GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— The Colorado Mesa University men's tennis teams will look to build upon a strong fall season as they begin the main spring portion of the campaign this weekend with three matches in metropolitan Phoenix.
The Mavericks, who won both of their team matches in the fall by 7-0 scores, will play three matches in 24 hours facing NAIA Ottawa University of Arizona and Arizona Christian University on both ends of a neutral-site encounter with NCAA Division II foe and former conference rival Western New Mexico University.
The Mavs begin the weekend at noon on Friday when they will play the OUAZ Spirit at the Paseo Racquet Center in Glendale. They will then face Western New Mexico there at 4 p.m. before heading cross-town to play Arizona Christian at 10 a.m. on Saturday in Phoenix at the Grand Canyon University Tennis Facility.
The Maverick women will also be in action against the same opponents at the same time.
A look back at the fall
The Mavericks enjoyed a strong fall season, posting a pair of 7-0 wins over Dallas Baptist and Colorado College on Sept. 17, 2021 at the Pueblo Duals. They also played in two individual tournaments, competing at the MSU Denver Fall Invitational on Sept. 11-12 and at the ITA West Regional Championships is Fresno, California on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1.
The Mavericks swept all 12 singles matches in the team matches and were a combined 5-1 in the doubles encounters during the victories over DBU and CC.
On an individual level, freshman
Tegan Hartman led the Mavericks with eight wins throughout the fall, posting a 4-2 singles record and a 4-2 doubles mark with partner
Jandre van Wyk. He was 2-0 at No. 6 singles in the team duals and claimed a singles win in each tournament. He and van Wyk also claimed doubles wins in both tournaments and reached the championship quarterfinals at the ITA West Regional.
No. 1 doubles duo
Christian Albrechtsen and
Moises Cure also went 2-0 in team matches and were 4-3 overall in the fall.
Jorge Abreu (3-2), Albrechtsen (3-3), Cure (4-4),
Steven Howe (3-3) and van Wyk (3-3) all posted .500 or better singles records in the fall.
Regionally Ranked
Thanks to their strong fall, Hartman and van Wyk were ranked eighth in the ITA Division II West Regional Doubles Rankings,
which were announced after the fall season on Nov. 23.
In the poll
The Mavericks were tabbed eighth out of ten teams in the Pacific West Conference Men's Tennis Preseason Poll,
which was announced last week. The Mavericks are in their second season as affiliate members of the PacWest. They went 9-10 overall and participated in their first PacWest Championships last spring.
PacWest honors
Steven Howe and
Jandre van Wyk both earned Third Team All-PacWest honors in 2021. Howe was a third team selection in singles while the duo were third team honorees for their doubles play. They set a program-record for single-season winning percentage (.789) with their 15-4 record last spring but did not play with each other in the fall.
Howe was 8-9 in singles play in the spring of 2021, including an 8-4 mark at No. 2.
Three from 200
With a weekend sweep, the Mavericks would give 17
th-year Head Coach
Dan MacDonald his 200
th men's victory. MacDonald, who also coaches the Maverick women, will enter the weekend with a 197-201 coaching record with the Maverick men.
He also has guided the Maverick women to 246 team wins in his tenure and is just seven wins shy of 450 combined victories.
"Senior" Leader
Team captain
Steven Howe enters the spring season with 23 career singles wins, the most of any current Maverick. He also paces the current Maverick roster with 33 career doubles victories.
Howe is one of four fourth-year Mavericks, who all have official redshirt junior eligibility status. He,
Christian Albrechtsen,
Moises Cure and
Chapin Schott all joined the Maverick squad as a freshman in 2018-19, but are all eligible to return for fifth years next year if they should choose to take advantage of the NCAA's blanket eligibility waiver due the COVID-canceled 2020 spring season. Schott could conceivably also play for the Mavs in a sixth year as he redshirted as a true freshman back in 2018-19.
