Men’s tennis continues winning streak

A week off from facing opponents proved to be beneficial for the No. 58 Arizona’s men’s tennis team, as its winning streak improved to six with two wins this weekend.

Yesterday Arizona easily took down No. 45 Texas A&M-Corpus Christie (2-4) by a score of 6-1. The only loss came from No. 18 singles player senior Roger Matalonga in singles to a fellow Spaniard, No. 30 sophomore Raul Morant-Rivas.

The team knocked off No. 67 Fresno State (5-2) Saturday by a score of 5-2 in a win that didn’t come as easily for Arizona.

“”It’s a good start,”” Arizona assistant coach Cory Hubbard said. “”Our main goal is to protect the home court and go into the Pacific 10 Conference undefeated.””

The weekend saw the return of senior Daniel Andrus, who had been out after sustaining an injury in the first match of the season. Andrus paired up with previous partner Matalonga for a doubles win.

“”It was exciting to feel part of the team again,”” Andrus said. “”I was able to get the nerves and jitters out.””

Women’s tennis notches record winning streak

Whether playing at home or on the road in difficult conditions, nothing seems to faze the Arizona women’s tennis team these days. Despite playing at sea level and dealing with rain delays, the team continued to fight and win, increasing its winning streak to a school record high to start the year.

On Friday, the No. 46 Wildcats (9-0) won at No. 44 Fresno State (1-3), 4-3, winning two of the three doubles points to take the match and give the Wildcats their best start for consecutive wins in club history with eight before upping the total in a win Saturday over No. 62 Oklahoma (2-2) at Fresno, Calif.

No. 46 Arizona only competed in singles against the Sooners Saturday because of weather and time constraints from rescheduled matches against the Bulldogs. The Wildcats defeated the Sooners 5-1.

The loss came from senior Stephanie Balzert and sophomore Juliette Mavroleon playing in the No. 1 spot, which was the first for the pair.

“”I’m pleased to see them fired up and ready to go,”” Arizona head coach Vicky Maes said.

Women sweep weight throw

With only one more meet left until the Mountain Pacific Championships, the No. 6 men’s and the unranked women’s Arizona track and field teams needed to make one last pit stop at the South West Classic in Flagstaff in preparation for next weekend.

Although the competition level wasn’t especially high, it was definitely a much needed confidence booster, said Arizona head track and field coach Fred Harvey.

“”It was a real tuneup for next weekend,”” Harvey said.

Some of the most impressive events of the day were the women’s weight throw and shot put competitions, Harvey said.

“”We had two (personal bests),”” he said. “”So in my opinion it doesn’t matter what the level of competition was.””

Led by senior thrower Sara Vigil, the Wildcats dominated the competition by claiming the top three spots.

Vigil won the individual title with a toss of 19.35 meters, while senior thrower Kelli Burton also helped control the competition by finishing second with a personal best throw of 16.46m.

Ruggers come out strong in weekend sweep of SoCal rivals

After a dismal showing two weeks ago at Estevan Park, the Arizona club rugby team won its first games of 2006, completing a weekend sweep yesterday of Long Beach State and UCLA.

The Ruggers (5-4, 2-3 SoCal Conference) beat UCLA (1-4, 1-3) 37-20 yesterday after taking down Long Beach State (9-3, 2-2) 22-10 on Friday. That was in large part because of a strong performance from senior center Marcus Johnson, which helped put the rough losses to No. 8 UC-Santa Barbara and No. 13 Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo behind them.

“”This is the best game we’ve played since we played at Texas back in October,”” Arizona head coach Dave Sitton said after yesterday’s game. “”We played with heart.

“”It was far from perfect, but at the same time, the execution was three letter grades better than we’ve recently played. We moved up to C-plus, B-minus level Friday against Long Beach State.””

Laxcats stick it to Denver Club

The Arizona men’s club lacrosse team started their season and first game in the same way – quickly.

The Laxcats scored early and never looked back en route to winning by a score of 14-4.

“”We made some mistakes early,”” Arizona head coach Ken Broschart said, “”but overall we played pretty well and showed that we were the better team.””

The offense played extremely well, Broschart said, mainly because of the pressure the players put on Denver.

“”Something that really helped us on offense was our riding,”” he said. “”Our offense had the ball the entire game because of our success at riding.””

Another key to the victory was solid play by senior goalie Charles Salemi, Broschart added.

“”He is always solid like that,”” Broschart said. “”He never really gets much credit, but he really did do a great job. He is going to be solid like that all year and that was just an average night for him.””