GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— The Colorado Mesa University Mavericks will wrap up the regular season and honor their seniors as they host in-state rivals MSU Denver and Colorado College this Friday and Sunday at the Elliott Tennis Center.
 
The Mavericks, 4-14 overall, will play MSU Denver at 2 p.m. on Friday before closing out the regular season campaign against the NCAA Division III Tigers on Sunday morning at 10 a.m.  They will hold Senior Day festivities prior to warm-ups at 8:45 a.m. that morning and will recognize Christian Albrechtsen, Moises Cure and Steven Howe for their contributions to the program over the past four years.
 
Last Times Out
 
The Mavericks played the same opponents on the road last weekend dropping a 6-1 decision to MSU Denver on Friday before bouncing back for a 7-2 win over Colorado College on Saturday in Colorado Springs to snap a stretch of six straight team defeats.
 
The Mavericks won the doubles point against the Roadrunners but fell in all six singles matches to drop the dual to their fellow Pacific West Conference foe.
 
The Mavs also won two of the three doubles matches and five of the six singles affairs against CC in Saturday's match, played under the Division III format.
 
The No. 2 doubles duo of Steven Howe and Jandre van Wyke won both matches while the No. 1 and 3 teams of Christian Albrechtsen/Tyler Landen and Jorge Abreu/Tegan Hartman both went 1-1 with the latter winning against MSU Denver.
 
Home Rarity
 
This weekend's matches will be just the second and third home matches of the entire season for the Mavericks, who have played the role of visitors in five western States, including Colorado this spring. 
 
The Mavericks' only previous home match, which was a men's only affair, came against Fresno Pacific on Mar. 11 and was played indoors at the Junction Indoor Tennis Center.
 
The Mavericks won that match 5-2.
 
Home Success
 
With at least a weekend split, the Mavericks would clinch their eighth straight winning season at home.  The Mavs also went 2-1 in 2020-21 and 1-0 in 2019-20 after posting a 2-1 home record in 2018-19.
 
Opportunities for home matches were more prevalent before the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference dropped sponsorship of the sport.  The Mavs had gone a combined 21-6 at home in the previous four seasons from 2015-18 and have not lost more than two home matches in any season since 2012-13 when they went 3-3.
 
Going for the Tiger Trifecta
 
The Mavericks will be looking to complete the 3-match season sweep of the Colorado College Tigers on Sunday.  In addition to last week's win, the Mavericks had claimed a 7-0 team win back on Sept. 17 in the fall portion of the season.  The Mavs won all three doubles matches and swept the singles matches of that day's dual as well.
 
Senior Capsules
 
The Mavericks will recognize their three seniors, who all joined the program as freshman in 2018-19, before Sunday's match with Colorado College.  All three are technically redshirt juniors who could return for a fifth year thanks to NCAA's automatic COVID eligibility waiver after much of their sophomore campaigns were wiped out in the spring of 2020.
 
Christian Albrechtsen
 
Entering the weekend, the Coppenhagen, Denmark native has claimed 51 career wins, including 33 in doubles.  He has played a majority of his career in the top half-of the line-up in both singles and doubles.  He has 14 wins to his credit this season and was 9-9 in doubles last year after going 8-8 before the COVID cancelation in the 2019-20 academic year.  He was also a 2021 Academic All-PacWest selection.

Moises Cure
 
A native of Baranquilla, Colombia, Cure has claimed 40 career victories as a Mav, including 22 in singles and 18 in doubles.  He has missed a good chunk of this spring due to injury but has won of the team's better overall records (6-9 in singles, 8-15 in doubles) despite not playing since Mar. 5.  He had a winning 9-6 singles record as a junior and was also named to the Academic All-PacWest Team last year.
 
Steven Howe
 
The Temecula, California native leads all current Mavericks with 65 career victories and has posted a winning 37-34 doubles record in his four years as a Mav.  In 2020-21, he went 15-4 with partner Jandre van Wyk to set the program record for single-season doubles winning percentage (.789).  Howe also earned Third Team All-PacWest honors in both singles and doubles after going 8-9 in singles play last year, including a solid 8-4 mark at No. 2.  Serving as the team captain, Howe has been the Mavs' No. 1 singles player all season and has posted a respectable 7-11 mark against each opponent's top player.  He has 28 career singles wins to his credit.
 
Last chance
 
The Mavericks will have their final chance to swing the voters' minds for a potential qualification spot in the PacWest Tournament this week.
 
The Mavericks, who are 2-10 against Division II opposition and 1-8 against fellow PacWest foes, are sitting tenth in the third set of conference rankings.  Only the top eight teams will qualify for the upcoming PacWest Championships.
 
The Mavs were ranked eighth in the initial rankings two weeks ago but dropped to tenth last week and stayed in the same spot after last week's results.
 
MSU Denver continues to sit sixth as the rest of the bottom half of the rankings remained unchanged as well.  Point Loma is seventh while Fresno Pacific is eighth.  Holy Names is ninth while Hawai'i Pacific continues to lead the way.
 
The Mavericks split a pair of head-to-head matches with Fresno Pacific and have lost duals against each of the other PacWest teams with the exception of Hawai'i Pacific, who they did not face.
 
The rankings are voted upon by administrators from the conference, representing the geographical regions of it.  They official qualifiers and seeding will be announced on Monday (Apr. 11).
 
To see the whole rankings, please visit the PacWest's website article.

Freshman sensation
 
Maverick true freshman Tegan Hartman claimed his tenth singles win of the season on Saturday when he defeated Colorado College's Alex Kley in the No. 6 affair.  The victory was his team-leading tenth singles triumph of the year and made him the first Maverick true freshman since Alain de la Bastide in 2017 to reach double-figures in their debut season.
 
Jandre van Wyk did win ten matches as a redshirt freshman last spring.
 
Hartman also leads the Mavericks with nine doubles and 19 overall wins.
 
In doubles, the Idaho Falls, Idaho native has been playing at No. 3 alongside Jorge Abreu in each of the Mavericks' last eight affairs after playing with Moises Cure and Jandre van Wyk earlier in the season.  Hartman has a team-best 9-10 doubles record overall with his three partners.
 
Hartman's 19 overall wins also lead the team and are three more than his current doubles partner in Abreu, who is 9-12 in singles and 7-12 in doubles.  Christian Albrechtsen and Steven Howe are tied for third on the team with 14 victories.
 
Scouting the Roadrunners
 
The Roadrunners continued their strong season last week going 2-0 to raise their overall record to 10-3.  After winning against the Mavericks on Friday, the Roadrunners defeated Colorado College by a 5-2 scoring on Sunday.
 
They have four players who have already reached double figures for singles wins.  Andy Caruana leads the bunch with a 14-4 overall record and has won eight straight matches.  He is also a team-best 10-2 in duals having gone 4-0 at No. 6 and 6-2 in the No. 3, 4 and 5 spots combined.
 
Jeanloup Auzias is 11-6 overall and has a 7-4 dual record, including a 5-4 mark in the top flight.  He was ranked 69^th in Division II according to last week's ITA National Singles Rankings.  Carlos Pinedo is 13-5 overall and has played exclusively in the top half of the lineup while Alejandro Jimenez is 11-3 overall and 9-3 in duals.
 
In doubles play, Caruana and Pinedo are 11-7 together, including an 8-4 mark in duals.  Auzias and Dayton Fisher are also 6-6 together and have a 5-4 mark at No. 3.  Billy and Jack McDermott are 3-5 in the No. 1 doubles position.
 
Scouting the Tigers
 
The Tigers dropped their two matches last weekend falling to CMU on Saturday and at MSU Denver on Sunday as they saw a 4-match winning streak snapped.  They now have an 8-6 record as a team heading into a Saturday Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference home match with Schreiner in Colorado Springs.
 
Three Tigers in Nate Beerman, Alex Kley and Lucas Pastor will all have the chance at claiming their tenth singles wins this weekend as each enters with 9-7 marks.  Beerman is 9-4 at No. 5 singles and 9-5 in duals while Kley is 9-3 at No. 6.  Pastor has an 8-4 mark at No. 3 and has made spot starts in the No. 2 and 3 spots as well.
 
Andrew Kaelin also has eight singles wins and is 7-6 at the No. 2 spot thanks in part to his win over CMU last Saturday.
 
Jacob Adams and Beerman are a solid 7-1 together and have won seven straight matches at No. 3 doubles since joining up, including Saturday's affair against the Mavericks.
 
Series Histories
 
The Mavericks will be looking to snap a 11-match losing streak to the Roadrunners, who lead the all-time series 33-15 after taking last Friday's win in Denver.  The Mavericks are 8-11 against the Roadrunners at home, claiming their last home win by a 5-4 margin on Oct. 8, 2016.  The Mavs then won in Denver in the spring of that 2016-17 season on Apr. 8 by the same 5-4 score, which was last Maverick win in the rivalry.
 
The two teams both joined the PacWest as affiliate members last year and played three times last April.  The Roadrunners won 6-1 on Apr. 9 in Denver before claiming a 5-2 in Grand Junction a week later.  The Roadrunners then picked up a 4-1 win during last year's PacWest Tournament.
 
Conversely, the Mavericks have dominated Colorado College as of late defeating the Tigers 17 straight times since 2012 including Saturday's victory.  They also met three times in the 2021 calendar year with the Mavs winning 7-0 in Colorado Springs on Apr. 10 before taking a 5-2 home win a week later.  The Mavs then won 7-0 on Sept. 17 during the fall portion of this current academic year.
 
The Mavs hold a 24-4 record in the all-time series and have won all six home match-ups against the Tigers.
 
CC's last win over the Mavericks was on Apr. 10, 2009 in Colorado Springs.
 
Up Next
 
The Mavericks will then learn their PacWest Tournament fate on Monday (Apr. 11).  If selected for what would be their second consecutive appearance, the Mavericks would begin the tournament in Surprise, Arizona against a high seed in the quarterfinal round on Thursday, Apr. 21 and would play three total matches over as many days in either the consolation or championship brackets.   The Mavs were the No. 8 seed last year and went 0-3 in their initial years as PacWest members to finish eighth.
 
The 12-team PacWest Women's Championships begin on Wednesday, Apr. 20 with first round match-ups for the No. 5-12 seeds.