Michigan Weekend Preview: Missouri

The Wolverines and Spartans break from their lock-step schedules over the past two weekends to take on a different set of teams. Michigan has a single game this week, with a home game against Missouri on Saturday night.

Missouri

Saturday 7PM, Oosterbaan Fieldhouse
Record: 9-1 (0-0 GRLC South)
Rankings: 21 (adidas), 24 (Prodigy), 24 (LaxPower), 25 (Computer).
Common Opponents: None.

Schedule

The Tigers don’t have any opponents in common with Michigan so far. That is primarily because they’ve played a pretty weak schedule – which also contributes to their gaudy record. They’ve played two games against MCLA D-2 squads, notching victories over bother Missouri Baptist and Missouri State, and a win over 1-AA Nebraska (1-AA is a distinction some conferences have for their teams that aren’t well-equipped to compete on a national level).

As far as games against actual competition, they lost to Illinois – who looks to be the class of the GRLC this season – in a tight 7-8 game. Against the other GRLC North teams, they have wins over Wisconsin (10-8) and Purdue (11-4). Their game against Illinois State was canceled.

Their non-conference schedule consists of an early-season 16-7 triumph over winless Iowa State, and a spring break swing through Texas. In the DFW area, they took down TCU 13-4 and SMU 13-7. They traveled down to San Marcos to take on LSA power Texas State, and defeated the slumping Bobcats 14-10.

So, although the record looks very nice for Missouri, they probably have played only a team or two as strong as Michigan’s weakest victim to date. They haven’t been tested against top competition yet, and Michigan is the as “top” as it gets in the MCLA.

Personnel

The Tigers have a few players who have put up good numbers so far this year. Attack Zach Nisson is putting up nearly 6 points per game, with a slight emphasis on goals rather than assists. Freshman attack Tim Adams is at 3.6 points per game, with a few more assists than goals, and freshman midfielder Gerry Leonard has 3.2 points per game. Behind that trio, there’s a big dropoff to the fourth leading scorer, but 17 different MU players have gotten onto the scoreboard this season.

Sophomore midfielder James Stannard is the team’s leader in GBs, which leads me to believe he might be the faceoff specialist. However, MCLA.us doesn’t have faceoff stats for the Tigers. A trio of longpoles are right behind Stannard in the ground ball column, with LSMs Chris Heim and Josh Nelson joined by defenseman Clayton Cruthirds.

In net, Sean Hogarty is the only Tiger listed on the MCLA website, so I imagine he’s played every minute between the pipes. He’s allowing 6.6 goals per game with a .637 save percentage.

Predictions

This looks like a colossal mismatch on paper, especially inside Oosterbaan Fieldhouse where even the best teams in the MCLA haven’t been able to win since 2007. This seems like the type of game that sees Trevor Yealy score 4 or 5 early goals and spend most of the final quarters as a spectator, along with most of the 1st-line players.

Michigan’s M.O. is not to embarrass the weak sisters of the MCLA (though they’ve been known to humiliate top-10 teams), so expect liberal substitutions in this one. The Wolverines will concede a few goals toward the end of the game, but the outcome shouldn’t ever be in doubt as they cruise to a 23-4 victory.

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