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CU women’s tennis loses another close one as PAC-12 play begins
Mar 3rd
Recent close game losses haven’t dimmed the coaches enthusiasm for her team. Colorado tennis team fell 4-3 to Princeton on Saturday.
“After seven hours, we lost a close one 4-3 to Princeton,” CU head coach Nicole Kenneally said after the match. “It came down to the wire. I couldn’t be more proud of our players. They really left it out there, and I think if you look at the scores, you’re going to see that we really gave it our best effort as a team today. I believe that in matches like this, obviously we’ve had a lot of close 4-3 losses, this team is going to grow stronger, and they’re going to get better from it. We’re going to get the better side of it at some point. As long as we keep going and keep doing what we’re doing, we’re going to keep putting ourselves in position to take one. I believe this group will do that, and it’s just a matter of time.”
The Buffaloes take a 5-5 record into Pac-12 Conference play. CU is 1-1 all-time against Princeton and 1-1 against ranked teams this spring. Princeton holds a 5-2 record, with each of its losses coming against ranked opponents.
In what was a true marathon of a day, four singles matches were pushed to three sets, with two Buffs coming out victorious. Freshmen Dhany Quevedo and Mazy Watrous both fought off first set deficits to claim victories. After Quevedo dropped her first set against Katherine Flanigan 6-4, she lost only four games total for the remainder of the match to claim the win. Quevedo now has a 2-0 record when dropping the first set. Watrous shined against Emily Hahn for her second career win and her first victory in three sets. After falling 6-3 in the opening set, she dominated the rest of the match, 6-2, 6-1.
Julyette Steur stands out in the No. 1 singles position, defeating Lindsay Graff 6-4, 6-3. Steur leads the Buffs with 13 wins this season. She is on a four-match winning streak and has dropped just two matches this spring. All but one of her eight wins in the spring have been in straight sets.
The Buffs continue their home-stand by starting conference play. CU takes on Arizona in the conference opener at 11 a.m. on Friday, March 8 and Arizona State at 10 a.m. on Sunday, March 10. Stay tuned to CUBuffs.com for location updates.
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CU women beat Oregon, gain a first round bye in PAC-12 tournament
Mar 2nd
Story by Caryn Maconi, CUBuffs.com
EUGENE, Ore. – It wasn’t pretty but it was a win. The Buffs women’s basketball team earned its eighth straight win and 23rd of the season with a 60-49 victory over the Oregon Ducks here Friday night. It wasn’t pretty but it was deja vu coach Linda Lappe; the last time CU won 23 games she was a senior playing fror legendary coach Ceal Barry and CU made it to the Sweat 16.
With the win, the Buffs clinched a first-round bye for the Pac-12 Women’s Basketball Tournament next weekend in Seattle. CU plays at 3:30 p.m. MST on Friday at Key Arena, meeting the winner of Thursday’s game matching the No. 5 and No. 12 seeds.
Arielle Roberson was high scorer with 16 points
“I think (the bye) gives us more confidence going in,” said redshirt freshman forward Arielle Roberson, who led CU in scoring Friday night with 16 points. “We’ll be rested more than other players will, and we’ll have more time to prepare, so it’s definitely a great thing.”
Colorado head coach Linda Lappe said the bye was well-earned, but that she’s setting her sights on more than just that accomplishment.
“We’ve worked really hard for that bye, and eight in a row is something you don’t see all the time,” Lappe said. “It hasn’t always been pretty, but we’ve come together when we’ve needed to, we’ve been tough when we’ve needed to be tough . . . we have bigger goals than just the four-seed.”
The 2012-12 Buffs may be headed for a similar destiny at 23-5 overall and 12-5 in the Pac-12. First, though, they’re taking care of business in the final weekend of the regular season, starting with Friday’s rout in Eugene.
It was a messy win for CU, but a win nonetheless. The Buffs forced 21 Oregon turnovers and committed seven, but shot just 34.8 percent from the field compared to the Ducks’ 37.5.
“We never really got into a flow offensively,” Lappe said. “We couldn’t convert those turnovers into baskets very often, which hurt us, and we just didn’t get the shot that we wanted to . . . when you shoot 34 percent that’s not very good. So to be able to win, that’s good.”
CU struggled offensively without guard Lexy Kresl, a force from beyond the arc. The sophomore is out with a separated right shoulder suffered in a Feb. 17 win over Arizona State.
Lappe said Kresl’s absence made the Oregon zone defense harder to handle.
“We did miss Lexy in this game,” Lappe said. “You want her against the University of Oregon, they play 40 minutes of 2-3 zone. Lexy obviously does a really nice job of for one, passing, and extending the defense out there. It was really, really hard not to put her in tonight.”