A look at the Lineup
Here is the look at MacDonald's probable lineup for this weekend's matches, along with their fall season records. The singles lineup is the same six men that MacDonald used in the fall season although
Moises Cure is two rungs higher than he played in the fall as Abreu and Albrechtsen have both moved down one rung.
The doubles pairings are the same as in the fall and are in the same pecking order.
Singles
- Steven Howe (3-3 overall; 2-0 in duals)
- Moises Cure (4-4; 2-0)
- Jorge Abreu (3-2; 2-0)
- Christian Albrechtsen (3-3; 2-0)
- Jandre van Wyk (3-3; 2-0)
- Tegan Hartman (4-2; 2-0)
Doubles
- Albrechtsen/Cure (4-2; 2-0 in duals)
- Abreu/Howe (2-4; 1-1)
- Hartman/van Wyk (4-2; 2-0)
Spring Schedule
The Mavs are set to play 17 matches this spring, including 11 against Division II foes. They will play seven of their nine PacWest foes a combined nine times and are also due to play Western New Mexico twice, including this Friday.
Additionally, the Mavericks have this weekend's two matches against NAIA opponents, two against NCAA Division I opponents Idaho State and Weber State next weekend (Feb. 19-20) and a home-and-home with Division III Colorado College in early April— Apr. 2 in Colorado Springs and Apr. 10 at home.
The Mavericks are set to play four times at the Elliott Tennis Center, playing host to Fresno Pacific on Mar. 12 and Western New Mexico on Mar. 16. They will then close out the regular season at home against MSU Denver on Apr. 8 before taking on Colorado College two days later.
The Mavs also have two 3-match trips to California in March and will play on the front range of Colorado on the first two days of April, beginning at MSU Denver.
CMU will not play against the two Hawai'i based PacWest institutions that sponsor men's tennis (Hawai'i Hilo & Hawai'i Pacific) during the regular season.
The top eight PacWest teams as determined by a conference seeding committee will qualify for the Apr. 20-23 PacWest Championships in Surprise, Arizona.
A look around the league
The Mavericks are one of three 2-0 and one of five PacWest teams that are undefeated so far in 2021-22. They and MSU Denver (1-0) were the only two teams to play team duals in the fall. Azusa Pacific and Biola both opened the spring season with 2-0 marks last weekend while Holy Names is also 1-0 after the opening weekend of the spring.
Fresno Pacific and Point Loma are both 1-1 while Concordia and the two Hawaiian schools have yet to open up their official 2022 accounts.
All match-ups between conference teams are officially non-conference affairs as there is no mandated conference playing schedule. However, Azusa Pacific defeated Fresno Pacific, 7-0, in the first "PacWest" battle of the spring on Saturday.
Azusa Pacific senior Ryan Nuno was named as the PacWest Men's Tennis Player of the Week on Tuesday.
Scouting the Spirit
Ottawa University Arizona will enter Friday's match with a 1-0 mark, having defeated Lewis-Clark State (Idaho) at their normal home venue of the Surprise Tennis & Racquet Complex on Thursday (Feb. 3). They swept the doubles matches and then got straight-set singles wins from Liam Spiers, Goor Adiv and Michael Loyd at No. 2, 4 and 5 flights.
The Spirit received 28 points in the NAIA Men's Tennis Coaches' Top 25 Preseason Poll, released Jan. 26 and are just outside the top 25.
On an individual level, Spiers is ranked 46
th in the ITA's NAIA national singles rankings after the fall. He and Todd were ranked seventh and 11
th in the ITA's NAIA West Regional singles rankings. Teammates Dawid Kaszubowski and Lloyd were slotted just a little further down in the No. 14 and 17 spots.
Spiers advanced to the quarterfinals of the ITA West Regional Championships in the fall while Todd won two matches before getting knocked out in the Round of 16. Both of their doubles teams also made the Round of 16 in what was their only competition of the fall.
In 2021, the Spirit went 7-2 overall and were 4-1 in Golden State Athletic Conference play. As the No. 2 seed in the GSAC Championship tournament, they won a semifinal match over Saint Katherine before being downed, 4-1 in the championship by San Diego Christian.
