GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— The Colorado Mesa University tennis teams will look to continue their hot starts this weekend when they head to Arizona for a series of matches on Friday and Saturday.
 
On Friday at 3 p.m., the Maverick men and women will take on the NAIA's Ottawa University-Arizona Spirit at the Surprise Tennis Center.  They will also square off with Division II rival Western New Mexico University Mustangs there on Saturday morning at 9 a.m. before heading to nearby Glendale and the Paseo Racquet Center for a Saturday afternoon (4 p.m.) encounter at Arizona Christian University, also an NAIA member.
 
3-0 starts
 
Both the Maverick men and women got their 2021 spring seasons off to a perfect start last weekend in Grand Island, Nebraska.  The Maverick men posted 6-1 and 5-2 wins over Oklahoma Baptist on Friday and then a 7-0 victory over Hastings College on Saturday morning.  Meanwhile, the Maverick women recorded 5-2 wins over Oklahoma Baptist and Nebraska-Kearney on Friday before getting up for an early 7-0 win over Hastings on Saturday.
 
The Maverick men are now 3-0 for the first time since the fall of 2012 while the women are off to a 3-0 start for the first time since the fall of 2013.
 
The quest for 4, 5 and 6
 
If either of the Maverick teams are able to record wins on Friday over Ottawa, they would extend their season-opening winning streaks to four.  The Maverick women last won four in a row to begin a season in 2013 when they ended the fall portion of the season with a perfect 4-0 mark before dropping their first four matches in the spring of 2014.
 
The Maverick women last started a season 5-0 in the fall of 2009, when they won each of their five fall team matches en-route to a 17-9 overall campaign.  They have never started a season 6-0.
 
The Maverick men last started the season 4-0 in the fall of 2012 but dropped their fifth match that year.  The same can be said about the fall of 2009 after they started the 2008-09 season with a 6-0 mark.
 
Down go the Lopers
 
Friday evening's women's win over Nebraska-Kearney, which went just past midnight local time and into Saturday morning, was the Mavs' first over the Lopers since 2011.  Nebraska-Kearney, a former Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference rival, had won the previous 11 matches since CMU last defeated them in the 2011 RMAC Tournament.
 
Six go 6-0
 
Six Maverick players including four men and two women all got off to perfect 6-0 starts last weekend in Nebraska. 
 
In men's play, the Mavericks were tough in the No. 3-6 singles positions as Moises Cure and Tyler Landen combined for six wins in the No. 3 and 4 positions as each went 3-0.  Jandre van Wyk also went 3-0 at No. 5 singles while Thiago Nejm did the same in the No. 6 spot.
 
In doubles, Cure and Nejm were a perfect 3-0 as was the partnership of van Wyk and Steven Howe.  Landen also paired with Christian Albrechtsen for a 3-0 mark at No. 1 doubles last week.
 
On the women's side, redshirt junior Alexi Klabunde went 3-0 at No. 5 singles while partnering with Halle Romero for a 3-0 mark in No. 3 doubles.  Meanwhile, freshman Julianna Campos was 3-0 at No. 4 singles and paired with her senior Carolena for three No. 2 doubles wins.
 
Doubles sweep
 
Both Maverick teams swept the doubles matches in all three of their duals last week, allowing them to take the momentum and an early 1-0 team lead into singles play.
 
The Maverick men have now won ten straight team matches when they have won the doubles point dating back to the 2018-19 season.  The Maverick women have now closed out eight consecutive team wins after taking the doubles point since the fall of 2019.
  
Homecoming
 
This weekend's matches will be a homecoming of sorts for Maverick redshirt junior Alexi Klabunde, now solidly entrenched in the Maverick starting lineup after being a reserve and an occasional spot starter during the first three years of her CMU career.  Klabunde is a 2017 graduate of Horizon High School and hails from Scottsdale, Arizona, just minutes from the site of CMU's matches this weekend.
 
She is 3-0 at No. 5 singles and 3-0 with Halle Romero in the No. 3 doubles position thus far in 2021.
 
About Ottawa (Ariz.)
 
The Spirit will begin their season this Friday hosting Western New Mexico on Friday morning before taking on the Mavs in the afternoon.  Both teams are in their fourth season of existence and are under the direction of fourth-year head coach Brad Louderback
 
In 2019-20, their women went 0-7 overall and 0-5 in Golden State Athletic Conference play before the remainder of the season was canceled.  They failed to win a singles or doubles match in those duals as well.
 
Their men went 2-7 overall and 2-2 in GSAC duals, winning what was their final two matches before the cancelation of the season. 
 
