-round, 54-hole, 10-under-par 206 at the Furman Intercollegiate in mid-March, Thompson has overtaken Michael Harris (1996-2000) as the program's career record holder in scoring average. In 124 rounds over four seasons, the Battle Creek, Mich., native has needed just 72.85 strokes per round, bet- tering Harris' mark of 72.92. U-M's top individual finisher in seven of nine team tournaments this season, Thompson is just a shade off (72.17) the Michigan single-season stroke record of 72.00, which he set as a sophomore in 2010. Rowing redshirt junior Melissa Ongun: The 2009 McCarroll is a two-time Aca- demic All-Big Ten honoree and a backstroke specialist. PHOTO COURTESY MICHIGAN ATHLETIC MEDIA RELATIONS Big Ten Freshman of the Year, Ongun has helped propel U-M's first varsity eight boat to success this season after missing the 2011 campaign due to injury. With Ongun handling an oar again, the Wolverines' pre- eminent boat won seven consecutive races from March 24-April 16, including wins over No. 12 Michigan State and No. 9 Yale March 31. The first varsity eight, unbeaten in eight events this season, was named the Big Ten Boat of the Week on both April 3 and April 10. Men's tennis freshman Alex Petrone: Michigan stood introductory level. He plans to go to graduate school, where he wants to focus on the structure subfield. "The aerospace industry kind of goes up and down, and the structural side is something that will always be applicable to all sorts of fields and jobs, in that." " he said. "It will be helpful to focus "There are also several other companies I could work for. SpaceX is a big one that is growing. "What I want to do most is work on actually building rockets. There are a lot of options in McCarroll's future. "NASA is awesome, I'd love to work there," McCarroll said That seems very cool to me, working somewhere in the launch industry. But I think I could wind up anywhere in the industry and really like it. " 18 THE WOLVERINE MAY 2012 — Andy Reid 8-1 and in second place in the Big Ten stand- ings through April 16, with victories over No. 23 Indiana and No. 18 Illinois, thanks in part to the emergence of Petrone. The rookie from Staten Island, N.Y., is 7-2 in nine confer- ence matchups, including a 6-0, 6-4 decision over Nortwestern's No. 109-ranked Spencer Wolf April 8 in the No. 2 singles position to help U-M to a 5-2 victory. Petrone is 20-10 on the year and 13-6 in dual matches. Softball sophomore Lyndsay Doyle: After a rougher non-conference than usual — the Maize and Blue went 19-9 — the Wolverines are once again roaring through the Big Ten, off to an 11-1 start through April 16, thanks to an offense averaging 6.9 runs per game in conference play. Batting in the two hole, the Channahon, Ill., native was hitting .382 in league action with a .475 on-base percentage. She has come around to score on 12 of the 19 times she's been on base (63.2 percent). In 36 games overall, Doyle is hitting .297.