GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— The Colorado Mesa University women's tennis team will begin the main spring portion of their season this weekend, playing three matches in Arizona this weekend.
The Mavericks will begin the weekend on Friday at noon playing against NAIA Ottawa University of Arizona before taking on a NCAA Division II counterpart in Western New Mexico University later that day at 4 p.m. Both of those matches will be played at the Paseo Racquet Center in Glendale. The Mavericks then wrap up the weekend on Saturday morning at 10 a.m., when they will face another NAIA opponent in Arizona Christian University at the Grand Canyon University Tennis Facility in Phoenix.
The Maverick men will be playing the same opponents at the same times.
A look back at the fall
The Mavericks won their final dual of the spring season going 1-2 on their only weekend of team play at the Pueblo Duals in September. CMU defeated Fort Hays State, 6-1 on Sept. 18 after dropping Sept. 17 decisions to Nebraska-Kearney and Dallas Baptist.
The Maverick players also competed individually at the MSU Denver Fall Invitational the weekend prior and at the ITA West Regional Championships on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1 in Fresno, California.
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.
Freshman winners
Four of the five Maverick freshman posted winning singles records throughout the fall season. Mac
Macy Richards led the group with five victories, going 5-4 overall while posting a 2-1 dual record at No. 4.
Paige Furin (3-0),
Makenna Livingston (3-2) and
Kenna Kelley (1-0) all had winning records as well.
Regionally Ranked
Makenna Livingston, a native of Huntington Beach, California, also ended the fall ranked 14
th in the ITA's Division II West Regional Singles Rankings,
which were announced after the fall season on Nov. 23. She missed the Pueblo duals weekend but posted a pair of ITA regional wins advancing to the Round of 16 in the championship bracket.
In the poll
The Mavericks were tabbed 11
th out of the 15 teams in the Pacific West Conference Women's Tennis Preseason Poll,
which was announced last week. The Mavericks are in their second season as affiliate members of the PacWest. They went 12-13 overall and participated in their first PacWest Championships last spring.
Twelve PacWest women's teams will be selected for the PacWest Championships by a conference seeding committee at the end of the regular season.
Nearing Milestones
Maverick Head Coach
Dan MacDonald will enter this weekend nearing career win milestones. The 17
th-year CMU head coach has compiled a 246-180 (.577) winning percentage on the women's side and also has a 197-201 men's coaching record.
He is just seven combined wins shy of 450 and four shy of 250 women's victories. Although he will not quite be able to reach either of those milestones this week, he could reach the 200-win mark on the men's side if the CMU men go 3-0.
Veteran Leader
Fourth-year Maverick
Maike Waldburger will enter the spring season, likely her last, with 66 career wins by far the most of any current Maverick. She has 33 singles victories and the same number of doubles triumphs. A redshirt junior from Wesel, Germany, Waldburger could choose to return in 2022-23 if she decides to take advantage of the NCAA's blanket COVID eligibility waiver granted due to the cancellation of the 2020 spring season.
She and
Lauren Thomas, also in her fourth year, are the most experienced Mavericks after having started with the program in 2018-19. Thomas redshirted as a freshman while Waldburger was thrown right into the lineup. Thomas has an official eligibility status of redshirt sophomore and could conceivably come back for a sixth year in 2023-24 if she wished. Thomas did not play in the spring but has 30 career wins in total.
Third-year Maverick
Halle Romero, who like Thomas has official redshirt sophomore eligibility status, is second on the current Maverick roster with 36 career wins (13 singles, 23 doubles) to her credit entering the spring.
A look at the Lineup
Although not yet firmed up, here is a look at Coach
Dan MacDonald's possible singles lineup for this weekend's matches along with their fall season records.
The doubles pairings and lineup are even more in flux.
Singles
- Makenna Livingston (3-2; 0-0 in duals)
- Maike Waldburger (4-5; 1-2)
- Halle Romero (2-5; 1-2)
- Macy Richards (5-4; 2-1)
- Julianna Campos (1-5; 0-2)
- Audrey O'Rear (2-3; 1-2)
Spring Schedule
The Mavs are set to play 22 matches this spring, including 13 against Division II foes. They are slated to play against eight different PacWest opponents facing MSU Denver twice, giving them nine unofficial PacWest matches. There are no official conference standings kept and all off the intra-conference match-ups are officially non-league duals because the conference does not have a mandated playing schedule.
Outside of the PackWest, the Mavericks also due to have a home-and-home series with CSU Pueblo and will play Western New Mexico this weekend and again at home on Mar. 16.
The Mavs will also face NCAA Division III Colorado College twice and have four matches against NCAA Division I opposition and three against NAIA foes on the spring schedule.
