Feb. 15, 2006
THIS WEEK…
The No. 38 University of New Mexico women’s tennis team is traveling to Las Cruces, N.M. to play an away match against New Mexico State at 1 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 17 and a neutral match against Oklahoma State at 11:30 on Saturday, Feb. 18. The Lobos are on a four game winning streak as they travel to NMSU.
NATIONAL RANKINGS…
New Mexico continues to rise in the national rankings as they move up one spot to No. 38 after defeating UTEP 7-0 and No. 60 Texas Tech 6-1.
The Mountain West Conference still holds strong with five teams listed in the ITA national rankings. TCU remains at No. 12 with a 3-2 record while BYU (5-3) is now ranked No. 20 moving up one spot. UNLV (4-2) with a move up one spot to No. 37. SDSU (3-3) continues to be the only MWC team to fall in rankings falling two spots from the No. 52 to No. 54.
Individual rankings remain the same until Feb. 22 when the new individual rankings will be released for the first time since they came out in the beginning of the season. In the first individual rankings of the season Maja Kovacek made the highest singles rankings in UNM women’s tennis history and a personal best at No. 20. She passed her own record previously made last year with a No. 24 ranking. Iva Gersic was also featured in the rankings at a personal best of No. 45. As a doubles team, the combined forces of Kovacek and Gersic earned a No. 3 national ranking making it the highest ranking UNM women’s tennis has ever seen. The duo also passed their ranking from last year of No. 4 in which they beat out the No. 5 ranked All-American pair of Kovacek and former Lobo Sandy Lukowski from the 2004 season.
A LOOK AT THE NEW MEXICO STATE AGGIES…
NMSU is 5-1 in their season as they host the Lobos this weekend with their lone loss coming against MWC opponent the No. 37 UNLV Rebels.
This season’s roster features 2 seniors, 1 junior, 2 sophomores, and 3 freshman. New Mexico is coached by Don Ball who is in his 21st year with the Aggies. His record with NMSU women’s tennis is currently 233-229-1.
New Mexico has matched up against NMSU 26 times and came out with a win all but three times to make a record of 23-3.
A LOOK AT THE OKLAHOMA STATE COWGIRLS…
The Cowgirls are currently 2-0 in their season. Their wins come against Texas-Arlington, 4-1 and Missouri State, 6-1.
Their line up features 1 senior, 2 juniors, 3 sophomores and 1 freshman. They are coached by Julias Lubicz-Majewski. It is his 17th season with the Cowgirls with a total of 227 wins.
This will be New Mexico’s 10th time matching up against Oklahoma State. In those ten times the Lobos have come out with one win.
LAST WEEK: UTEP, N0. 60 TEXAS TECH…
The Lobos had another strong weekend last week as they won both of their home matches at the Lobo Tennis Club against UTEP and the No. 60 Texas Tech. The University of New Mexico women’s tennis is now 4-1 after defeating the UTEP 7-0 for their second shut out of the season and No. 60 Texas Tech 6-1.
The Lobos began their weekend with a match against the UTEP Miners in front of a large New Mexico crowd. They won all 6 singles matches and all three doubles matches to take the doubles point.
New Mexico started out a little more rough against the No. 60 Texas Tech Raiders, however they still earned all but one team point. In the doubles action both the No. 1 and 2 spots were won. The No. 3 duo of Iva Gersic and Maja Kovacek took the court at the No. 1 spot again defeating Tara Browning and Lakann Wagley 8-6. Lucy Scott and Ola Abou-Zekry defeated a ranked team for the second time this season after winning the No. 2 spot against No. 23 Katja Kovacic and Erin Hunter.
In singles action against Texas Tech the Lobos took five of the six singles spots. Of those, all but one of the matches were won in two sets each. Maja Kovacek took the No. 1 singles spot against No. 75 Tara Browning winning 6-3, 7-5 (10-6).
