March 28, 2005
The Lobos, ranked No. 54 nationally, close out their home season and say good-bye to seniors Ryan Stotland and David Kowalski with three matches March 29-April 3. The Lobos host No. 51 Brown on March 29 at 1 p.m., No. 75 Denver on April 1 at 1 p.m. and Santa Clara on April 3 at noon.
Freshman Max Jones has been unbeatable for New Mexico in dual matches. Jones is currently 8-0 (1-0 at No. 1, 5-0 at No. 2, 2-0 at No. 3) in singles and has a team high 19 wins for the year. He has been a driving force in doubles, losing only two dual matches this year. He is 3-2 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, 1-0 at No. 2 and 16-6 overall. But his biggest contribution comes in doubles, where he is ranked fourth in the nation with senior David Kowalski. Stotland and Kowalski are 18-5 overall and 5-0 at No. 1. Stotland has had to partner with Jones twice because of a nagging leg injury to Kowalski. Kowalski, who is 10-8 overall in singles, is 3-3 in spring dual matches and just cracked into the ITA top-100, ranking 100th in singles.
“All three of these opponents are good, solid teams,” head coach Alan Dils said. “Brown’s Nick Goldberg is an Albuquerque native and former youth doubles partner of David’s. Denver is always a good match and Santa Clara is a good up-and-coming team. They are important matches for us.”
The Lobos have seen the Brown Bears twice before with both meetings equaling a win for Brown. Last year, New Mexico went to Providence, Rhode Island and fell 6-1. In 2003, the Lobos hosted Brown with the same result, a 6-1 loss for New Mexico.
This year can be different. New Mexico, 4-4 overall, is undefeated at home after wins over New Mexico State and Sacramento State. The Lobos are also 2-3 against ranked opponents. Both wins are over teams ranked above the Lobos.
Brown is 14-4 overall and 2-1 on the road but one of its road wins is over an unranked opponent. The Bears have faced six ranked teams in No. 18 Tulane, No. 25 Wake Forest, No. 37 North Carolina State, No. 61 Virginia Tech, No. 72 Penn State and No. 75 San Diego State. The Bears hold a 3-4 record against their ranked opponents getting wins over NC State, San Diego State and Virginia Tech.
Leading Brown will be senior Adil Shamasdin. Shamasdin is ranked 76th in singles and 32nd in doubles with junior Philip Charm. In dual matches, Shamasdin and Charm are just 6-1 at No. 1 because head coach Jay Harris has put three other tandems in that position. Harris has also used three different men at No. 1 singles. Shamasdin is 5-0, while Goldberg is 3-1 and sophomore Eric Thomas is 5-1 at No. 1.
The rivalry with ITA Mountain Regional foe Denver was renewed last year. Meeting for the first time in a dual match since 1971, the Lobos handed Denver a 6-1 loss in Albuquerque to improve to 21-12 all-time against the Pioneers.
This year Denver is 6-7 overall and ranked in a three-way tie for 75th by the ITA. The Pioneers are on a six-match losing streak after facing No. 55 Boise State, No. 66 BYU, No. 71 UNLV and No. 72 Utah and unranked Iowa and Central Florida. Overall, they are 1-5 against ranked opponents, getting the lone win over 70th-ranked Nebraska.
The Pioneers are an extremely young team that boasts just one senior, two juniors, one sophomore and five freshmen. Their best singles player is a freshman though, in 69th-ranked Adam Holmstrom. Holmstrom is 10-1 at No. 1 and is 21-4 overall this year but missed the Pioneers’ last two matches. Junior Viktor Zetterholm is the only other singles player with an overall winning record. He is 1-0 at No. 1 and 4-7 at No. 2 but 13-10 overall. Holmstrom and freshman Niklas Persson are head coach Geoff Young’s top doubles team, holding a 6-3 record at No. 1. In Holmstrom’s absense, Persson teamed with Zetterholm for two losses.
New Mexico will look to stay undefeated against Santa Clara. The Broncos have faced the Lobos twice and lost, most recently on their home court last year with a 6-1 score in favor of New Mexico. In fact, the first time they met was in 2003 at Santa Clara which also resulted in a 6-1 win for New Mexico.
The Broncos are 8-7 this year after winning three straight and are 1-5 against ranked opponents after upsetting No. 52 Oregon to start the win streak. They suffered 7-0 losses to 19th-ranked Pepperdine and No. 31 California, a 6-1 loss to 27th-ranked Rice, a 5-1 loss to Mountain West Conference member No. 72 Utah, and a 4-3 loss to 59th-ranked Fresno State. Santa Clara is also 0-5 on the road in 2005.
Santa Clara, having no ranked singles or doubles players, is led by senior Taylor Bedilion who is 6-6 at No. 1. Sophomore Jan Macek leads the team in wins with 14 overall and is 7-5 at No. 2. Head coach George Husack has vast choices for doubles, having used 15 different combinations this year. Most likely, Bedilion and Macek will compete at No. 1, holding a 3-4 record in dual matches in that spot but Macek has teamed with senior Eric Kochanski for No. 1 matches twice.
CHASING RECORDS: Senior David Kowalski is going to break records at UNM. He is currently second all-time in career doubles wins with 94, needing just five 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.
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 19-6 overall in singles and 12-7 overall in doubles. In dual matches, he is 7-0 in singles with a 1-0 record at No. 1, 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 3-2 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.
Ganger and Jones will have to wait until April 8 to square off but if 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 22. 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 63rd. The Broncos’ loss dropped them to 55 in the March 8 pool but rose back up to 31st in the March 22 poll.
New Mexico will face seven more ranked teams in its final eight opponents. The Lobos will face five Mountain West Conference teams and No. 51 Brown and No. 75 Denver. The MWC is currently represented by all six teams. UNLV is the top-ranked MWC team coming in at 42nd followed by the 54th-ranked Lobos, No. 64 BYU, No. 69 Utah, No. 74 Air Force and No. 75 San Diego State. The Lobos have already faced 19th-ranked Washington, 31st-ranked Boise State, 43rd-ranked Colorado twice, 63rd-ranked Michigan State and 67th-ranked Pennsylvania. UNM went 2-4 against those teams.
After the 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 18-5 overall and 5-0 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 will be released on March 29 and the next singles and doubles poll will be released April 5.
LAST TIME OUT: No. 63 Colorado pulled off a 5-2 upset of No. 54 New Mexico in Boulder, Colo. The Buffaloes’ win was the second over the Lobos this season, after they knocked the Lobos out of the ITA Mountain Regional Championships in January.
Freshman Max Jones took over the No. 1 singles spot and won, 7-5, 6-4 against Marko Bundalo to stay undefeated in singles in dual matches. Senior Ryan Stotland, who slid down to No. 2, netted the other Lobo point, easily beating Jan Zelezny, 6-3, 6-2.
In doubles, fourth-ranked Stotland and senior David Kowalski cruised to an 8-2 win over Marcos Digliodo and Chad Tsuda at No. 1 doubles.
Freshman Kamil Pajkowski just missed his 10th singles win of the year, falling in three sets (6-2, 4-6, 6-2) to Marek Dvorak at No. 4.