March 16, 2005
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The Lobos, ranked No. 54 nationally, travel to the Rocky Mountains for a showdown with No. 63 Colorado in Boulder, Colo. on March 19 at 1 p.m. New Mexico, 4-3 overall, have played five games away from home, including two as the away team. They are 1-1 as the away team and 2-3 when out of Albuquerque. The Lobos are also 2-2 when facing ranked teams this year.
Freshman Max Jones has been unbeatable for New Mexico in dual matches. Jones is currently 7-0 (5-0 at No. 2, 2-0 at No. 3) in singles and has a team high 18 wins for the year. He has been a driving force in doubles, losing only one dual match this year. He is 3-1 at No. 2 with freshman Kamil Pajkowski and 2-0 when stepping up to play with senior Ryan Stotland at No. 1.
Stotland has also been a dominant figure in the Lobo lineup. Stotland is 4-2 at No. 1 singles and 15-6 overall. But his biggest contribution comes in doubles, where he is ranked fourth in the nation with senior David Kowalski. Stotland and Kowalski are 17-5 overall and 4-0 at No. 1. Stotland has had to partner with Jones twice because of a nagging leg injury to Kowalski.
The last time UNM met Colorado, the Lobos fell in the semifinals of the ITA Mountain Region Indoor Tennis Tournament, 4-1, at the Boise State/Boas Tennis Center. Freshman Max Jones netted the Lobos lone point at No. 3 with a 6-3, 7-5 win over Marcos Digliodo. Senior Ryan Stotland, ranked No. 123 at the time, did not get to complete his match at No. 1 against Marko Bundalo.
However, the Lobos hold a 17-3 series advantage over Colorado. The last time the Buffs beat New Mexico, excluding the Jan. 22 win, was in 1993 when head coach Alan Dils was the assistant under Tim Cass. Last year, Colorado visited Albuquerque and lost 6-1, getting their lone point at No. 3 singles over Stotland.
CU, 5-6 overall, is coming off a 1-2 showing at the Blue Gray Intercollegiate in Montgomery, Ala. The Buffaloes upset No. 15 Harvard on day two of its three-day competition. It’s the highest win ever for a CU men’s tennis team over a top-15 nationally ranked program.
The win moved Colorado up 12 spots in the latest ITA’s latest team rankings from No. 75 to their highest ranking this season, No. 63.
Against Harvard, Marko Bundalo upset the No. 31 ranked player (Jonathan Chu, 6-4, 6-1) at No. 1 singles. Freshman Jan Zelezny (No. 2), Peter Bjork (No. 3), and Chad Tsuda (No. 6) also claimed singles wins against the Crimson.
Bundalo, Marek Dvorak are 2-2 in their last four matches; Tsuda has won his last three singles matches in a row at No. 6. The doubles duo of Dvorak and Zelezny have won three straight at No. 3 and are 6-2 this dual season. Tsuda tops the team in dual match victories with six, followed by Bjork and Dvorak each with five.
Bundalo’s 38 career wins ties him for 27th with two others on CU’s all-time victories list; Tsuda’s 11 wins this season moves him into 30th place. He is tied with four others with 37 career triumphs.
CHASING RECORDS: Senior David Kowalski is going to break records at UNM. He is currently second all-time in career doubles wins with 93, needing just six more for a school record. He is also seventh all-time in career singles wins with 75, trailing leaders Divan Coetzee and Pepe Caballero by 21.
In the poll for Jan. 13, Kowalksi and classmate Ryan Stotland were ranked No. 3 in the nation in doubles by the ITA. That ranking made them the highest in the history of the men’s tennis program.
This duo also set a new standard for the program. In the fall, Stotland and Kowalski were the first to make it to the finals of a nation tournament, taking the stage at the ICY HOT/ITA All-American Championships. They are also aiming to be the first All-Americans for UNM since 1999.
Freshman Max Jones has been unbeatable for New Mexico this spring. |
JONES FOR MWC FRESHMAN OF THE YEAR: The University of New Mexico men’s tennis program has never had a player win the Mountain West Conference Freshman of the Year award. So far this year, freshman Max Jones has made a strong case for it.
Jones is 18-6 overall in singles and 12-6 overall in doubles. In dual matches, he is 6-0 in singles with a 4-0 record at No. 2 and 2-0 mark at No. 3. In doubles he is 2-0 at No. 1 when needed to step up and play with senior Ryan Stotland due to an injury of senior David Kowalski. He is also 3-1 at No. 2 with fellow classmate Kamil Pajkowski.
Arguably, the other top-two freshmen in the conference are Utah’s Zach Ganger and BYU’s Shane LaPorte. Both of these freshmen are the only others in the MWC that have double-digit wins.
LaPorte is 12-6 overall and 6-3 in dual match singles, seeing time at No. 3, 4, 5 and six. In doubles, he is 5-4 in dual matches, mainly 4-4 at No. 3.
Ganger is 15-6 in singles this year including an 8-2 dual match record that is comprised of a 1-0 record at No. 1 and No. 3 and 6-2 record at No. 2. In doubles he is ranked No. 34 with Miron Mann. Together they are 14-1 overall and 8-1 in dual match doubles at No. 1.
