GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— The Colorado Mesa University men's tennis team will try to make use of being at home in Colorado to their advantage as they continue their season with two upcoming matches.
 
The Mavericks (2-8) are still searching for their first wins of the spring and will host fellow Pacific West Conference rival Fresno Pacific University on Friday afternoon before heading to Denver to take on Western New Mexico on Tuesday (Mar. 15) for the second time this season.
 
Friday's men's only match with the Sunbirds (3-5) had originally been scheduled for Saturday and will get underway at 2 p.m.  It will now be played indoors at the Junction Indoor Tennis Center, located at 535 25-1/2 Road.
 
The re-match with the Mustangs, currently 5-2, had originally been scheduled for Wednesday, Mar. 16, in Grand Junction but was also moved up a day.  The location has also been changed to a neutral-court encounter in Denver at MSU Denver's Assembly Athletic Complex.  Action in both men's and women's duals will begin at 1:30 p.m. that day.
 
Last Time Out
 
The Mavericks played three PacWest rivals in as many days last weekend in Southern California.  As expected, the Mavericks faced some tough competition, falling 7-0 to national No. 19 Biola on Thursday in La Mirada, before dropping a 5-2 decision to No. 25 Concordia Irvine on Friday.  The Mavs then ended the trip with a 6-1 loss at Point Loma on Saturday in San Diego.
 
Team captain Steven Howe and freshman Tegan Hartman picked up singles wins against Concordia while Jorge Abreu claimed a win over regionally-ranked Lukas Schuster on Saturday against Point Loma.
 
Howe's victory came at No. 1 singles and was by a 6-2, 1-6, 6-3 margin over the Eagles' Leon Czamikau.
 
Hartman was a 6-3, 2-6, 1-0 (10-6) winner over Concordia's Adrian D'auost at No. 6 singles on Friday.
 
Abreu defeated Schuster, tabbed ninth in the ITA's NCAA Division II West Regional Rankings, by a 7-6 (7-4), 6-4 margin to give the Mavericks their lone point against the Sea Lions.    
 
Howe also had a respectable outing against the Sea Lions, winning the first set of his No. 1 singles match against regional No. 13 Tyler Davis, 6-3.  However, Davis came back to take a second-set tie-breaker and then the split-set tie-breaker to claim that match.
 
Welcome back
 
Maverick redshirt sophomore Tyler Landen saw his first action of the 2021-22 season in California after returning from injury.  He played at No. 5 in the singles lineup against Biola and Point Loma and got a start at No. 4 against Concordia Irvine, winning a set against Mike Jansen, who ultimately prevailed, 6-3, 4-6, 6-1, in that match.
 
Landen also jumped into the doubles lineup playing with Christian Albrechtsen in the top flight off all three duals.
 
Mix it up
 
With the return of Landen, Maverick Head Coach Dan MacDonald made adjustments to his doubles pairings that had been consistent for the previous seven duals and fall tournament play.
 
Moises Cure, who had played with Albrechtsen in the No. 1 spot all season until this weekend, was instead paired with freshman Tegan Hartman at No. 3.
 
Meanwhile, Steven Howe played alongside Jandre van Wyk at No. 2, resuming their 2021 All-PacWest and single-season record setting partnership.  Howe had been playing with Jorge Abreu earlier in the season while van Wyk had been playing with Hartman.  In 2021, Howe and van Wyk earned Third Team All-Pac West honors while setting a CMU record for single-season doubles winning percentage (.789), after going 15-4 together.
 
Unfinished work
 
The Mavericks were unable to win doubles matches last weekend although Cure and Hartman also went undefeated.  The new No. 3 doubles pair had all three of their doubles matches go unfinished after the doubles point had been clinched in each dual.  They were tied 5-5 against Concordia's Adam Large and Adrian D'auost and were level with David Strassburger and Elias Weeks at 4-4 on Saturday against Point Loma.
 
Mustang match-up
 
Jorge Abreu, Moises Cure and Tegan Hartman all won their respective singles matches in the earlier match-up with Western New Mexico, which saw the teams split the singles matches evenly.  Abreu was a 3-set (6-1, 0-6, 6-3) winner over Javier Romero at No. 2 while Cure took down Yu-Jhe Du, 6-3, 7-5 at No. 3.  Hartman was a 6-3, 6-3 No. 6 singles winner over Rodrigo Mero in the Feb. 11 dual.
 
Hartman and Jandre van Wyk also won their No. 3 doubles match in a tie-breaker (7-3) over Mere and Brendan Lock although the Mustangs had already clinched the doubles point, which proved to be decisive, after winning the No. 1 and 2 doubles affairs.  Howe and Abreu's No. 2 match with the regionally-ranked Vega and Romero was close and was decided by a 7-5 margin.
 
In the poll
 
The Mavericks were tabbed eighth out of ten teams in the Pacific West Conference Men's Tennis Preseason Poll.  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 Tourney implications
 
Although there is still plenty of tennis to be played, Friday's match should have big implications on both team's PacWest Championship qualifications.  The Mavericks played the first three of nine "conference" matches last weekend in California and will play another against the Sunbirds.  All are technically non-conference affairs as the PacWest does not have a mandated conference regular season schedule nor keep official regular season conference standings.
 
