ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — More than eleven months after seeing its 2020 season ended by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Lobo women’s tennis team finally gets to retake the courts, and it will do so in the same city in which they last played. UNM opens its 2021 season on Thursday taking on Division II Metro State in Denver before heading to Pueblo to take on CSU-Pueblo on Friday.
The team will then head to Lubbock and Texas Tech to take on Abilene Christian on Sunday in a neutral site match before facing the Red Raiders on Monday.
UNM enters the season under head third-year head coach Vicky Maes, and second-year assistant Matt Frost. The squad is coming off a fall semester in which they couldn’t really play on the court, but they certainly took care of things in the classroom. The squad turned in the best-GPA in the history of UNM Athletics with a 4.03 mark.
Now, heading into the 2021 spring season, Maes must replace the top three slots in the lineup, but she does have plenty of options.
Natasha Munday played No. 4 last year for New Mexico and has seen plenty of action with a career singles record of 36-26. Munday also owns a 47-30 doubles mark over her first three seasons. She is one of four seniors on the roster, all of whom have played in the previous three seasons at UNM.
Danielle Quevedo was UNM’s primary No. 5 player in 2020, and she enters the season with more overall wins than Munday, owning a 38-29 career mark in singles. Quevedo has played several matches at No. 2 singles, all in her freshman year.
Hsiang-Wen “Albie” Huang played No. 6 singles in 2020, and her 12 wins last year were second-most on the team. Huang owns a 41-30 overall singles mark, and like Quevedo, she has also played several matches at No. 2 singles. Huang also is 40-34 in doubles in her career.
UNM’s fourth returning senior is Yue Lin “Polly” Chen, who didn’t play in a dual match last year but enters the 2021 season with the most career wins of any active player on the team, going 43-23 in her career. Like UNM’s other returning seniors, she has played everywhere in the lineup, including seven matches at No. 2 singles. Chen went 22-7 in 2018-19 in singles.
Myu Kageyama is UNM’s other returner from last year. The transfer from Texas A&M-Corpus Christie picked up six wins in singles and eight in doubles. Kageyama also went a perfect 6-0 at No. 2 doubles during the spring season. The Lobos actually have a sixth returner, but Sara Kuuttila-Webbert will redshirt the season.
The Lobos will need contributions from the three newcomers to the lineup in Hsuan Huang (no relation to Hsiang-Wen), Satoho Toriumi and Allison Romero. Huang is the third player from Taiwan on the squad and with Toriumi, UNM now has five players from the Eastern Asia area of the Pacific Rim.
Romero was a part of two Eldorado High’s state title teams, finishing third in the state in singles in 2017. In the 2017 state title match, Romero picked up a 6-0, 6-0 win, clinching the state title. She teamed with Carmen Corley to win the 2018 state 6A doubles title, winning seven of their eight sets by 6-0 scores. Much like her new teammates, her 2020 season was cut short due to COVID-19.
About UNM’s opponents
Metro State: A Division II school located in Denver and a member of the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference. The Roadrunners are 0-3 on the season, having played three Division I schools, losing 7-0 to Colorado and Colorado State and 6-1 to Air Force.
CSU-Pueblo: Another Division II school and another member of the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference. The ThunderWolves are 0-0, but will play Air Force in Colorado Springs on Wednesday before facing off with the Lobos on Friday. CSU-Pueblo has two freshmen from New Mexico on its team including Roma Cordova from nearby Belen.
Abilene Christian: The Wildcats are 3-5 on the season and will play Texas Tech in the morning before facing UNM later in the day. Abilene Christian’s first win of the season was 5-2 at home over UTSA. The Wildcats have won its last two matches; 5-2 over Tarleton State and 7-0 over Texas-Permian Basin.
Texas Tech: The Red Raiders are 3-1 on the season, having defeated Houston and UTEP 4-0 and Arizona 4-1. Tech also lost 4-3 to Rice. The Red Raiders will play two matches on February 14, hosting Arizona State and Abilene Christian.