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Azkara Earns Third MW Player of the Week Honor

by Frank Mercogliano

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Arda Azkara picked up his third Mountain West Player of the Week honor after winning twice at No. 1 singles and also once at No. 1 doubles.  It’s his fourth career honor, and no other Mountain West player has earned the honor more than twice this season.

Azkara, who improved to 4-0 in Mountain West play this year, now gets a chance to continue his amazing streak at home as UNM faces off with San Diego State on Thursday at 4 pm and UNLV on Saturday at noon.  The matches have massive conference title implications, and those even involve Boise State, which isn’t even playing here this weekend.

In the simplest terms, if UNM wins just one match this weekend, the Lobos will clinch at least a share of its third regular season conference title in the last four seasons.  If UNM wins both matches, they will have the title all to themselves and a the No. 1 seed in the Mountain West Tournament, which starts next week.

But that’s the simplest of terms.  Here’s how things will shake out, with UNM (4-0), UNLV (3-1) and BSU (3-1) in line for a Mountain West title (and yes, technically Nevada could be in a four-way tie at 4-2):

Thursday’s schedule
Boise State at Nevada, Noon
UNLV at Air Force, 2 pm
San Diego State at New Mexico, 4 pm

Saturday’s schedule
UNLV at New Mexico, Noon
San Diego State at Air Force, Noon
Utah State at Boise State, 5 pm

There are only two tiebreakers. If it’s a two-team tie, head-to-head will break the tie.  Once it’s three or more teams, the head-to-head doesn’t matter, as the ties are all broken by ITA team rankings.

Let’s get Nevada out of the way.  The only way Nefvada can share the title is in a tie at 4-2, which would mean Nevada beats Boise State, Air Force beats UNLV, San Diego State beats New Mexico, UNLV beats New Mexico.  If that happens, Nevada, New Mexico and UNLV all are 4-2, and if Boise State were to beat Utah State, it would be 4-2 as well.

Now, if UNM wins Thursday and UNLV loses Thursday, UNM clinches at least a share of the Mountain West title, and they also clinch the No. 1 seed in the MW Tournament.  The No. 1 seed gets a bye into the semifinals, while the other six teams all have to play in the quarterfinals.  A win Thursday will at least guarantee a share of the title.  However, if UNM and UNLV both win, then UNM has to win on Saturday against UNLV to prevent UNLV from a share of the title and guarantee a No. 1 seed.

If that happens, UNLV would be the No. 1 seed … unless Boise State wins both matches.  Then, it’s a three-way tie for the title at 5-1, and the No. 1 seed would go to the team with the highest ITA ranking.

The Lobos will have to beat a team that on paper seems very beatable in San Diego State that is just 2-13 overall and 0-4 in the Mountain West, but SDSU’s Eugenio Gonzalez Fitzmaurice was named the Mountain West Freshman of the Week after picking up a non-conference singles win and a conference win.  The Aztecs have also played a superb schedule with a streak of six straight matches against ranked teams, including three top-25 matches.  The Aztecs are 0-4 in Mountain West play, but they have a pair of 4-3 losses (UNLV and Nevada) and a 4-2 loss to No. 63 Boise State.

Johannes Seeman leads SDSU with 14 singles wins.

In UNLV, the Lobos are playing a hot Rebel squad with four wins in a row, and is 12-8 overall.  UNLV is led by freshman Dusan Rsovac, who is just a freshman by leads the team in singles wins with 16.