Lobo Tennis Has Sights Set High for 2020
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Under interim head coach Vicky Maes, the Lobo women’s tennis team went 12-9 last season, tying for a Division title. Now Maes, who helmed Arizona’s sidelines for 14 seasons, is the permanent head coach for UNM, entering her second season, and she and her team have Mountain West championship aspirations.
The Lobos have a terrific mix of veteran leadership, exciting newcomers, and depth all over the courts, and that’s despite having no seniors for the second time in three seasons. The Lobos will start their 2020 journey in earnest on Saturday when the team faces off against rival New Mexico State in Las Cruces at noon before facing off at UTEP on Super Bowl Sunday at noon.
Playing an opener isn’t the easiest thing and doing it on the road isn’t preferable either. Add in that the opening opponent is the team you neat on senior day last year in New Mexico State and it’s go-time right away, which Maes understands.
“We are looking forward to our first competition of the season,” said Maes. “Certainly, jumping into the rivalry with NMSU right off the bat brings a high level of excitement, but it is challenges like these that we are to overcome if we want to do well as a group this year. NMSU is always feisty and playing them on the road will require us to stay mentally strong throughout the whole contest.” The Lobos own a 37-6 lifetime mark against their rivals to the south.
Following that match, UNM just drives a short distance for a date with the Miners, a team which UNM has handled, owning a 33-1 record all-time. But it’s never easy on the road.
“UTEP will also be a great opportunity to grow, but we take our season one day at a time and, right now, our focus is on match one and we will take that experience into Sunday. Overall, the weekend will be a great test for us but I have a lot of confidence in our group. They have worked very hard this year and we are eager to put all that time and commitment on display.”
When looking at the 2020 squad for UNM, it starts with the amount of experience that the team has, and it was predicated on a huge freshman class brought in by previous coach Stephanie Wooten-Quijada. That class is still five strong and now all juniors that have had two complete seasons in the UNM lineup.
The quintet of Yue Lin “Polly” Chen, Hsiang-Web “Albie” Huang, Natasha Munday, Bronte Murgett and Danielle Quevedo own a combined 190 singles wins and 169 doubles wins. The lone returner that saw time in the lineup last year that is gone is the graduated Ruth Copas, but most teams don’t return five starters, let alone five two-year starters.
Chen went 22-7 last year for the most wins on the team in singles, and Munday and Murgett were 15-1 as a team in doubles in the spring. Munday won 24 doubles matches and Chen and Munday each won 20. Quevedo won 12 singles matches, and it seemed all 12 were critical and match-swingers. Huang picked up 13 wins as well. Not many schools bring in the experience that the Lobos do.
Add to that, three newcomers, including a Freshman of the Year candidate in Alisia Manolescu, who advanced to the regional semifinals and led the team in both singles wins (9) and doubles wins (6) in her first semester of competition. Her play could slot her high in the lineup potentially, easing the loss of Copas.
Along with Manolescu are two transfers in Myu Kageyama from Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and Albuquerque native Sara Kuuttila-Webbert, who both had good fall campaigns, and UNM isn’t hurting for depth, and practices have been intense with playing slots on the line.
The Lobos last year went 12-9, and won the Mountain Division with a 3-1 record. Now, finally, the Mountain West will see all 11 teams play each other in a pod system that will see plenty of neutral site matches. It should make for better conference tournament seeding, and it will allow for a true regular season champion.
It all starts Saturday at New Mexico State. UNM’s five-match home schedule begins on February 23 against Southern Utah at noon.