Tennis Defeats Air Force Friday Evening

untbowler · March 8, 2008

Good win by Ladies, but 4-3 over a mediocre AFA team does not look good for Saturday against #29 Denver.

Also noticed shifting in the line-up. Assume for confidence builder switching #1-2, and #4-5. Must say it has been a disappointing season for one of our transfers. Also nice to see one of the Walk-ons getting a chance to play a singles match in a tough 3-set loss.

Also does not help trying to adjust to the altitude difference between Colorado Springs and Denton.

DeepGreen · March 8, 2008

For some positive spin, the tennis team is 5-5 on the year prior to AF. Previous years the girls would be sitting at 0-10. The program was a wreck. At least the new coach is making some headway.

SUMG · March 8, 2008

For some positive spin, the tennis team is 5-5 on the year prior to AF. Previous years the girls would be sitting at 0-10. The program was a wreck. At least the new coach is making some headway.

I agree with that. But, I also must point out that there is no bigger supporter of UNT Tennis on this board than untbowler. He also has more knowledge of UNT tennis than anyone on here.

DeepGreen · March 8, 2008

I agree with that. But, I also must point out that there is no bigger supporter of UNT Tennis on this board than untbowler. He also has more knowledge of UNT tennis than anyone on here.

Admittedly, I know zilch about tennis. I just look at comparative years and at least we are improving.

CMJ · March 8, 2008

The new coach is definitely building something nice here. Even if we're just in the .500 range this year, that's way beyond our recent past.

untbowler · March 8, 2008

For some positive spin, the tennis team is 5-5 on the year prior to AF. Previous years the girls would be sitting at 0-10. The program was a wreck. At least the new coach is making some headway.

To give Dawna credit the teams were not always 0-10, she managed to get them to around .500 every year, but she was not able to pull in the recruits needed to lead the team. It is easy to recruit players who would fit in at #4-6, but to find a #1-3 player is tough without being able to open all the doors. The team before Coach Lama hit a plateau and could not move over it always finishing around 7-10 in conference. Last year was an anomaly as Coach Lama had 3 returnees and then managed to get Franca at the last second since he was hired in June. He then lost 2 players to season ending injuries and went with 3 walk-ons which caused the dismal season last year. This years team is young and very talented with 5 of the Top 6 new this year. With only one Sr who is playing 4&5 this year and gaining a new recruit who has a win over the #120 player on the WTA tour is very promising.

I had my differences with Dawna but she was thrown to the lions with few weapons back in Spring 2001 and was hamstrung on where she could recruit, where Lama has open doors.

As for this year I am trying not to be harsh, .500 is good for this team right now considering the schedule is much tougher, they are playing Ranked teams close and the losses have mainly been 4-3 or tight 5-2 matches. Probably the worst match this year and I think Lama mentioned it after the match was the 6-1 drubbing by TX Tech.

Edited March 8, 2008 by untbowler

Soccer1 · March 9, 2008

Judgement day is what your able to do in conference and on the womens side the only program that has brought home the hardware (conference championships) is soccer.

untbowler · March 10, 2008

Was on the courts all weekend officiating at a tournament. Noted the Ladies dropped a 7-0 decision to #29 Denver but 4 matches went to 3rd sets. Also won at #3 Doubles.

Score wise it look like a blow-out but overall this was a good match for the ladies and shows that they are not far off.

Athletics Story

Since 2001 Denver has been dominating the team with similar 7-0, 6-1 scores but the matches were not close so this is marked improvement.

Hopefully some of the local Dentonites can make it out to Waranch on Friday for the match against S. Illinois