However, the results against the fellow PacWest foes will weigh heavily in the selection and seeding process for the Apr. 21-23 conference championship tournament, which will only include eight of the ten men's teams in the league.  That makes Friday's battle and the Mar. 21 return match in Fresno, especially critical to both teams' post-season qualification hopes.
 
The Mavericks were picked eighth in the preseason coaches' poll while Fresno Pacific was picked ninth.  The Sunbirds are currently 0-4 against PacWest foes.
 
After Friday's match and the true non-conference affair against Western New Mexico on Tuesday, the Mavericks will prepare for another 3-day trip to California playing Azusa Pacific, Holy Names and Fresno Pacific on consecutive days from Mar. 19-21.
 
CMU will also play in-state rival and fellow PacWest affiliate member MSU Denver in a home-and-home series in April facing the Roadrunners in Denver on Apr. 1 before hosting them on Apr. 8.
 
Nearing Coaching Milestones
 
CMU 17^th-year Head Coach Dan MacDonald is still just three wins shy of his 200^th men's victory.  MacDonald, who also coaches the Maverick women, will enter the weekend with a 197-209 coaching record with the Maverick men.    He also has guided the Maverick women to 249 team wins in his tenure and is just four wins shy of 450 combined victories.
 
Regionally Ranked
 
Thanks to their strong fall, freshman Tegan Hartman and redshirt sophomore Jandre van Wyk were ranked eighth in the ITA Division II West Regional Doubles Rankings, which were announced after the fall season on Nov. 23.  They reached the quarterfinals of the ITA West Regional Championships.
 
They are 5-6 overall as a duo this year dropped their last four No. 3 doubles matches before playing with different partners last week.
 
Scouting the Sunbirds
 
Fresno Pacific University will enter Friday's dual with a 3-5 record.  The Sunbirds have gone 0-4 against PacWest foes and will play at MSU Denver on Saturday after squaring off with the Mavericks.
 
This season is the program's first since 2013-14.
 
The Mavs and Sunbirds have faced two common opponents in Biola and Point Loma, teams that have defeated both CMU and FPU.  The Sunbirds have dropped two matches to Point Loma falling 7-0 in their last outing on Tuesday is San Diego after dropping a 6-1 decision to the Sea Lions on Feb. 12 is Fresno.
 
The Sunbirds have lost six of their last seven matches overall with their only win in that stretch coming on Feb. 18 against American River College by a 5-2 score.
 
Joshua Wong is the Sunbirds' only regionally ranked player.  He was ranked 16^th in the ITA West Regional Rankings at the end of the fall season.  However, the freshman has lost six straight matches while playing in the No. 2 and 3 spots of Head Coach George Rodriguez's lineup.
 
Estonian Gregor Kliimask leads the Sunbirds' singles lineup with a 4-3 mark, playing in the No. 4, 5 and 6 spots.
 
Rodriguez has used a variety of doubles pairings.  Ben Cronau and Wong are 3-3 together playing in the No. 1 and 2 spots.  Wong is 4-4 overall.  Kliimask is 4-3 with four different partners.
 
Scouting the Mustangs
 
The Mustangs have got off to a solid start this spring, posting a 5-2 record thus far.  They have won four of their last five, a stretch that began on Feb. 11 with a 4-3 win over the Mavericks in Glendale, Arizona.
 
The Mustangs will host Sul Ross State on Thursday before beginning a 4-match swing in Colorado on Sunday against another Division III foe in Colorado College.  They then play MSU Denver and Seward Community College on Monday in Denver before completing the busy stretch against the Mavericks on Tuesday.
 
Thus far, Jonathan Vega has posted a 6-1 record this spring and has won five straight singles matches at No. 1.   He was ranked seventh in the South Central Region, according to the Nov. 23 ITA rankings. 
 
He and Javier Romero are also ranked ninth in the South Central region, according to the ITA.  They are 4-2 this spring having played together four times at No. 1 doubles (2-2) and twice more at No. 2 (2-0).    Brendan Lock and Rodrigo Mere are also 4-3 in doubles while Joaquin Delpino has posted a 4-2 record with Yu Jhe Du in the No. 1 and 2 positions.
 
Series Histories
 
The Mavericks have never played Fresno Pacific but will meet up with them twice this year in the home-and-home series.  The teams are due to play again on Mar. 21 in Fresno, California.
 
Conversely, the Mavericks and Mustangs are long-time rivals who both used to play out of the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference.  WNMU holds a 21-3 series advantage dating back to 2005 winning 19 straight encounters from 2007-19.    The Mavericks then won matches in both 2020 and 2021 before the Mustangs claimed the 4-3 win on Feb. 11 of this season.
 
Each of the last seven match-ups have been on neutral courts, a trend that will continue with the re-scheduled match in Denver.
 
Up Next
 
As mentioned above, the Mavericks will head back to California for another three matches playing PacWest foes Azusa Pacific, Holy Names and Fresno Pacific on consecutive days from Mar. 19-21.  The match will Holy Names will be a neutral-site encounter at FPU's Haak Tennis Complex.