ON THE ROSTER…The Lobos feature nine players on the roster this season with one seniors (Maja Kovacek), four juniors (Elisa Bonner, Allison Davis, Iva Gersic and Nora Quintal), three sophomores (Ola Abou-Zekry, Jennifer Ryba and Lucy Scott) and one freshman (Mackenzie White). The UNM tennis team is coached by head coach Kathy Kolankiewicz who is entering her 21st year with the Lobos and assistant coach Roy Cañada who is entering his tenth year.
The Lobos lost two seniors from the 2004-05 squad (Michelle Heidbrink and Tiffany Robertson).
2005 FALL REVIEW…
The 2005 fall season proved to be a good learning experience for the team. After dealing with illness and injury the Lobos look forward to proving themselves in the spring. The team went to three invites (UNM, Cal Berkeley and SDSU), competed at the ITA Central Championships, and had Maja Kovacek and Iva Gersic compete in two of ITA’s most prestigious national events (Riviera All-American Championships and the National Individual Indoor Championships.)
DANGEROUS DUO…
The doubles team of Maja Kovacek and Iva Gersic had a very eventful fall season as they competed in two of the ITA’s national events. In October, the pair was selected for the second year in a row to compete in the doubles main draw at the Riviera All-American Championships. Both players were also selected as singles players, Kovacek in the singles main draw and Gersic in the singles qualifying tournament. While at the tournament, the No. 3 New Mexico team defeated the No. 19 Indiana duo in the first round of doubles competition. Kovacek and Gersic then went on to defeat the Cal Berkeley in the quarterfinals. In the semifinals, the Lobo tandem fell to No. 2 Notre Dame, but earned a bid to the National Individual Indoor Championships in November.
At the indoor championships, Kovacek and Gersic defeated the team from South Florida in the first round of the doubles main draw. The duo went on to be recognized among the top two doubles teams in the nation after advancing to the semifinals round with a win against TCU. They lost by default to Stanford in the semifinal round.
DID YOU KNOW…
Five out of nine players on the UNM women’s tennis team are international student-athletes.
Junior Iva Gersic currently holds the record for highest career winning percentage (123-25, .831)
Senior Maja Kovacek holds the record for most combined single season wins (singles and doubles) at 64 and most career wins in doubles.
The outdoor tennis courts at the Lobo Tennis Club were fully replaced in July 2004.
The Lobos have maintained above a 3.0 G.P.A. for 28 straight semesters and above a 3.2 G.P.A. for 19 consecutive semesters.
In the spring of 2004, the Lobos captured their fifth undefeated home record in the last eight years and their 18th straight home win.
In 2004, New Mexico won its first Mountain West Conference regular season title with a perfect 7-0 record in conference play.
New Mexico has had a winning record for the past 9 years
THE SCHEDULE…
Once again New Mexico’s schedule is packed with ranked opponents, non-conference and conference. With the minimal home matches this year the Lobos have a full and difficult schedule ahead of them.
The Lobos host only five home matches at the Lobo Tennis Club (two non-conference and three conference), while the rest are to be played on the road.
Conference games will be played toward the end of New Mexico’s schedule, starting at the end of March.
(Head coach Kathy Kolankiewicz on this season’s schedule):
This year is probably one of our best schedules ever, if not the best. I really made a point to try to schedule as many top-50 teams as I could possibly get. We’re going to be traveling a little bit more than we usually do because of that. It’s more difficult to get those teams to come here so we’re playing 80 percent on the road and 20 percent here.
(Head coach on the addition of TCU to the MWC):
One of our goals is always to win conference and it just got a whole lot harder with the addition of TCU. They finished 19th last year and they’re looking to be a top-10 team this year with three players ranked in the top-30. Their No. 1 player on the team won the All-American. So TCU has made it that much harder to win conference, but the competition is great. Women’s tennis in the Mountain West Conference is very strong this year, it was not a surprise to see five teams ranked in the top-50.