Scene: North Texas Daily (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 91, No. 32, Ed. 1 Friday, March 7, 2008 Page: 4 of 12
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Friday 03.07.2008
SPORTSSCENE
o
NT tennis ready for long weekend
By Sherrelle Banks
Intern
The players and coaches of the
NT tennis team said earlier in the
week that they felt motivated and
anxious to hit the road for yet another
long and busy two -match weekend,
starting today in Denver, Colo.
NT begins the road trip opposing
the Air Force Academy at 5 p.m.
today. NT will end the weekend with
amatchat 1:30 p.m. Saturday against
the University of Denver. This will be
NT's fourth weekend of dual matches
this season.
"We're really excited about going
into this weekend," junior Rachel
Wilhelm said. "We had a weekend off
and we've had two weeks of hard prac-
tices, so we're really prepared."
After two weeks of strong and
intense practice sessions in the
weight room and on the court, the
women of the NT tennis team are
fully prepared to take on any and all
Sun Belt Conference challengers.
As of now the Mean Green has
a 5-5 record and hopes to have a
stronger 7-5 mark by the end of the
weekend.
"Like Coach Lama said, it's like 'a
new beginning' for us," freshman
Amy Joubert said. "We're going to
focus on taking that next step and
that new step forward as we're all
very excited."
The Mean Green is prepared for
a difficult challenge this weekend
as NT will be out of its element
competing indoors, something the
team hasn't done very much this
season.
Using a previous head-to-head
tournament against the Air Force
Academy in fall 2006 to its advan-
tage, NT plans to take its experiences
from that tournament into both its
singles and doubles competitions
this weekend.
NT hasn't played the University of
Denver Pioneers in several years, so
putting up a dominant team perfor-
mance and showing how strong the
Mean Green can be against a very
talented Denver team is crucial if
NT wants to return to Denton victo-
rious.
"They are arguably the best team
in the conference, being ranked
somewhere around the 30s in the
country," said assistant coach Jeff
Maren of the Pioneers. "We are defi-
nitely in a position to compete with
both teams. We feel very strong about
our chances against both of them."
NT arrived in Denver a day early
yesterday in order to better prepare
for its two matches.
Not only will the Mean Green have
to get adjusted to playing indoors, but
the team will also have to adjust to
the atmosphere, altitude and high-
altitude tennis balls, which might be
tricky for NT, Maren said.
"I think mentally we are very
prepared and very ready to go.
Physically we all feel very strong,"
Maren said. "It's just the matter of
getting used to a different environ-
ment and we're going in there early
to do that."
The coaches and the players of the
Mean Green tennis team agree that
both the Academy and Denver won't
be easy to beat.
Maren said Denver is probably
the deeper and stronger of NT's two
weekend opponents while Air Force
has several quality players.
Many of the Mean Green players
said they believe they will be in a
great position to beat the nationally
ranked Pioneers since all the pres-
sure will be on Denver to maintain
its ranking.
"We're going to use the Air Force
match like a warm up to try and
build our confidence in that match,"
Wilhelm said. "When we play Denver,
we have nothing to lose because
[unlike the Pioneers] we're not
ranked. We're just going to go out
and play confident like we know
we can."
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5
Photo by Jonny Carroll / Intern
File photo of freshman Madura Ranganathan Feb. 4 against Middle Tennesee State
at NT.
Golf focuses on positives
Continued from page 1
So far Broussard is tied with
playing in the most tournaments
on the team with six outings this
season and holds the best single
round performance with a 68 that
he shot at the Del Walker Classic
in October.
Last season, sophomore Dustin
Thompson performed the best in
the Louisiana Classic, shooting
a three-round score of 2-under
par 214.
Last week he shot a 79 in the last
round in the All-American Golf
Classic in Houston. In the first two
rounds, he shot a 76 and a 77 and
ended tournament shooting 16
over par.
"In the past we have been able
to turn around at that course,"
Thompson said. "We need to go
in and play well."
After a second place finish in the
Mean Green Classic last September
to start the 2007-08 season, the
team has been plagued by consis-
tently weakplay, includingtwo 11th
place finishes and an 18th place
finish in the fall.
This spring, NT's trouble has
continued as the Mean Green
has also had two poor finishes.
NT finished 8th in the GADO NT
Classic in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
and 10th in the All-American Golf
Classic last week.
The team is doing all it can to
turn the focus from how poorly it
has done so far this season, said
Thompson.
"I don't know if we are trying to
stay positive or just trying to stay
away from the negatives," he said.
"We are doing what we can."
Broussard said he believes the
team will do what it has done for the
last two years with players always
starting to click and perform well
at this time of the year.
"We just peak this time of the
season, and I think we are in better
shape this year than we were last
year," he said. "I think it's just
crunch time and we are facing
some of our last tournaments and
we need to play well."
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Scene: North Texas Daily (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 91, No. 32, Ed. 1 Friday, March 7, 2008, newspaper, March 7, 2008; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth145557/m1/4/: accessed May 7, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.