Michigan made history on Sunday afternoon . Not, though, the type of history the Wolverines wanted to necessarily make.
Michigan lost to Detroit, 13-9, in its first-ever Division I men's lacrosse game. It is the first time a Football Bowl Subdivision school has added the sport since Notre Dame picked it up in 1981.
"I'm happy we're here, but I'm not happy with the outcome since we could have been a lot better," Michigan head coach John Paul told MGoBlue.com after the game. "We didn't come out intimidated and I was proud of the guys. We thought this was a winnable game, and it was a winnable game, and we approached it that way. Every time that they scored we came right back at them, so effort wise I'm real pleased."
Doug Bryant scored the first two goals in Michigan history -- to give the Wolverines a 2-0 lead in the first quarter.
The Wolverines, though, have struggled with both depth issues and a gap in talent from many of the Division I programs they'll play this season. They were tied with Detroit at halftime, 5-5, but allowed four straight goals at the end of the third through the beginning of the fourth quarters to give the Titans the lead and the eventual win.
Bryant, Trevor Yealy and Thomas Paras each had two goals for Michigan. Shayne Adams had four goals for Detroit and Alex Maini had three goals and two assists.
"This is a game we thought we could win and we thought that we had a good game plan for it," Paul said. "Going into the half we felt pretty comfortable about where we were until we had that rough third quarter. We're not here just to be here, we're here to become a great lacrosse program, and we thought we took a pretty big step today."
Michigan jumped from a club lacrosse program to Division I status this season, which you can read more about here.