Welcome back to the Michigan Insider here on the Big 150.

WTKA online at the big 1050.com.

It is our time for our weekly check-in with Michigan men's lacrosse coach, Kevin

Connery and coach.

Welcome back to the show. The season is still alive. Great weekend down in Columbus. And I figure you're doing pretty well. Yeah, still alive. Still alive. That's the main thing. We got a Monday, you know, and so we took advantage of it and had a great week of practice so far and looking forward to getting back out on the field.

Yeah, if you can only win one of two trips to Columbus, if you have to go to Columbus twice in like basically a week and change, which nobody wants to have to do that. But if you have to go to Columbus in like an eight-day stretch twice, and you can only win one of them, you guys got the right win. You outscored Ohio State in three of the four quarters. You had eight different goal scores. Eleven total players recorded a point. Hunter Taylor and Net made 13 saves. The defense caused seven turnovers. It was a terrific victory for you guys. What went right? How did you guys do it? I was all about the team. I don't think it was any individual that really shined. It was a bunch of guys out there with a common mission and a common cause, and they played together. You know, I think that was a complete opposite of what we were doing out in Columbus the week before, you know, and I think it's a big credit to our leadership and our guys who really took ownership and said, hey, we can do this, but we got to do it together. I've had so many conversations over the years with college hockey coaches, Red back in the day and Mel and now with Brandon. You have games usually against the same exact opponent on back-to-back nights, and the games could be completely and totally different, even if the lineups and lines and everything are exactly the same. And it kind of feels, although the scoring in this game was somewhat similar to the previous one,

it was a very different kind of game.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

And you can want to point to just our offense and the way that they approach the game.

You know, I think they really bought into the unselfish ball reversals, you know, offball movement kind of mentality that we have really kind of put into them. Coach Corrigan has been preaching for the entire year, and it really just click. And it was good to see the goals fall, and then we were aggressive in the middle of the field. And when you're aggressive in the middle of the field and unselfish, good things happen.

So you were able to, in that third quarter, you were able to extend your lead out to eight to four. Now, they did trim it to nine, eight in the fourth quarter, but it was never, obviously, that was the closest it got. It got to the one goal game late. but you were able to increase, have that lead

and play from ahead most of the game.

Talk about playing ahead for most of the game.

You know, I don't think it really... game late, but you were able to have that lead and play from ahead most of the game.

Talk about playing ahead for most of the game.

You know, I don't think it really changes your mentality. You know, I think there's decisions throughout the game that you have to manage, which is, you know, something that we're always

learning and always growing. But at the same time, you just want to stay aggressive.

You want to be able to play your game.

You don't think about, you know, the scoreboard until the end of the game. Yeah, speaking of scoreboard at the end of the game, I'm a triple zeros guy. It's sports. Anything can happen all the way to the end of the game. I've seen crazy things happen in every sport I've watched. I assume as a coach, you're probably a triple zero's in the clock guy as well.

634 to go.

You have your 11-8 lead when John Morgan scores your final goal and the final goal of the game. But that's six and a half minutes of action that you have to weather. When do you start to breathe easy as the coach of this team when you have a three-goal lead for that final six and a half minutes.

Oof, Sunday morning, when I wake up and have my first cup of coffee.

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