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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (March 11, 1999)
J Sports Page 7 • Thursday, March 11, 1999 ggie tennis teams prepare for ACC foes Texas A&M men set to take on North Carolina Tarheels y pgii uj— MIKE FUENTES/The Battalion ais case. lujiior Gonzalo Anderson stretches for a shot in a match earlier this season. The 19th-ranked Aggies play host to the No. 58 itv, located K toi fh Carolina Tarheels today at 6 p.m. at the Varsity Tennis Center. 9 iouston, ha.< - ga ts. The countv J women get ready for the i Berry’s pickuf ji ^ y^m6th-ranked Demon Deacons BY AL LAZARUS The Battalion The No. 19 Texas A&M Men’s Tennis Team will try to maintain its perfect record tonight when the Aggies host the No. 58 University of North Carolina Tarheels at 6 p.m. at the Varsity Tennis Center. The Aggies (6-0, 3-0) defeated the Tarheels, 4-3, last year in Chapel Hill, N.C. “UNC played us very, very tough last year,” A&M coach Tim Cass said. “They are outside the top 25 right now, but we’ll treat them like a top-25 team.” Despite their perfect record, the Aggies fell five spots from their final fall ranking of No. 14 in the Rolex Collegiate Rankings. Cass said the rankings drop is due to a lack of highly ranked opponents on the Aggies schedule so far, which will change with the arrival of 4th-ranked Duke Uni versity next Tuesday. “Our goal is to try to play 10 of the top 25 teams year in and year out,” Cass said. Two days after their match against Duke, the Aggies will get a chance to play several more highly-ranked teams when they travel to Montgomery, Ala. for the National Blue/Grey Team Tournament. In early April, A&M will travel to Cal ifornia to take on No. 12 Pepperdine Uni versity and the nation’s No. 1 team, the University of California at Los Angeles. The Aggies also have home matches in April against the nation’s No. 7 and No. 8 teams, Baylor University and the Uni versity of Texas, respectively. Junior Juan Aramburo said the Aggies hope to take advantage of their tough schedule. “I think it’s going to help us a lot,” he said. “If we take advantage of it and play well, we’ll end up with a high ranking.” Aramburo said playing well in tonight’s match is key for the Aggies as they prepare to enter the tough portion of their schedule. “A win will help us build up our con fidence for the next part of the season,” he said. “We want to get into a good rhythm with Duke coming in next week.” BY TRAVIS HARSCH i 111 The Battalion ir hrpm *' *^*v'BThe Texas A&M Women’s Tennis Team will look ^ , to continue its winning ways against the Demon Dea- h npw <5npnr/iifM ns o! Forest today at 6 p.m. at the Varsity Ten- t ^ ! j\, "y, mis Center. A&M has posted victories over Texas ^ y- ? v .. Christian and Oklahoma State in its last two outings c'aUicmatPd “c,\^°^ owin 8 3 loss t0 Houston, the Aggies’ sole defeat a, nUhp# 1 the y ean reu wou t u t c ° a ch gobby Kleinecke said the Deacons would anySrrancnisei« ov j^ e t ^ e ^ggj es wit b a challenge. ■ “They’re pretty hard-hitting,” Kleinecke said. .■hey’re a typical Wake Forest team with a lot of tal- ed on the numlm ,/ iges. A coipor* M uc b 0 f that talent consists of underclassmen, 1 t 1omui!li ' which has led to some difficulties early in the year for estment c ™ as, «ke Forest. percent of the* a p ret ty young team,” Kleinecke said, le paici nealffly^bey had a great win over Ole Miss and then lost to nother partol■ ut b Carolina, but that’s what you get sometimes with a young team.” ii to 25 percenh’B Mar j e i Verban, ranked as the sixth-best singles or the new]0P pLy er j n t b e nation, leads Wake Forest. The Deacons {s - fire listed as 16th in the latest ITA poll, with the Ag- Js at 31st. Kleinecke said Wake Forest’s status as a favorite could actually help his team. “This is our first opportunity to come out as the underdogs,” he said. “They started the season ranked ninth; they’re now 16th. We’re going to get some op portunities, and it helps being at home. Really, the pressure is on them. We can come out and let our hair down and play hard and see what we’ve got.” Kleinecke said the Aggies would like to get the vic tory over the Deacons to make up for that earlier loss to the Cougars. He also said A&M will have additional opportunities to beat other ranked squads and con ference opponents as the team plays its next four matches on the road. “It’s important to win because of the loss to U of H,” he said. “We need to make up a win over a ranked team somewhere, and if we don’t get it here, we’ll need to get it down the road, so that part of it’s im portant. “But we’ve got two conference matchups on the road, against Iowa State and Missouri, who have been at the bottom of the standings but are really playing better, and we still have that swing against North Car olina and North Carolina State, but we really play them just one match at a time.” The Aggies are coming off a 6-3 win over Big 12 foe Oklahoma State before a crowd that included for mer President George Bush. TERRY ROBERSONx/Thf. Battalion Freshman Martina Nedorostova prepares for a volley against the Nebraska Cornhuskers. The No. 31 Aggies will face the No. 16 Wake Forest Demon Deacons today at 6 p.m. at the Varsity Tennis Center. Newly ranked Aggie softball team travels to face the Roadrunners BY BEN WESTBROOK The Battalion The Texas A&M Softball Team jumped into the national top 25 for the first time this season when they debuted at No. 24 this week and had two players receive Big 12 honors after finishing 5-1 at the A&M Invitational II this weekend. Lisa Klam and Amy Vining captured Big 12 honors for the week of March 10 with Klam nab bing player of the week and Vining taking home the pitcher of the week title for the second time in a row. The women will be taking a 20-6 record on the road to play the Texas-San Antonio Roadrunners Thursday with action kicking off at 1:00 p.m. Vining’s one-hit performance last weekend against No. 18 University of Minnesota helped the women pull away with a 2-0 win. Klam led all Aggie hitters with a 1.000 slugging percentage for the tournament and drove in the game-winning RBI in four out of five wins. The Roadrunners have a 11-8 record and a five game winning streak under first year head coach Corrie Hill. UTSA will be looking to junior infielder Aman da Michalsky to lead the way against the Aggies as she has hit .517 with nine home runs and a 1.133 slugging percentage for the year. As a team, the Roadrunners are hitting .285 while holding opponents to .265. One of the goals for the Aggies will be trying to move closer to breaking the school stolen base record of 82. The women have already stolen 72 for the year and need just 11 more to surpass the old record. Lisa Klam leads all Aggies with 15 thefts while Tiffany Esters, Rachel Lewis and Hollee Hayden are tied at 10 a piece. Hayden has 10 despite miss ing the last 12 games with a broken arm. 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