Michigan men’s club lacrosse (2-0 CCLA, 8-0 overall) hadn’t played a home game since March 12. In fact, it hadn’t played an unranked opponent since March 14. In its first home action in nearly a month Friday, the top-ranked Wolverines appeared very happy to return to Oosterbaan Fieldhouse.
Western Michigan (0-1 CCLA, 4-3 overall) was overmatched for most of the game as Michigan rolled over the hapless Broncos, 29-5.
The Wolverines dominated Western in every statistical category and also turned in, arguably, their best quarter of the season.
During the second quarter, the Wolverines scored 10 goals without allowing the Broncos to score.
With its stifling defense and explosive offense contributing to the insurmountable lead, Michigan’s entire dressed roster saw game action.
“In a game like this, we anticipate getting a lot of the team in,” Michigan coach John Paul said. “We planned to play everyone that we had dressed tonight.”
The Wolverine’s attackmen had a stellar game together. Freshman Thomas Paras and junior Trevor Yealy tied for the team lead with six goals while senior attackman Josh Ein and Kevin Zorovich were a close second, finding the back of the net five times apiece.
“We had a great week of practice,” Ein said. “We all know everybody can contribute on this team — whether it is from the midfield or the attack. We were without (senior Clark McIntyre) tonight (and Zorovich) didn’t even play the second half. We all know we can do things against teams like this and (tonight’s performance) was a tribute to everyone working together.”
Paras continued to show throughout the game why he has been one of the most heralded additions to Michigan this season. The Lakewood, Ohio native led the Wolverines with 11 points, while pacing the team with five assists as well.
“I think the whole team played a full game today aside from the first 10 minutes,” Paras said. “I think everyone made it possible for everyone to have a big game. I thought everyone played well throughout the whole game. Everyone made everyone’s job easy so it wasn’t (that difficult).”
One player who particularly enjoyed the game was Michigan freshman midfielder Joe Hrusovsky who scored his first career goal in the fourth quarter on a behind-the-back shot. Hrusovsky has contributed mainly on the second midfield line.
The only part of the game that the Wolverines could look back upon and hope to improve was their slow start. Michigan allowed Western to hang around until nearly halfway through the first quarter when the Wolverines were holding on to a 3-2 lead.
“There’s nice weather out for a change in Ann Arbor,” Hrusovsky said. “So everyone didn’t have the lacrosse mindset in right away, but I think once we got into it there really wasn’t anything stopping us.”
In action on Saturday night, the Wolverines put on another dominating performance, beating Central Michigan 19-1.
The Chippewas were never in the game — their first possession came after the Wolverines had scored seven goals and was brief at best.
After Michigan took a 9-0 lead at the beginning second quarter, Central finally got on the board for their only score of the game, but the Wolverines quickly responded with a Yealy goal following a quick faceoff win.
Yealy led the Wolverines with seven goals in the game and put home his 200th career goal with his final tally. It took him just 48 games to reach the milestone for an average of 4.16 goals per game throughout his career.