ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Women’s tennis coach Stephanie Wooten-Quijada was known as a tireless recruiter when she came to UNM from UT Rio Grande Valley, and she quickly has revamped the Lobo roster adding six new players. That recruiting class was named the No. 8 Mid-Major recruiting class by the Tennis Recruiting Network (TennisRecruiting.net).
The mid-major conferences for tennis include programs from the AAC, Atlantic 10, Atlantic Sun, Big East, Big Sky, Big South, Big West, CAA, C-USA, Horizon, MAAC, MAC, MEAC, MVC, Mountain West, Northeast, OVC, Patriot, SoCon, Southland, SWAC, Summit, Sun Belt, WCC, and WAC conferences from NCAA Division I – as well as all programs outside of NCAA Division I.
These rankings include players who will be incoming freshmen during the 2017-18 school year. The Tennis Recruiting Network based its list on commitments reported on or before May 25, 2017.
The Lobos have six freshmen joining the program; Hsiang-Wen Huang and Yuelin Chen of Taiwan, Danielle Quevedo and Lauren Rich of Texas, Bronte Murgett and Natasha Munday of Great Britian. The Tennis Recruiting Network doesn’t assign stars to international players, but both Quevedo and Rich are listed as 4-star recruits.
The only other Mountain West school listed in the rankings is Fresno State at No. 21. Wyoming is one of six schools listed as honorable mention. New Mexico and Boston University are the only two top-10 teams to feature at least two American players, and of the top 25, New Mexico is the only team with six freshmen on the list, making UNM one of the youngest teams going into the 2017-18 season.
“I’ve been very excited about this class of student-athletes,” said Wooten-Quijada. “We lost a great class of seniors, so we needed to bring in a big class that can compete right away. With Ruth Copas playing for Team Ireland in the Fed Cup returning along with Diana Wong who went unbeaten in conference play, I can’t wait for the next season to get here.”
Munday, Murgett, Quevedo and Rich were signed and announced on November 12, and Huang and Chen were announced on April 18 in the midst of a late season run that saw UNM win seven of its last 10 matches.
All six incoming student-athletes excelled in the classroom, and it’s a good thing as the women’s team just turned in a 3.60 GPA for the Spring semester, the 38th straight semester for the program with at least a 3.0 GPA.
Tennis Recruiting Network Mid-Major Top 25 Recruiting Classes
- UCF
- Pepperdine
- Loyola Marymount
- Rice
- Cincinnati
- St. Mary’s
- Florida International
- New Mexico
- Cal State Fullerton
- Boston University
- Long Beach State
- Miami (OH)
- Florida Atlantics
- Denver
- Emory
- James Madison
- Army
- Memphis
- North Texas
- Davidson
- Fresno State
- Tulane
- Murray State
- Richmond
- Furman