For most of Saturday night's first quarter against No. 8 Colorado State, it appeared as if the Michigan men’s lacrosse team's perfect season might be in danger.

With 5:50 remaining in the frame, the Wolverines’ high-powered offense still hadn’t found the cage against the Rams' zone and the game was tied 0-0.

It was just the calm before the storm.

Ten minutes later, No. 1 Michigan had taken complete control of the game, pouring in nine unanswered goals.

“Any time you face a zone, which you don’t see that often, it takes you a little time to kind of feel it out and see where the seams are,” Michigan coach John Paul said.

And luckily for the Wolverines (11-0), they had plenty of time to resolve the confusion. They dominated the possession battle, winning 51 of 80 groundballs en route to a 16-3 victory.

The defense held the Rams (8-4) to just 10 shots on goal and excelled tremendously in the transition game. Colorado State had scored at least five goals in each game before Saturday night’s thrashing at Oosterbaan Fieldhouse.

"The one thing that I didn't feel like we've done all year was put together a complete defensive game, and tonight we really did that in all facets,” Paul said. “Our defense played the lockdown style that we want, (sophomore goalie Andrew) Fowler played great in goal and we did a great job of clearing and handling the ball.”

At the beginning of the season, Wolverine defenders often extended pressure too far from the cage and were beaten by speedy attackmen. Under the leadership of senior captain Zach Elyachar, the talented unit has adopted a more disciplined approach and is seeing the results.

“It’s great that we played with this much confidence against a great team like Colorado State,” Elyachar said through the Athletic Department. “I think we’ve had confidence all season, but this was the game when we put it all together; the offense had very little turnovers, we executed great and our defense really buckled down.”

Junior attackman Kevin Zorovich led the Wolverine offense with five points on two goals and three assists. Sophomore attackman Trevor Yealy notched a game-high four goals and outscored the opposition by himself for the second straight game.

On Friday night, Yealy broke the Michigan single-game scoring record, netting 11 goals in an 18-10 win over Minnesota Duluth.

“I just kept moving around, trying to find open holes and seams, and my teammates kept finding me,” Yealy said.

And at six-foot-three, he's difficult to miss. His tall frame and soft hands make him a prototypical crease-man, since he provides his teammates with a big target and releases the ball very quickly. He moves very well without the ball, is highly capable of dodging from the outside and has quickly emerged as one of the best finishers in the league. Yealy leads the Men’s Collegiate Lacrosse Association with 4.9 goals per game, despite struggling for much of the six-week practice season last fall.

Paul still expected a great season out of the lanky sophomore, but was shocked by the performance against the seventh-ranked Bulldogs nonetheless.

“We never foresee someone scoring 11 goals in one game,” Paul said. “That’s pretty unheard of.”