The Rams' tennis team faces No. 45 UNLV in the first round of the
Mountain West Conference Tennis Championships Thursday, April 28, at
10:00 a.m. PT in San Diego, Calif. The Rams are the sixth seed in this
year's championships. CSU lost to the Rebels earlier this season 6-1,
but look to improve that mark this weekend. Freshman Anne Andersen was
the only Ram victorious against UNLV defeatin Sharon Marin at the No. 3
position 2-6, 6-3, 1-0 (8).
"We learned a lot from playing UNLV," said Coach Jon Messick. "We will
maximize our line-up against theirs, and we can do some things in
practice to be ready to beat them."
The last time the Rams won in the first round was in 2001 when they
defeated UNLV 4-2. UNLV was the defending champion and ranked third in
the conference while CSU upset them as the sixth seed.
The Rams will play at 10 a.m. PT on Friday whether they win or lose and
will play either New Mexico or Wyoming. Live stats for all of the
matches will be available at www.themwc.com.
Rams Wallop Bears
The Ram Tennis team defeated the UNC Bears last week 7-0 in the dual
match of the regular season. Freshman Anne Andersen continued on a six
match win streak by defeating Renee Nuccio 6-3, 5-7, 1-0 (9) at the No.
3 position. In her match against Anna Alexander, senior Alex Paganetti
was the only Ram to not give up a game all day. The No. 1 and No. 2
doubles teams each beat their opponents 8-4 while the No. 3 team lost 4-8.
Ram Notes:
-Senior Dasha Zhurin is now fifth on the career singles wins list with 66 victories.
-Freshman Anne Andersen is second in the singles season records with a .789 win percentage behind Sanja Hansson who had a .794 mark in 2002-03. Emily Kirchem is ninth this season with a .667 mark. She also holds the sixth spot with a .688 percentage last season.
-Sophomore Emily Kirchem leads the team in singles play with a 20-10 overall record. She is 2-1 at the No. 1 position and 14-4 at the No. 2 position in dual play.
-Colorado State is 0-7 against nationally-ranked opponents this dual season with the losses to Wisconsin, Nebraska, BYU, New Mexico, UNLV, San Diego State and Denver.
-The Rams are 2-5 against conference opponents this year. They have defeated Air Force and Wyoming.
-Colorado State tennis has produced three Mountain West Conference Players of the Week this season, more than any other year in the program's history. Emily Kirchem has claimed the award twice while Dasha Zhurin garnered player of the week honors once. Kirchem has won the award three times in her career while Zhurin has won the award once.