While Colorado’s defense came to play from the start, its offense occasionally struggled to capitalize off of Oregon turnovers. However, it did convert the Ducks’ 21 errors into 20 points. Though the Buffs committed just five turnovers compared to the Ducks’ 13 in the first half, CU only had a three-point advantage at intermission.
The game remained tight in the second half until the 12:25 mark, when freshman guard Kyleesha Weston lit the spark that would ignite CU’s offense.
Weston hit a three-pointer, then grabbed a steal on the next possession. Roberson then continued the run with another three at 12:07 to put the Buffs up 36-29.
“It looked a little dead out there,” Weston said. “I was told that I needed to pick up the energy. That’s when I’m at my best, when I have a lot of energy, so I felt like I could spark the team.”
Lappe said Weston’s determination off the bench was a sign of maturity for such a young player.
“That stretch there was huge, and even for (Kyleesha) to come in and knock down that three when we hadn’t hit that many, that shows a lot of guts and resiliency as a freshman,” Lappe said. “For her to step up and knock down shots when nobody else was shows a lot of toughness. That fired everyone else up.”
The Ducks would not pull closer than five for the remainder of the game, as the Buffs built their largest lead, 16, on a Jasmine Sborov three with 4:05 remaining.
In addition to her game-high 16 points, Roberson had four rebounds, a block and a steal. Senior guard Chucky Jeffery recorded 12 points and 10 rebounds, earning her 30th career double-double.
Colorado also held an opponent to under 50 points for the 12th time in 28 games; the Buffs are undefeated in all 12 of those games.
CU finishes its final regular-season weekend with a matchup Sunday at Oregon State (1 p.m., MST).
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Buffs Fall Short, Lose 4-3 At Wyoming
Feb 28th
LARAMIE, Wyo. – The University of Colorado tennis team’s three-match winning streak against the University of Wyoming was cut short Thursday with a 4-3 loss at the UW Indoor Tennis Complex.
“Hats off to Wyoming, they played a great match,” said CU head coach Nicole Kenneally. “They’re one of the top returning teams in our region. We had some great performances in our lineup today, but unfortunately, we couldn’t put ourselves in contention in some of them. If we are to continue to have success, we are going to have to have everybody fully engaged, with all nine positions, digging, diving and scoring in every match. We’ve come a long way, but there’s still room to grow. I expect our players to rise to the occasion and to rise to the challenge and to continue to dig deeper. We’ve done a great job so far this year, and we look forward to our matches coming up.”
The Buffaloes fall to 5-4 in dual play, holding a 3-1 series lead over the Cowgirls. All of the Buffs’ losses this spring have been tight 4-3 decisions. Wyoming improves to 5-3 this spring.
Colorado fought down to the last matches in both doubles and singles, but couldn’t claim the overall victory. The No. 1 and 2 doubles teams came just shy of extending their winning streaks and earning the first point of the match. Julyette Steur and Erin Sanders fell in a tiebreaker, while Carla Manzi Tenorio and Winde Janssens were handed their first defeat in nine tries in close 8-6 loss (their smallest margin in either victory or defeat this season).
Three Buffs found success in individual play, in what coach Kenneally said were stellar performances for the top of the lineup. All of the victorious Buffs have dropped three or fewer matches this spring, and each have at least 11 wins this season.
“If you look at Wyoming’s top performers’ records and rankings, their No. 1 is top four or five in our region,” Kenneally said. “I think it was the best win of Julyette’s career.”
Steur extended a three-match winning streak and improved her overall season record to 12-6 with a 6-4, 7-5 win over Veronica Popovici. All of Steur’s victories this spring have been in straight sets.
Janssens and Manzi Tenorio both fought back after dropping the first set. The two have now fought off first set deficits a team-high five times each.
Janssens has won five matches in a row, and seven of eight this spring. After dropping the first set, she came back with a vengeance, dropping just four games in the remainder of the match, including battling through a game that saw an amazing 16 deuces.
Manzi Tenorio had what Kenneally described as a marathon (something she would like the rest of the lineup to find success in as well) of a match. Manzi Tenorio eased through the second 6-1 and won the third set tiebreaker (though her 7-4 win was a breeze compared to her 16-14 victory on Monday).
The Buffs return to Boulder for a three-match home-stand. They end the week against No. 73 Princeton at 10 a.m. on Saturday, March 2. CU begins Pac-12 Conference play against Arizona at 11 a.m. on Friday, March 8 and continues against Arizona State at 10 a.m. on Sunday, March 10. Stay tuned to CUBuffs.com for location updates.
Wyoming 4, Colorado 3
UW (5-3), CU (5-4)
Thursday, Feb. 28 UW Indoor Tennis Complex
Laramie, Wyo.
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