The Spirit and Mavericks also played last year on Feb. 12 in Surprise, Arizona. The Sprit won that affair, 4-1 as
Thiago Nejm claimed the Mavs' lone victory. One of the doubles matches and two of the singles affairs on that day went unfinished.
Scouting the Mustangs
The Western New Mexico University Mustangs claimed a 7-0 home win over junior college level foe New Mexico Military Institute on Sunday (Feb. 6) after having dropping a pair of exhibition matches at Northern Arizona on Jan. 30.
They play Arizona Christian on Thursday afternoon before facing the Mavs.
Newcomer Brendan Lock won one of his singles matches against NAU before blanking Sammer Jain, 6-0, 6-0 in the No. 5 singles match during Sunday's victory over NMMI. The Mustangs won all six singles affairs in straight sets and took two of the three doubles victories as well.
Eight of the nine Mustangs in action at the ITA South Central Regional Championships in the fall as Jonathan Vega advanced to the championship quarterfinals. Vega was ranked seventh in the ITA's NCAA Division II South Central Regional rankings at the end of the fall. He and Javier Romero were also ranked ninth in the regional doubles rankings.
The team went 2-17 in 2021, including an 0-7 mark in the Lone Star Conference.
One of those defeats came to CMU, which claimed a 6-1 neutral-court win on Feb. 13 in Surprise, Arizona. The Mavericks also defeated the Mustangs by the same margin on Feb. 23, 2020 in St. George, Utah snapping a streak of 19 consecutive Mustang victories in the rivalry from 2007 through 2019.
Each of the last six match-ups have come on neutral courts, including in the 2016 Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Tournament final. WNMU then left the RMAC, which no longer sponsors men's tennis as a sport, for the LSC before the Mavericks joined the PacWest in 2021.
WNMU holds a 20-3 all-time series lead over the Mavericks.
Scouting the Firestorm
The Firestorm will enter this weekend with a 2-2 overall mark after having claimed a pair of 4-3 wins over Lewis-Clark State on Friday (Mar 4.). They had dropped 7-0 and 6-1 decisions to NCAA Division I Northern Arizona on Jan. 29 and will play Western New Mexico on Thursday afternoon before facing the Mavs.
Anthony Popyrin is 2-2 this spring, going 2-1 at No. 1 singles after reaching the ITA West Regional Championship semifinals in the fall. Thomas Martin also has a 2-1 record this spring near and at the bottom of the lineup (1-0 at No. 5; 1-1 at No. 6). Andre Millet and Thomas are a team-best 2-1 in the third doubles flight.
Popyrin was ranked 25
th in the ITA's NAIA National Singles rankings while Philipp Kagstroem and Jonas Wand were ranked 17
th in doubles after reaching the ITA West Regional finals in the fall. Kagstroem has not played this spring and is no longer on the Firestorm's online roster. Wand has gone 1-3 in doubles play this spring with Popyrin at No. 1 (1-2) and Martin at No. 2 (0-1).
Millet and Thomas are the 21
st ranked doubles duo at the NAIA level while Popyrin is ranked third it the ITA's NAIA West Regional Rankings. The two nationally ranked doubles duos sit in the No. 2 and 3 spots of the regional rankings while Jose Dominguez and Popyrin are ranked fifth in the region.
As a team, the Firestorm went 3-9 overall and 2-4 in Golden State Athletic Conference play in 2021.
The Mavericks hold a 3-2 series lead against ACU, having won 4-3 last spring (Feb. 13). The Mavs dropped the doubles point in that encounter despite a No. 2 victory by Howe and van Wyk but roared back in singles play as Howe,
Tyler Landen, van Wyk and
Thiago Nejm were all victorious. Landen's 4-6, 7-5, 6-2 victory in the third flight clinched the win.
Up Next
The Mavericks will be on the road again next weekend playing a pair of road matches against NCAA Division I opposition. They will be at Idaho State in Pocatello on Saturday, Feb. 19 and at Weber State in Ogden, Utah a day later.
