The University of Akron Athletics
Tennis To Close Out Regular Season on the Road
April 22 | Women's Tennis
AKRON, Ohio - Sitting in a tie for second place in the Mid-American Conference standings, the nationally-ranked University of Akron tennis team rounds out its regular season this weekend, with matches at league opponents Bowling Green on Friday and Western Michigan on Saturday. Both contests are scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. ET.
Fans can follow Saturday's match via live statistics through WMUBroncos.com. Live statistics for Friday's meeting with Bowling Green will not be available.
Akron (16-2, 5-1 MAC), which is ranked 73rd nationally and is spending its ninth-straight week in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association's top 75, shares the No. 2 spot in the conference standings with Western Michigan (13-9, 5-1). The Broncos, who ride a five-match win streak, play host to Buffalo (7-7, 3-3) on Friday prior to Saturday's showdown with the Zips. WMU is 20-0 all-time when facing UA and topped the Zips on the road (4-3 on April 11, 2009) and in the quarterfinals (4-0 on April 24, 2009) of the MAC tournament last season.
The Zips are 3-25 all-time versus Bowling Green (12-7, 2-4), following a 6-1 home win over the Falcons last season (on April 10, 2009). That victory ended a stretch of 16-straight UA losses in the series. BGSU enters the weekend occupying the sixth-place position in the league standings, and snapped a four-match losing streak with a 5-2 win over Northern Illinois last Friday in what was the team's lone outing of the week.
Akron is in the midst of one of the most successful seasons in program history as it has enjoyed its first-ever national ranking, has posted the program's single-season record for conference wins and has achieved the most overall victories since the 1992-93 squad went 17-5. Additionally, UA opened the dual-match portion of its schedule with a 15-match win streak and was the country's last remaining undefeated Division-I team until a loss at then 26th-ranked DePaul on April 10. UA also opened conference play with a 5-0 record, falling 4-3 to Miami (Ohio) (13-6, 6-0) last Saturday.
Along with those team accolades, UA student-athletes have been the recipient of a league-best five MAC Player-of-the-Week awards thus far this season. The most recent was awarded to freshman Angelina Jogasuria on Wednesday. She was also honored on Jan. 28, while junior Anya Baronayte was selected on Feb. 11, junior Jeremie Benjamin on March 10 and sophomore Zara Harutyunyan on April 7. Harutyunyan is currently the 113th-ranked singles player nationally, after peaking as high as 75th in the Jan. 5 poll. She is 17-1 in dual-match singles play this season.
After this weekend, the Zips will prepare themselves for the MAC Championship, which runs April 29-May 2 (Thursday-Sunday) on the Western Michigan campus in Kalamazoo. The winner will earn the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Championship. Akron, which was picked to capture both the MAC's regular-season title as well as to be the league's tournament champion this year in a preseason coaches poll, finished the 2009 season with a 15-8 record (4-4 MAC) and competed as the sixth seed in the league tournament.
Players Mentioned
