A nagging Achilles tendon injury and a broken toe couldn't stop junior midfielder Chip Thomas from leading the Michigan lacrosse team to its biggest win in years.

Friday night, in front of more than 700 fans in Oosterbaan Field House, Thomas made his triumphant return to the field, scoring a career-high five goals to lead the Wolverines to a 13-9 upset over No. 3 Colorado State - the defending national champion.

"I was really excited to be back," said Thomas, who had been sidelined for the previous three weeks and was still playing through the pain. "It was the one game that I really really wanted everything to click."

The Wolverines were clicking all weekend long, winning their three games at the Michigan Invitational. No. 7 Michigan defeated No. 13 Texas A&M, 14-7, on Saturday and No. 12 Buffalo, 12-4, yesterday afternoon.

"This was a great weekend for us," Michigan coach John Paul said. "The Colorado State game was a big step for our program. We want to make this a tough place for teams to play."

The Wolverines have won 10 straight at home and 36 straight in their conference, the Central Collegiate Lacrosse Association.

But the Colorado State win was especially meaningful to the Wolverines, as they had never beaten the Rams before. Colorado State is also the only visiting team to leave Oosterbaan with a win in the past three years.

"I don't know that they've ever considered us a rivalry before, but they may have to pretty soon," Paul said.

Junior midfielder Brian Marchena started the scoring after he received a great feed from junior attacker Sloan Buchan-McGilliard, who teammates like to call "pocket Hercules" for his powerful build and short stature.

The Wolverines got off to a great start against the Rams, jumping out to a 4-1 lead 11 minutes into the game.

"That's always important," Paul said. "But in a big game like this against a really emotional team like Colorado State, that fast start was especially key."

The Wolverines easily could have been trailing 4-1 at that point, if not for the stellar performance of junior goalie Sooman Kim. Kim made 14 saves on the day, including several point-blank denials in the game's opening minutes.

"Sooman played an outstanding game," Paul said. "He sometimes has a tendency to lapse, but in warm-ups I could see that he was completely focused. When he gets that fire in his eye, he's tough to beat."

Michigan also took advantage of Colorado State's penalties, converting a season-high five of its eight man-up chances.

"We knew they were a physical team, and we knew they were going to give us penalties," Paul said. "We spent all week working on our man-up sets, and it paid off."

The Wolverines never trailed in the contest, which was quite frustrating for the Rams, who came in expected to win easily.

During a break in the action late in the game, Colorado State junior Joe Glischinski screamed at his teammates: "This is gut check time. We are not going to lose - not to this team!"

Less than 10 seconds later, reality struck the Rams when Thomas scored the game-winner - his fifth goal of the night - to put the Wolverines up 10-7.

"We came in here thinking that we were better than we really are," Colorado State coach Flip Naumberg said. "Michigan is a great team. They outworked us, they out groundballed us, and they deserved to win tonight."