How will your tactics help you solve this puzzle?

SUNDAY PUZZLE –  Hey everyone! This week’s puzzle focuses on some basic knowledge of some different types of sports and how to score points. I am a huge sports fan and a Sport Management major at UM, so I feel this puzzle aligns greatly with my interests. I am so excited to finally publish my second puzzle! If there are any compliments or complaints, don’t hesitate to email me at dashsilv@umich.edu Have fun!

Tricky Clues:

16A. Many of you solvers know that the ROSE is a very common flower, but the word can also be read as rosè. Rosè means pink in French, and is a common type of wine made from red grapes. Both the wine and flower are also very common romantic symbols.

18A. Similarly to some other authors at the Daily, I was a fan of chess during the online chess boom in the pandemic. At some point I even started to watch some professional chess recaps, and a player that was often featured was AMAN Hambleton. The Canadian grandmaster also helps to create educational chess content to help people improve, proving to be a great teacher of this classic game.

57A. I thought this clue was pretty fun, as I am a big fan of a good pun. In this case, a CARP, which is a type of fish, is the answer. The word carp also means to complain, and is spelled the same way. This double-meaning of the word leads to a good joke.

5D. I enjoy the outdoors and am a morning person, and something I have done with friends and family multiple times is a DAYHIKE. Admittedly, this answer is not the most common phrase in daily life. However, I believe there are enough uses of this compound word to justify adding it to this puzzle. Next time you wake up early enough you should give one a try!

37D. This next entry serves as an homage to diag culture here in Ann Arbor. The wording of this clue is tricky, as “spots for diag naps” suggests a location, when the actual answer is HAMMOCKS. Unfortunately, most of us students only get to use hammocks for about two weeks per school year due to the wonderful weather in Michigan. 

43D. When asking people what they thought of when I said the word Guinea, by far the most common response was a guinea pig. When I asked them to relate it to geography, they either mentioned the country of Guinea, which is in Africa, or Papua New Guinea, which is in Australia(the continent). However, this answer required six letters, leaving the African country of Guinea-BISSAU as the correct option. 

Today’s Theme:

Hopefully, the sports fans among you didn’t find this theme too challenging. For those of you who don’t watch or play sports, I hope you were still able to solve this puzzle and learned something along the way. 21-Across, which was HIT A HOME RUN, is a reference to baseball. A home run in baseball is when someone hits the ball into the stands and runs around all four bases, netting their team a run. 26-Across was my favorite to clue, as I couldn’t decide between using Messi or Ronaldo, as both are excellent free-kick takers. To settle it, I decided to pivot and use David Beckham, who is known for the way he bends the soccer ball when he kicks it, scoring many a FREE KICK GOAL. BUMP SET SPIKE, the answer for 43-Across, is a common way to score in volleyball. It involves bumping the ball with a pass to the setter, the setter setting the ball to a hitter, and the hitter spiking the ball over the net as hard as they can to earn a point. 50-Across is the revealer, which relates to the three previous clues. All three are WAYS TO SCORE in their own sport.

Answer Key: