GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— The Colorado Mesa University women's tennis team will look to return to their winning ways as they head into their longest, busiest and most important stretch of the season.
The Mavs (6-7) have lost their last three duals after winning the previous four and will play seven matches in a span of just six days against their fellow Pacific West Conference foes throughout the state of California, starting on Saturday afternoon at Biola in La Mirada.
CMU is slated to play on each of the six days throughout the trip, facing Cal State LA on Sunday morning before moving on to face Westmont in Santa Barbara on Monday. The Mavs will then head to Fresno to play Fresno Pacific on Tuesday. They will then take on Menlo and Jessup in neutral court battles there on Wednesday before wrapping up the Spring Break trip at Azusa Pacific, currently ranked 14
th in the nation, on Thursday in Azusa.
Please visit the Mavs' full season schedule for all of the details.
Follow the Mavs
Biola and Westmont plan to produce live streams, which can be accessed at these links.
Biola and Azusa Pacific will also have live results at these links.
Full results and daily recaps will be posted on
www.cmumavericks.com each evening.
Last Time Out
The Maverick women were last in action last Friday (Mar. 7), when they played NCAA Division I Utah Tech in St. George, Utah.
The Trailblazers picked up their first win of the season, 7-0.
Jade Brilhante and
Jane Steur led the Mavs' efforts as they won a set in their No. 4 and 6 singles matches, respectively.
A full recap can be seen here.
Final Homecoming for Nationally-Ranked senior
Maverick senior
Makenna Livingston, a native of Huntington Beach, will return home to California for the final time in her collegiate tennis career. Playing in the No. 1 and 2 spots of the Mavs' singles lineup throughout her strong career, Livingston will enter the trip with a team-leading 87 career victories, including 43 in singles and 44 in doubles.
She has a team-best 7-8 singles record this year, including a 5-6 record at No. 1 singles.
She is ranked 33
rd in the latest ITA NCAA Division II Singles Rankings as of Wednesday and was ranked 47
th last week.
Doubles is Everything
The doubles matches have been of critical importance this season.
The Mavs are 6-0 as a team when they have won the doubles point but are 0-7 when not doing so.
The Mavs have a combined 24-25 doubles record this season, including a 17-19 record in the 12 duals with three other matches left unfinished.
The Mavs have just one doubles victory in their current 3-match slide.
Jade Brilhante and
Devyn Rodriguez lead the Mavericks with a 9-7 record, including a 7-5 record in the team matches. They are 6-4 at No. 1 and 1-1 when playing in the second flight.
PacWest Explainer
Although the PacWest does not keep official standings, the results of the head-to-head matches is one of the top criteria for the conference championship tournament selection process. A total of 12 out of the 17 PacWest women's teams will be selected and seeded by the ranking committee at the end of the regular season.
The CMU women have been selected in each of their previous four years as affiliate members of the conference for the sports of men's and women's tennis. They and MSU Denver hail from Colorado while the other 15 members for women's tennis hail from California (12) and Hawai'i (3).
CMU has yet to play any PacWest foes but have nine such intra-conference matches on the schedule, including the seven to be played on this trip.
The Mavs will then meet MSU Denver in a home-and-away series, hosting the Roadrunners on Apr. 4 before heading to Denver a week later.
To catch up with news around the PacWest,
please read the latest conference summary, released on Tuesday.
Know You Foes
Here is a summary of each of the Mavs' Spring Break trip opponents.
Biola (Saturday – 1 p.m. Pacific/2 p.m. Mountain)
Watch | Live Results
The Eagles are currently 6-4 overall and have won their last two matches. They are 5-4 against PacWest opponents and will play a non-conference match against Western New Mexico on Friday.
Isabella Chavarria is ranked 69
th in the latest ITA National Singles Rankings and has 7-3 record this spring, including a 4-0 mark at No. 1. She has been splitting starts with 72
nd-ranked Kailee Mazzeo in the top flight. Mazzeo is 6-4 overall and has a 3-3 record in the top flight and a 3-1 mark at No. 2 singles.
Alessia Radu is 6-1 overall and a perfect 5-0 at No. 4 singles. Isabelle Karam is 6-0 at No. 6 and sports a 7-1 record throughout the spring.
The Eagles are a combined 13-13 in doubles matches this spring but have won their last four taking the doubles point in their last two wins over Menlo (6-1) and Jessup (7-0) on Mar. 7 and 8, respectively.
Cal State LA (Sunday – 9:30 a.m. Pacific/10:30 a.m. Mountain)
The Golden Eagles are 1-6 on the season and have dropped their last four matches while having three others postponed or cancelled. They won on Feb. 8 over Jessup, 7-0.
Sofia Pavlova is ranked 54
th in the ITA's National Singles Rankings but has just a 1-3 record in the top flight. Maldini Simic, who has a 5-4 overall record, including a 4-2 dual record, has also won two matches in the top flight. Pavlova and Simic have a 2-1 record in the top flight of doubles as well.
Westmont (Monday – Noon Pacific/1 p.m. Mountain)
Watch
The Warriors are currently 4-8 and have lost five straight but will be on the road at Academy of Art and Menlo on Friday and Saturday before returning home to face the Mavs on Monday.
They are 2-7 at home so far this season and will wrap up the home portion of their schedule against the Mavs.
They are 2-8 against PacWest foes.
Fresno Pacific (Tuesday – Noon Pacific/1 p.m. Mountain)
The Sunbirds are currently 3-10 overall and have a 3-7 record against PacWest teams. They have returned to California and will host Stanislaus State on Saturday. They went 0-3 on a recent trip to Florida after winning two of their previous three.
Yume Ueoku is currently ranked 21
st in the national singles rankings and has a winning 5-4 record at No. 1 singles. She was ranked seventh in the ITA's West Regional Singles rankings after the fall season while Audrey Ouellet was ranked 20
th. However, Ouellet is no longer on the Sunbird roster. The two were also ranked sixth in the region as a doubles duo after the fall.
Ueoku and Daimy Paula have a 7-2 record together at No. 1 doubles.
Menlo (Wednesday- 9:30 a.m. Pacific/10:30 a.m. Mountain in Fresno)
The Oaks are currently 2-5 and are slated to host Westmont on Saturday before heading to Fresno for Wednesday's match-up. They snapped a 3-match slide with a Mar. 8 win over American River College and have a 1-5 record against Division II and PacWest foes. Their lone Division II win was at Jessup on Feb. 17 by a 4-0 score.
The Oaks are in the transition process from NAIA into Division II.
Jessup (Wednesday – 4 p.m. Pacific/5 p.m. Mountain in Fresno)
The Warriors are also provisional NCAA Division II members and have a 1-8 record this season, with eight losses in as many matches to PacWest opponents. Their lone win came by a 4-3 margin at Hope International on Mar. 4.
Three of their last four matches have been canceled.
Four different players have one singles win, all of which came against Hope International. The Warriors have been blanked in the other eight duals.
Angel Cody and Sophia Serdichenko have the team's lone doubles win.
Azusa Pacific (Thursday - 1 p.m. Pacific/2 p.m. Mountain)
Live Results
The Cougars are currently 9-2 and have had their last two scheduled matches canceled. They are due to host Hawai'i Hilo on Tuesday before taking on the Mavs.
Currently ranked 14
th as a team in the nation, they have a 7-0 record against PacWest foes and have only lost to Division I Pacific and fifth-ranked Washburn, both of which have been tight 4-3 set-backs. They have blanked four of their opponents, 7-0.
Stina Larsson and Vini Margaret Bautista are ranked 62
nd and 68
th, respectively, in the ITA National Singles Rankings. Bautista and Julia Jordan are ranked 21
st nationally in doubles.
Last year's squad went 21-3 and advanced to the PacWest Tournament Championship and to the NCAA Tournament's Round of 16.
The Cougars have posted a combined 50-14 record in singles play this year and are 22-6 in doubles.
Bautista has a 5-4 record at No. 1 singles while Larrson has recorded a 10-1 record, splitting time with Jordan in the second and third flights. Jordan has an 8-2 record, including a 6-1 mark at No. 2, and has played in the No. 1 and 3 spots as well.
Bautista and Jordan are 5-3 in the No. 1 doubles spot while Larsson and Kaorla Suviste have put up an 8-1 record in the top two flights.
Series Histories
The Mavericks are 2-4 all-time against Biola with all six previous matches taking place in La Mirada. Biola has won the last four, three of them by 7-0 margins, over the past four years. The Mavericks won at Biola in 2018 and 2019 before joining the PacWest.
CMU is 1-1 all-time against Cal State LA. The Mavs defeated the Golden Eagles, 5-1 last season on Mar. 18 in Los Angeles. The two teams had also faced on a neutral court in Arizona way back in 1995.
The Mavs defeated Westmont, 6-1 on Mar. 20 of last season in Santa Barbara and have a 2-1 record against the Warriors. They had played in 2001 and 2011 when the Warriors were NAIA members before resuming the rivalry at the Division II level last year.
The Mavs are 0-5 all-time against Fresno Pacific, with all five of the meetings coming over the past three seasons. Three of the matches have been in Fresno. The two have also played twice in the PacWest Tournament in Surprise, Arizona.
The Mavs have never played Menlo or Jessup.
CMU is 0-8 against the Azusa Pacific Cougars and have traveled to Azusa in each of the last four and seven of the last eight years. They were also due to play there in 2020 but that match was canceled in the early stages of the COVID pandemic. The Mavs' last team point against the Cougars came in 2019. APU has won the last four duals, 7-0.
Up Next
After their busy stretch in California, the Mavs will return home. They will take more than two weeks off before hosting their only three home matches of the season in a span of just over 24 hours taking on in-state rivals MSU Denver, CSU Pueblo and Colorado College on Apr. 4-5.