The Mavericks are set to play four times at the Elliott Tennis Center, playing host to Western New Mexico on Mar. 16 before closing out the regular season with three home matches in as many days against in-state rivals MSU Denver, CSU Pueblo and Colorado College from Apr. 8-10.
A look around the league
Eight of the PacWest teams have opened their spring seasons and went a combined 9-5 on the opening weekend of action. CMU and MSU Denver both went 1-2 in the fall. Biola (2-0), Azusa Pacific (2-1), Point Loma (2-1), Academy of Art (1-0) and Holy Names (1-0) all have winning records.
Point Loma's Angelique Freidrich was the PacWest's first Women's Tennis Player of the Week of the season,
which was announced Tuesday afternoon.
Scouting the Spirit
Ottawa University Arizona will enter Friday's match with a 1-0 mark, having crushed Pacific Lutheran at their normal home venue of the Surprise Tennis & Racquet Complex on Jan. 31.
The Sprit surrendered just six total games in the doubles matches and won all six singles matches in straight sets, posting seven 6-0 set victories.
No. 1 Giulia Leali won her singles match, 6-0, 6-0 and is ranked 47
th in the ITA's NAIA national singles rankings after the fall. She is also ranked ninth in the West Region, according to the ITA, while teammate Antonia Kostoff is ranked 11
th.
Kostoff and Mackenzie Eichman are ranked sixth in the West Regional doubles rankings. Neither of those players played against Pacific Lutheran.
The Mavericks won the only previous match-up with the Spirit, taking a 4-0 win on Feb. 12 of last season in Surprise. The Mavs won at No. 2 and 3 doubles by 6-0 margins while the No. 1 match went unfinished. The Mavericks also dominated singles play claiming easy wins at No. 2, 3 and 4 while the other three matches were left unfinished. The Mavs were leading in two of those and also had a 5-3 lead at No. 1 doubles.
Scouting the Mustangs
The Mustangs claimed a 6-1 home win over junior college level foe New Mexico Military Institute on Sunday (Feb. 6) after having dropping an exhibition match at Division I UTEP on Jan. 23.
They play Arizona Christian on Thursday afternoon before facing the Mavs.
The Mustangs took advantage of a depleted NMMI lineup, that included just three players, in the season-opening win. Livia Leite and Kajsa Gedlitschka did win singles matches on the court at No. 1 and 3.
The Mustangs went 5-16 overall and 1-8 in Lone Star Conference play last year.
CMU defeated the Mustangs by a 4-3 margin on Feb. 13 of last season in Surprise, Arizona. The Mavericks won the doubles point with victories at No. 2 and 3 and then received wins from
Halle Romero,
Lauren Thomas and
Julianna Campos in the bottom half of the singles lineup.
The Mavericks have won four of the last five match-ups with the Mustangs, all on neutral-courts. They used to Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference rivals.
CMU has a 19-7 lead in the all-time series, thanks in large part to a 12-match winning streak from 2005-12.
Scouting the Firestorm
Arizona Christian will enter a Thursday encounter against Western New Mexico with a 1-0 record after squeaking out a 4-3 win over Pacific Lutheran on Feb. 2. They were dominant at the top of the lineup against the Lutes surrendering just three total games in No. 1, 2 and 3 singles wins by Deondra Bacchus, Vittoria Qaudri and Johanna Lutz. Bacchus and Quadri also won 6-1 at No. 1 doubles while Lutz and Karla Grobbelaar won by the same margin at No. 2 doubles.
However, the Firestorm dropped the No. 4, 5 and 6 singles matches and were defeated at No. 3 doubles.
Quadri is ranked 35
th in the ITA's NAIA National Singles Rankings while Bacchus is 43
rd. They sit in the No. 3 and 7 spots if the West Regional Singles rankings, respectively. Grobbelaar and Lutz sit seventh in the regional doubles rankings.
In 2021, the Firestorm were 3-11 overall and 3-5 in Golden State Athletic Conference matches. One of their defeats came at the hands of CMU, which won 6-1 on Feb. 13 at the Phoenix Tennis Center.
Returning Mavericks
Maike Waldburger,
Halle Romero,
Lauren Thomas and
Julianna Campos were all victorious in singles play while the Mavericks swept the doubles matches. The Firestorm had just five players in the lineup and forfeited at No. 3 doubles and No. 6 singles.
The Mavs are 3-2 all-time against the Firestorm. No team has won consecutive matches in the inter-organizational rivalry, a trend the Mavericks hope to buck on Saturday.
Up Next
The Mavericks will be on the road again next weekend playing a pair of NCAA Division I foes in Idaho State in Pocatello and at Weber State in Ogden, Utah on Saturday, Feb. 19 and Sunday, Feb. 20. The Mavs will also face NAIA College of Idaho a in a neutral-court encounter at Idaho State's Reed Gym later in the afternoon Feb. 19.