OUAZ has three players in the Oracle ITA/NAIA West Regional singles rankings and two ranked doubles pairings in those rankings, which were released in November.  Grzegorz Rudnicki is ranked fifth in singles while Andres Reyes is tabbed eighth.  Austin Todd is 16^th.  In doubles, Rudnicki and Todd are tabbed fifth while Reyes and Michael Lloyd are ranked sixth.
 
In the national NAIA rankings, Rudnicki, a freshman on the team from Poland, is ranked 25^th while Reyes is tabbed 36^th.  Rudnicki and Todd are 23^rd in the national doubles rankings.
 
Reyes was 1-4 in the No. 1 singles position last spring while Todd was 2-5 in total with a 2-3 mark at No. 2 and an 0-2 mark at No. 1.  Reyes and Todd were 3-4 as the Spirit's No. 1 doubles duo last year.
 
The OUAZ women have one ranked player Giulia Leali, who sits sixth in the NAIA West Region singles rankings.  She is a junior and a newcomer to the Spirit program who originally hails from Italy.
 
About Western New Mexico
 
The Mustangs, members of the Lone Star Conference, will get their spring season underway this weekend facing both Ottawa and Arizona Christian on Friday before taking on the Mavericks on Saturday morning.  Both their men and women had scheduled matches with McMurry and Hardin-Simmons on Jan. 30, but those were canceled as was a Jan. 23 women's exhibition at UTEP.
 
The two teams combined for 17 individual wins at the UT-Permian Basin Invitational in the fall.   Freshman Jonathan Vega and senior Julia Tozzi were undefeated at that individual tournament.
 
In 2019-20, the Mustang women went 5-3 in team play, winning their last two matches before COVID-19 canceled the rest of the season.  The men were 3-6.  CMU defeated both teams in neutral-site match-ups in St. George, Utah in February, 2020.
 
Alex Hunt is in his first year as the Mustangs' head coach.
 
About Arizona Christian
 
The Firebirds will open their spring season this weekend hosting Western New Mexico on Friday and Ottawa in a GSAC match-up on Saturday morning before facing the Mavericks in the afternoon.
 
In 2019-20, the Firebird women went 2-5 overall and 2-3 in the GSAC as a team.  Elizabeth Kelley went 2-1 at No. 1 singles and 2-2 overall in the short season.  Sydney Smyth led the team in singles wins with three. While she and Kelley went 2-3 as a doubles duo.  Gabby Gutierrez and Jayci Kelley were 3-4 as a partnership.  Smyth is the only one of those players returning this season under new head coach Phil Carlisle.
 
Freshman Deondra Bacchus is ranked 44^th nationally and 14^th in the West Region, according to the Oracle ITA NAIA Rankings.  She and Smyth are ranked seventh in the regional doubles rankings and are 24^th nationally.
 
Those rankings were based largely off the ITA Tournament in September, 2010 in San Diego.  Bacchus reached the quarterfinals in both singles and doubles while Smyth won the consolation singles draw.
 
The Firebird men were 1-5 overall and 1-3 in GSAC action in 2019-20. 
 
Rodrigo Garcia, who returns this season, tallied three singles wins at No. 5 to lead the team last year.
 
Anthony Popyrin is ranked 24^th in the NAIA national singles rankings while Jose Daniel Dominguez enters the spring 46^th and they are ranked 22^nd nationally as a doubles partnership. 
 
In the west regional rankings, Popyrin is fourth while Dominguez is 11^th.  They are fourth together in doubles.  Popyrin reached the main draw semifinals of the ITA tournament while the pair reached the semifinals in the doubles main draw.
 
Series Histories
 
This Friday meetings with Ottawa-Arizona will be the first with CMU.  The Spirit are in their fourth year of their tennis programs' history.
 
The Maverick men are 2-2 all-time against Arizona Christian dropping decisions in February of 2017 and 2018 after winning matches in 2013 and 2016.  The Maverick women are also 2-2 against the Firebirds, recording wins in 2013 and 2017 while dropping decisions to them in 2016 and 2018.  All of those matches have been played in Arizona.
 
The rivalry is much more extensive with Western New Mexico, a former Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference foe.
 
The Maverick women are 18-7 against the Mustangs since the fall 2005 and won a 4-0 decision in a Feb. 23 neutral-court match-up in St. George, Utah last spring.  They have played each other at least once in each of the last 15 springs.
 
The Maverick men are just 2-20 against Western New Mexico since the fall of 2005 but snapped a 19-match series losing streak with a convincing 6-1 win last February in St. George, Utah.
 
Up Next
 
After this weekend's matches in Arizona, the Maverick teams will head on the road to Utah and Idaho for matches against Division I foes.  The men will play at Utah State in Logan on Saturday, Feb. 20 and at Weber State on Sunday, Feb. 21.  The CMU women are slated for a Feb. 20 doubleheader at Idaho State in Pocatello.