Ganger and Jones will have to wait until April 8 to square off but if this past weekend’s results mean anything, Jones should win. Both Utah and New Mexico went to Boise, Idaho for matches with Pennsylvania and No. 47 Boise State. In those matches, both Ganger and Jones played at No. 2 against Penn’s David Lynn and Boise State’s Thomas Schoeck. Ganger lost to Lynn, 6-3, 7-5 and to Schoeck, 6-2, 6-3. Jones, on the other hand, beat Lynn 6-0, 7-6 and Schoeck 7-6, 6-4.
Jones has already been named the conference’s Player of the Week once. He earned the honor on Feb. 2 for his undefeated efforts in Seattle, Wash. against 21st-ranked Washington and 55th-ranked Michigan State. Jones is the only freshman to earn the honor this year. The last time a freshman won the honor was March 27, 2002 when UNLV’s Aviram Salomon won it just a month before claiming the Freshman of the Year honor. In the MWC’s six-year history, only five freshmen have earned the honor including UNM’s David Kowalski. San Diego State’s Oliver Maiberger, 2000 Freshman of the Year, is the only freshman to win the honor twice. The only year a freshman won the Player of the Week honor and did not win Freshman of the Year was Air Force’s Justin Mancinelli in 2001 and Kowalski in 2002. In 2002 however, Salomon also won Player of the Week and Freshman of the Year.
IN THE RANKINGS: The Intercollegiate Tennis Association has ranked the Lobos as the 54th best team in the country as of March 15. In the weeks prior, New Mexico was ranked No. 69. They started the season 65th.
The recent jump in the standings can be directly attributed to their upsets of then-ranked No. 56 Michigan State and No. 47 Boise State. The Lobos won both matches 4-3. Since then, the Spartans have rose as high as 42 and currently are 52nd. The Broncos’ loss dropped them to 55 in the March 8 pool but rose back up to 40th in the March 15 poll.
New Mexico was scheduled to face 11 nationally-ranked teams this year but the total drops to nine with the cancellation of the Pepperdine and Arizona matches. They have also faced ranked teams in Colorado and Washington this season. UNM can face up to six more ranked teams this season. The Mountain West Conference is currently represented by No. 47 UNLV, the 54th-ranked Lobos, No. 59 BYU and No. 75 Utah. Another meeting with Colorado is scheduled for this weekend and matches with Brown and Denver are set for March 29 and April 1.
Seniors David Kowalski and Ryan Stotland are ranked 4th nationally in doubles. |
After last weekend’s upset of No. 8 Thomas Schoeck and Luke Shields, seniors David Kowalski and Ryan Stotland jumped back into the top-5 in the doubles rankings.
Kowalski and Stotland, at 17-5 overall and 4-0 in dual matches this year, moved up in the rankings to No. 4 as of March 8 after spending all but one week ranked No. 9. Kowalski and Stotland started out the spring season ranked No. 3 in the nation.
The next team poll and the next singles and doubles poll will be released March 22.
LAST TIME OUT: The 69th-ranked New Mexico men’s tennis team went into Boise, Idaho for the second time this spring. They surrendered their first win of the series to Pennsylvania, falling 5-2 at the Appleton Tennis Center on March 4.
The Lobos could not overcome the injury to senior David Kowalski that kept him out of the singles lineup and forced him to pair with freshman Kamil Pajkowski at No. 3 doubles instead of with senior Ryan Stotland at No. 1.
Stotland and freshman Max Jones won the only doubles match for New Mexico, downing the Quakers’ Tas Tobias and Joseph Lok, 8-0 at No. 1. Senior Derek Boland and junior Eric Conklin stepped up to compete at No. 2 but couldn’t pull off the win, falling 8-4 to David Lynn and Mikhail Bekker. Kowalski and Pajkowksi came extremely close to winning their match but fell to Brandon O’Gara and Todd Lecher, 9-8.
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“Eric deserves recognition. He has gone three sets in a lot of his matches and continues to improve. He really sparked the win for us against Boise State.” Head Coach Alan Dils |
Stotland and Jones continued their winning ways, netting the two UNM points in singles play. Stotland, at No. 1, netted his fourth consecutive victory over Bekker in three sets, 6-4, 6-7, 10-5. Jones kept his dual-match unbeaten streak alive, downing Lynn, 6-0, 7-6 at No. 2.
Kowalski returned to his regular spots in the lineup to lead the Lobos to a huge upset of No. 47 Boise State on March 5. The 4-3 victory was the first time New Mexico beat the Broncos in the last five meetings.
The Lobos grabbed the first point by winning two of the three doubles matches, reverting back to their original tandems thanks to the return of Kowalski. Ninth-ranked Kowalski and Stotland upset eighth-seeded Thomas Schoeck and Luke Shields, 8-3 at No. 1. Jones and Pajkowski were victorious at No. 2 over Ikaika Jobe and Ehren Vaughan.
Kowalski got a key win over Jobe at No. 3 singles, 7-6, 3-6, 6-1 to win the match for New Mexico. Jones remained undefeated in singles, downing Schoeck 7-6, 6-4 at No. 2.
But the win probably wouldn’t have occurred if it weren’t for Conklin. Conklin was about to lose the second set when he sprang to life and battled for the first UNM singles win, downing Brent Werbeck 3-6, 7-5, 6-1 at No. 5.